Mega Man Star Force: Leo Review

In 2001, gamers around the world were introduced to a great experiment by Capcom, one of the world's foremost video gaming companies. What if they were to take one of their most famous gaming series - Mega Man - and cross it with the ever-thriving RPG genre? General agreement in the gaming world was that the resulting Mega Man Battle Network was a great game, for Capcom's experiment executed the hybrid formula with great skill. Taking advantage of the Game Boy Advance's hardware and interesting, innovative styles of gameplay and fighting, Mega Man appeared to have turned the corner in the 21st century. The classic series was dead, the X series was becoming stale, and any other 90's spinoff, such as Mega Man Soccer or Mega Man Legends, garnered little attention and fanfare apart from the keenly-interested.

Sadly, it only took Capcom a handful of years to beat the Battle Network series into the ground. They stumbled upon a great formula with the first three titles in the series (which crescendo in quality much like the original series did with the first three titles), but quickly overdid it. While there was little doubt there could be many better ideas than crossing the Mega Man series with an RPG environment, the series was overdone, and by the fourth installment, the series found itself tired and without steam. Capcom released a total of six installments of the series (the latter releases were split into "editions" much like the Pokemon series), but the series was gaining few new fans while retaining only the most hardcore Battle Networkers. The innovative qualities that got Battle Network into the homes of so many gamers had disappeared like smoke up the chimney, and for one reason only - the series refused to change. The status quo was kept. Things got boring.

There was great excitement, then, when Capcom announced it was going to walk away from the Battle Network series to try their hand at a completely new and different Mega Man RPG. This new series, starring a character named Geo Stelar, would take place hundreds of years after the events of Battle Network, and would retain an RPG style while assumedly walking away from the redundancy of the Battle Network series. Furthermore, the game would appear not on the Game Boy Advance, but the far more powerful Nintendo DS, creating a buzz of anticipation amongst Blue Bomber loyalists. With a story revolving not around the internet and Net-Navis of Battle Network fame, but devices called Transers and mystical beings known as FM-ians, there appeared to be true change on the horizon. Even when it was revealed that the series would draw many parallels to its Battle Network cousins, hope was not lost. But now that the game has been released, hope can indeed be lost with due haste. Much like the last half of the Battle Network series, the all-new Mega Man RPG, entitled Mega Man Star Force, manages to miss its mark completely. Instead of leaving the gamer satisfied with his or her experience, it's more likely to leave the gamer mystified, feeling positive they've been down this road countless times before.

The old saying "familiarity breeds contempt" rings true here. Mega Man Star Force feels like the same, stale Mega Man series gamers had to deal with in the Game Boy Advance's dying days, leaving us scratching our heads and wondering why the title wasn't named Mega Man Battle Network 7. Aside from a mildly remixed story that is essentially as arbitrary and dumfounding as the latter Battle Networks', and a slightly enhanced (but otherwise identical) fighting system, Star Force is the de facto continuation of its GBA brethren. And that's not a good thing. Series like Castlevania, which has appeared en masse on Nintendo handhelds since the GBA's release, can get away with this brand of operation. After all, that series represents the pinnacle of what a game can be while changing little and keeping the gamer unusually satisfied. Mega Man-inspired handheld games were begging to be changed a long time ago. Unfortunately, that change still hasn't come.