Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection Review

The Blue Bomber (Mega Man) has a long lineage of being incredibly versatile as a character. Starting in side-scrolling platformers, expanding into fighting and roleplaying games, getting spin-offs… When the Nintendo DS came out, he had a bit of a revamp because the Game Boy Advance role playing games had gotten a bit too complicated for newcomers. So, he’s not a robot or a program in Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection; he’s an alien that just happens to look quite similar to Megaman.EXE when he merges with a human.

Speaking of which, it’s the year 220X and Geo Stelar is an elementary school student whose father went missing in space, so he’s become a bit obsessed with the great black void. Gifted a pair of special glasses (the Visualizer) by a family friend, he’s able to see into the electromagnetic spectrum, which is where Omega-Xis and the rest of his species reside!

With the promise of learning more about his father’s fate, Geo allows Omega to live inside his smartphone. It transpires that Omega is hiding from other members of his race who are also on Earth, but they’re not just looking for him; they’re also looking to cause mischief! So, by combining together, Geo and Omega are able to access the EM waves which make up the modern-day internet, as Mega Man!

In this collection there are all three games spread across seven versions. The first game has three, but the second and third only have two, because it was the style at the time for handheld games aimed at younger players to have multiple iterations. All versions are the same game, barring some bosses, Battle Cards, and a transformation, so it doesn’t really matter which ones you play.

The battles take place on a 3x5 grid in which Mega Man can move left to right in one row while the enemies are free to roam on the rest. You attack using Battle Cards and the Mega Buster, selecting from a choice of cards ranging from swords to guns, bombs, turrets, and power-ups, limited by certain rules such as colour or type. Mega Man also has a shield to reduce damage, but the timing of pressing that button was something I was terrible at in practice.

Without going into too much detail, that’s the basics of the games themselves. But, if you wanted an in-depth review of those games you’d check out reviews from the late-00s. I’m sure you want to know why this collection is the definitive way to play some old DS games (and it is).

The most obvious change is a new “high resolution filter”, which smooths all of the pixels. I prefer the original graphics personally, but I know they’re not for everyone, and at least it’s pulled off pretty well in this collection. Since the action originally took place on two screens, you can freely alter the size and position of both — the one that you need to pay attention to will usually be the biggest on the display, but you can alter it so that both screens are up to equal in size! And for the true purist with a screen that can be rotated, you can have them displayed vertically!

There are multiple options for the screen borders (space-themed by default), though some of the backgrounds are very busy. Depending on how big you make the screens, some of them are downright garish. But everyone’s tastes are different, so you might like them!

Star Force Legacy Collection also has multiple difficulty options, allowing you to do more and take less damage, earn more money, guarantee escapes, replenish health after battles, and locate special bosses. I did plan on checking that option out, but I kept accidentally finding them myself… Oh, and you can run faster in the overworlds and dial down the encounter rate if you want to.

A couple of options not in the settings, but in the games themselves, are levelling up (to 99), and getting special items and Battle Cards. There were a lot of things given away at special in-person events via a code, so now there is a list that you can just select what you want. The codes don’t explain what they give you, and you have to do it one-by-one, but free stuff is free. Some of these can be a bit game-breaking, but if it ruins the experience for you, just play one of the other six versions! Or hope that you didn’t already overwrite your save, I suppose.

The Network section of the main menu allows you to do battle against other players online. You have a choice between Ranked matches, Casual matches, or Friend matches. The latter requires a code to join a room, as does the Trade function, which lets you swap Battle Cards with someone you know. One neat feature is how you can select a region or allow matches worldwide, however waiting for an online match is a bit rubbish as it puts you against a bot which does nothing. It’s basically just a way to learn how to best utilise cards.

I do have a couple of issues, but they’re with the games rather than the collection, and I only bring them up as I feel like they could have been addressed for this release. Side quests, you can only take one at a time meaning that there is a lot of backtracking, and there’s already much backtracking — somewhat mitigated by doing the “run fast” option.

Some objectives could have had a bit more of a hint. I needed to knock someone out? Why didn’t I think to go outside of town to use a baseball thrower that wasn’t there earlier? How obvious! Silly me!

And then there’s the spelling errors… “influencial” isn’t how you spell that word. The font was updated so it’s nice and smooth, but nobody ran a spellcheck?

As well as the graphics update, they have taken a run at the music too, so you can choose to hear the original tracks, the arranged ones, or go into the music player to select your favourites. I kept switching between the new and old because I liked to hear both sets.

Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is fantastic if you missed these the first time around (in the UK we didn’t even get the third DS game). They are a decent update with plenty of stuff you might not have experienced (exclusive Battle Cards) and artwork you wouldn’t have seen thanks to a gallery. If the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection left you wanting more, but with better graphics, then grab this.