0
0
Mega Man might not be Capcom’s most recognizable franchise, but it certainly is the one with the most spin-offs. You have the Legends series, the X series, the Power Battle series, the Zero games, and of course, the Battle Network and Star Force games. If you’ve not noticed it by now, that’s what Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is a compilation of!
It’s a collection of 3 games that are split into 7 different titles…You know like Pokémon, but Mega Man. Yeah, I don’t get why it was broken up into different versions other than for more money I guess. Pity the people back in the day!
Luckily us future folk don’t have to shell out piecemeal.
We can enjoy them all in one handy package.
Is it worth it though?
What is Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection?
Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is a compilation of the three DS action RPGs from the Mega Man Star Force series. There are a total of seven different titles (three for Star Force, two for Star Force 2 and Star Force 3) in the collection. It’s developed and published by Capcom, and is available right now for the PC, PlayStation, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch consoles.
Our review code was provided by the super folks over at Capcom! Thanks so much!
As the spiritual successor to the Battle Network series (the Star Force games take place about 200 years later, in the same continuity), the games in Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection will feel familiar to veterans of that series. There’s a ton of similar concepts between the two series – two different worlds (physical and online), card-based grid battle system and a young protagonist with a core group of plucky friends and rivals.
While there’s little that refers to the Battle Network games (apart from some cards and easter eggs), veterans of the previous series will be able to find their footing and navigate the pseudo-tech jargon terminologies easier due to the similar concepts. Even the plots are largely similar.
All three games in the series star Geo Stelar, a kid who has withdrawn into himself at the outset of the first game. It isn’t until a fateful encounter with an alien called Omega-Xis that Geo starts to emerge from his shell and ventures out into the world. While the games all deal with existential threats to Earth and humanity, at their core, the games are pretty much about the bonds of friendship and how it can elevate a person.
It’s a bit hokey and cringey to be honest.
There’s nothing really subtle about the message the games are trying to push across.
That’s fine I guess because the games aren’t really adult oriented. Everything’s pretty clear cut (except for some betrayals) and the bad guys are bad (usually) and the good guys are good (usually). It’s nothing to write home about, though I do have to commend Capcom for tying up the overall plot of Geo looking for his missing dad nicely by Mega Man Star Force 3’s ending.
The battle system also doesn’t change much from Battle Network’s.
Apart from some rules about the cards you can use, combat still takes place on a grid system (though the viewpoint is behind Mega Man now, instead of a sideways style battle) and your attacks depend on the cards you’ve chosen. You also have the Mega Buster when you’ve run out of cards and are waiting for the meter to get new cards to fill up.
Battles are fun (and the visuals have been markedly improved with high resolution models for the remaster) and take only a few seconds if you’re good enough. There’s even online modes for battling and card trading if you love them enough.
I don’t really know how they fare, because I’ve never managed to get into a room for battling.
I just sit on the Practice Battle screen, while the game searches for an online player. It never does find one, and I usually quit out after a few minutes, dejected at finding nobody to play with. There’s no way to change servers or configure matchmaking settings so I have no idea whether nobody’s playing or what.
Capcom’s also has made QoL tweaks to the games so that you can configure settings to your liking.
The best being the autosave!
This has saved my butt with the games in the compilation more times than I’d care to admit. I Alt+Tab in and out of the games while I do my review (to make sure I bring up salient points) but sometimes I’d just absentmindedly close the game without saving! I’d have lost hours of progress if it wasn’t for the auto-save.
They’ve actually gone above and beyond, with a ton of other different options.
These range from Mega Buster damage, to tweaking the encounter rate and even Zenny acquisition.
Formerly Nintendo DS titles, Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection handles this by giving you two different screens on your display. Like the gameplay options, these displays can also be tweaked to your liking.
You can adjust position, screen size and more. I’m honestly quite impressed that there’s even a mode for vertical displays, so you can set one screen on top of another. Of course, that’s not practical if you’re playing on a laptop or TV, but for monitors that can rotate…it’s a great feature.
It’s clear that Capcom’s put a lot of thought into the UI. In-game the two screens dynamically enlarge or shrink away depending on where the main focus is. If you’re running around, the right screen will be larger. Get into battles and it’s the opposite. This works really well, except for one issue.
You can’t switch the screens.
You can resize them. You can adjust their position.
You can not switch their places.
I’d like to have the adventure screen on the left, and the battle screen on the right.
Why, you ask? Why not, I counter.
It’s a matter of preference.
The game doesn’t allow that.
It’s weird because it’s just a matter of swapping the screen positions…but apparently nobody at Capcom has considered that people might want to swap the display placement. Talk about overlooking the obvious while offering a ton of other options.
Capcom’s also done good work on improving some of the visuals. The pixel art’s largely the same but the artwork used on the cards, profiles and in other places have gotten a high resolution upgrade.
This I commend.
They could’ve just ported the game, chucked in the netplay and then called it a day.
As a result, some artwork that is displayed (like when Geo morphs) is now crisp and clear.
While I’ll be the first to admit the art style isn’t really to my tastes, I can easily admit, too, that the high quality versions are much appreciated when they pop up in-game. I do wonder why some assets are of higher resolution than others though. Portrait and card art, while obviously more detailed than the originals, are still rather blurry.
Surely Capcom could’ve found a way to upscale them better or failing that, redone them altogether?
Thankfully, that’s not the case in battles. Here, the character models have obviously been swapped for better ones. More detailed, higher resolution textures, they spruce up the game nicely. They don’t make the game look like a modern title (not by a long shot), but they do inject some modern vibrancy into the experience.
Capcom’s provided copious amounts of extras too.
Unused art. Rejected art. Official art. Music. Even achievement tracking.
There’s quite a bit of material here but it is rather lacking in depth.
I’d have expected some design documents or interviews or even trailers for the games. Nada.
This can be overlooked if the titles were from the dark ages of gaming, but 流星のロックマン (the Japanese version of Mega Man Star Force) came out in December 2006. There should be tons of stuff for each of the titles to put in the Extras section!
Yet all we get is artwork and music.
There’s not even a Glossary or anything of the sort.
Come on Capcom, don’t coast when it comes to extras. You guys have been doing the same thing since Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 came out! You guys really need to look at Konami and their compilations to see the standard on compilation extras.
The Bottom Line.
Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection gets the most important thing right: the games still slap. Fast, snappy, and endlessly replayable, this is a trilogy that hasn’t lost its edge—and Capcom’s QoL additions make it easier than ever to dive in and stay in.
But let’s not pretend this is a flawless package. The visual upgrades are inconsistent, the online modes might as well not exist, and the extras feel like an afterthought compared to what modern compilations should be offering. Even the UI, for all its flexibility, somehow misses basic options that should’ve been a given.
And yet… it still works. Because at its core, this is Mega Man Star Force, and that foundation is strong enough to carry the rough edges.
If you’re a fan, this isn’t a question—it’s the definitive way to play. If you’re new, just know what you’re getting: a slightly uneven remaster of a genuinely great set of games.
Capcom didn’t go all the way here—but they went far enough where it still counts.
TLDR:
Great games with decent QoL additions but uneven visual upgrade quality, lifeless online modes and a lack of substantial extras detract from the experience a bit.
The Good:
- All games included.
- QoL features are very welcome.
- Auto-saving!
- Battles are fast and furious.
The Bad:
- Relatively blurry art for portraits and cards.
- Extras could be more comprehensive.
- Online modes aren’t populated enough.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
You must be logged in to post a comment.