TMMN Reviews: Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection

When I reviewed Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection three years ago, I noted that it had been more than 20 years since the first game was released to an audience who proved quite eager to accept it. Hard as it is to believe, we’re coming up on the same milestone for its successor series, Mega Man Star Force — we’re only a year and some change shy of its North American release.

Some things are a bit different this time around, however. For starters, I didn’t receive a copy ahead of release, so I took my time a little more with this one, rather than racing the clock to meet a deadline. For another, this collection has all of the Mega Man Star Force titles (save for Operate Shooting Star, which was really more of a Battle Network anyway, but I digress) in one single package, so there’s no worrying about whether to buy this volume or that volume or go for a bundle. It’s all here, simple and clean.

My copies from back in the day.

Dragon, Dragon, Rockman Dragon! …and Zerker x Ninja, too, I guess.

The last thing is that my relationship with Mega Man Star Force is a bit different from other series. I was there on Day One to get my EB Games-exclusive copy of Mega Man Star Force: Dragon, and I absolutely loved that game. I got the sequel with equal enthusiasm, but that one didn’t quite pan out for me the same way, for reasons I’ll go into shortly. This left me on the back foot when the third game came out. Finances were tight, and not having finished the second game, I wasn’t sure about getting the third. By the time I’d come to learn that it was apparently the best of the trilogy and could look into it, prices had skyrocketed.

So, I’m not coming at this in quite the same way as previous collections, where I fondly remember the original games and can analyze and compare them to what we’re presented with today. Rather, this is an opportunity to experience once again what I missed out on before. A second chance. A redemption, of sorts. I’m coming at this as part series veteran, part newcomer.

As such, that begs the question: Is this collection a good place to start for someone who missed out the first time?

The Games

Before we get into the collection, let’s talk about what it’s collecting: The games.

Much like Mega Man Battle Network before it, Mega Man Star Force is set in a different timeline/universe from Classic/X/Zero/ZX/Legends. In fact, it’s exactly like that, as it’s the same world as Battle Network, only now we’re some 200 years in the future from those events. So in a way, that kind of makes Star Force the equivalent of what Mega Man X was to Classic, except at the same time, not. Which is to say, if you’re expecting Network versions of popular Mega Man X characters like Vile, Dynamo, or Chill Penguin, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

To put it another way: Some people see Mega Man Battle Network as a path of divergence from the Classic series. Whether or not you consider that true, Star Force occupies a similar place in its canon as X does to Classic, but is very much its own thing. It shows a world that’s evolved by following the path established by this separate timeline, rather than continuing to run in parallel to the original.

“Robo Snakes… why did it have to be Robo Snakes?”

Where Mega Man Battle Network followed the story of young Lan Hikari and his NetNavi MegaMan.EXE as they take on the gruelling hardships of school and foiling fiendish terrorist organizations determined to rule the world through the power of being terminally online, Mega Man Star Force cuts a little deeper. Instead, it follows young Geo Stelar, whose astronaut father went missing in a space accident years ago. This has led to him dealing with depression, which has kept him home from school and made him a little bit antisocial.

That is, until he meets Omega-Xis (or just “Mega” for short), an alien made up of EM Waves, who is on the run from his own kind as he comes to Earth with their key to the Earth’s destruction. Turns out he knew Geo’s father, which is enough for Geo to tolerate his presence as he tries to find out more. They eventually form a bond, and that helps lead to Geo overcoming some of his issues, which you get to see over the course of the series.

From a gameplay perspective, it’s just Battle Network over again. Only not. But enough so that if you know Battle Network, then you by and large already get the gist of how this works. In classic role playing game fashion, you wander around an isometric world map, visit places, talk to people, investigate this and that, and help progress the story.

But when you perform an EM Wave Change…

“I hope the weight was worth it.”

Rather than “jacking in” with your PErsonal Terminal, Geo performs an “EM Wave Change” that fuses himself, a young Man, and Mega, into a being known as “MegaMan”. This opens up a whole new world to explore… sort of. Rather, it’s the same world, but now you can see the Wave Roads that basically overlap the physical world, and can now travel along them, accessing various computers and terminals and finding valuable data items and, of course, getting into random attack encounters with viruses.

And that’s where the biggest difference from Mega Man Battle Network comes into play. Rather than fighting with pixel art sprites from a side view on a 6×3 grid, you’re now fighting with fully rendered 3D models from an over-the-shoulder view on… well, a 6×3 grid. Or maybe that should be 3×6, given the perspective change. Nevertheless, there’s one other big change: Whereas in Mega Man Battle Network, you had your own 3×3 half of the grid to work with, you only have one row of three panels to work with in Mega Man Star Force.

It’s not as bad as it sounds, though! In fact, depending on who you ask (hiya), it might even be better. Your mobility may be more limited, but you have a greater assortment of skills to compensate. Battle Cards are basically your new Battle Chips, and of course you have a Mega Buster — one that charges automatically when not in use, or can lay down some nice rapid fire when the button is held down (just how I like it!). You can also block some attacks by raising a shield, and lock on to enemies within a certain range to quickly zip in, layeth the smacketh down (such as with a Sword), and zip right back to your row.

It’s a great combination of fresh and familiar, and there are various other things to further shake things up, like the different form changes.

Seven games! Or would that be nine games? It’s kinda weird.

Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection brings all seven… er, nine? It brings all of the Mega Man Star Force games from the Nintendo DS together in one package. For the first game, there’s Mega Man Star Force: Leo, Mega Man Star Force: Pegasus, and Mega Man Star Force: Dragon. The second one is where it gets weird, as you have Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker x Ninja and Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker x Saurian. Each of these contain what’s essentially two versions of the game: You choose Ninja or Saurian, and get Zerker with both.

For the most part, it doesn’t really matter much which way you go, but there are little pips on the game select screen that light up as they’re beaten, so for a full, complete playthrough of everything, you’re playing Zerker twice. At least Mega Man Star Force 3: Black Ace and Mega Man Star Force 3: Red Joker normalize things out a bit as they close out the series.

Unlike Mega Man Battle Network, Mega Man Star Force doesn’t have copious spin-offs and alternative versions outside of the mainline games, so with this package, you’re pretty much getting the full Star Force experience.

The Collection

Put simply, Capcom has really outdone themselves with this one. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection not only goes beyond what any Mega Man Legacy Collection before it has done, but has also raised expectations for any new collections going forward. (For those of us awaiting a “Mega Man Legends Legacy Collection,” that’s a good thing.)

For starters, there’s the high definition options. The pixel art can be presented in its original crispiness or with one of those filters over it. To be honest, I didn’t realize the filter was on at first, but I turned it off and preferred going with the crispy look. Meanwhile, the 3D models during battles look like they’ve been upscaled, making them look nice and smooth, though transparencies now use a dithering effect. Pixels for pixel art, not for polygons.

“They call me ‘Stelar’ because of my stellar beach bod!” “What?! No they don’t!| “Shhh, Mega, let me have this!”

That said, I did notice one small issue regarding graphics. When the games go to a cut-scene (the kind using the in-game visuals, not the fancy stuff like MegaMan’s transformation and the like), there seems to be some sort of shimmering or stuttering effect to the graphics, whether it’s a character moving or the camera following them. No change of filters or anything seemed to make a difference, and strangely enough, it doesn’t happen when moving around during these same portions when you have control, only when the story takes the wheel.

Have a look for yourself (be sure to expand it to full screen on PC for best results).

I think it might have been in the originals, but somehow I noticed it a lot more up on my big high definition television screen. This was in both the Xbox and Switch versions, though it seemed less noticeable in the Switch’s handheld mode. Maybe some people are prone to noticing it more than others, but now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it, and I can’t say I’m much a fan.

Then there are the other assets. Battle Cards, Character Icons when talking to people, stuff like that. Those use high resolution original art now, and you can toggle on or off which you prefer. For me, I’ve got Original for the game visuals, and Updated for the Character Icons and Battle Cards.

New English voices have been recorded as well, but you can go with Japanese if you prefer. The new voices also sound off in parts of the game they didn’t in the western release before, but if that’s too much for you, you can set it so they only speak as much as they did here originally. Not only that, but they got the voice actors from the anime to reprise their roles — including the English version!

On that note, I think pretty much all of the content from the original Japanese versions is here: Lunar Knights crossover, event Battle Cards, you name it. I believe the only exception is the Sky-Hi Colosseum from the second game. They’ve even reworked some content that was originally exclusive to online into post-game content, so no one has to miss out!

A personal favorite.

With regards to the script, there have been changes made. Some for the better, some not so much. “MegaMan” is now “Mega Man”, Sonia’s companion is known as “Harp” in some places and “Lyra” in others, and inconsistencies like that. However, they have fixed some things, too, including using full sentences for Battle Card descriptions. No mre trncatd txt! Hopefully feedback will lead to some fine-tuning in an update patch sometime in the future.

As these games originally ran on the Nintendo DS, there is an involved second screen element to them. For the ZX portion of Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection, it was by and large a “set it and forget it” dynamic, as it generally displayed maps, boss weaknesses, and things like that. You’d need to look at it, but you didn’t have to interact with it as much.

Mega Man Star Force was a bit more involved, and in Legacy Collection, you can position and resize the two screens to a degree, including having them be the same size as they sit next to each other, or even atop one-another in TATE mode. When not at the same size, the game will automatically shift to the active screen as needed, while also allowing you to swap their prominence on your screen with a simple press of the L2 (or equivalent) shoulder button. Touch screen mini games have also been changed, perhaps even simplified, to use button prompts. Some seem more generous, while others feel like the challenge has been ramped up.

Oh, and each game has an autosave slot, as well as a single manual save slot.

The Bonuses

I’m not sure whether this belongs here or in the previous section, but I’m including it here: Whereas Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection had a main screen “host” in the form of MegaMan.EXE himself (voiced by Andrew Francis from the MegaMan NT Warrior cartoon), who could be altered into his Hub Style and Dark MegaMan forms with extra skin options, Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection ups the ante considerably.

You get MegaMan (voiced by Jason Spisak) as the default, and he’ll even talk to some of his friends like Bud and Zack, who are once again voiced by Robbie Rist and Yuri Lowenthal, respectively. If you pre-ordered the game, you’d get a code that would allow you to switch to Geo in his normal outfit or Omega-Xis (Kyle Hebert). Hopefully these will be available to purchase separately later — I really enjoy Omega. And then finally(?), a later downloadable content pack added Luna Platz (Melissa Fahn) and Sonia Strumm (Wendee Lee) to the mix. Unlike MegaMan.EXE, they don’t seem to talk much — if ever — on their own, instead waiting for a press of a button to speak.

As someone who finally got to see the Mega Man Star Force anime in the weeks leading up to this release, it not only made me fall in love with this branch of the Mega Man franchise all over again, but the voices really endeared themselves to me, too. And since we didn’t get the full series here, it’s nice to hear some more from them. (Aside: It’s never been available in Canada, so this is my first time seeing it.)

Other bonuses include an art gallery that features official art, design documents, and even concept art, some of which hasn’t been seen before — not even in the Mega Man Star Force Official Complete Works art book! The included art breaks down like so in the following galleries:

Special: Artwork from the series, 60 pieces. Includes Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection and promo art for magazines, events, etc.
Mega Man Star Force: 21 Artwork, 235 Characters, 41 Viruses, 24 Battle Cards, 7 World: 328 total
Mega Man Star Force 2: 12 Artwork, 164 Character, 20 Viruses, 7 Battle Cards, 40 world: 243 total
Mega Man Star Force 3: 74 Artwork, 342 Character, 25 viruses, 6 Battle Cards, 88 world: 535 total

The Battle Card gallery is similarly vast, only here, you can choose between the HD original art and the pixel art versions! These include:

Mega Man Star Force: 150 Standard, 36 Mega Class, 15 Giga Class: 201 total
Mega Man Star Force 2: 150 Standard, 42 Mega Class, 15 Giga Class: 207 total
Mega Man Star Force 3: 266 Standard, 108 Mega, 18 Giga: 392 total

Not enough yet? How about the Bonus Cards? These include:

Mega Man Star Force: 18 Lunar Knights collaboration cards, 1 download card: 19 total
Mega Man Star Force 2: 107 Battle Cards, 14 DX Cards, 87 G Cards: 208 total
Mega Man Star Force 3: 100 Noise Cards, 52 White Cards, 10 Purpose Cards, 5 Download Cards: 167 total

Whew! That’s quite a lot of images, isn’t it? 2,300 pieces of art, by my count!

And that’s just the visual side. If you’re an audiophile, well, the offerings aren’t quite as robust, but are nevertheless substantial. In the Music section, you can not only listen to the music from each of the games, but also change the in-game background music as well using your Favorites list. What’s more, there are arranged tracks for all of the songs in the games, giving you nearly twice as many songs as you see here:

Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection: 4 songs
Mega Man Star Force: 37 songs
Mega Man Star Force 2: 32 songs
Mega Man Star Force 3: 42 songs

That’s just the base game. Then there’s DLC. The main screen avatars of Geo and Mega have songs in the playlist, but Sonia and Luna don’t, which is strange. Particularly in Sonia’s case.

Then there’s the recent free DLC update to include music from Mega Man Battle Network! Background music for normal battles, boss battles, final boss battles, victory jingles, and comp space can be changed to the music used in not only Battle Network 1-6, but Rockman.EXE 4.5 Real Operation and Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team DS as well! The offerings are overall more limited by comparison, but still make a nice bonus!

Mega Man Battle Network: 5 songs
Mega Man Battle Network 2: 4 songs
Mega Man Battle Network 3: 4 Songs
Mega Man Battle Network 4: 5 Songs
Rockman.EXE 4.5 Real Operation: 4 Songs
Mega Man Battle Network 5: 5 Songs
Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team DS: 11 Songs
Mega Man Battle Network 6: 5 Songs

I think that’s all the bonus content… but we’re not done yet! Not by a long shot! Maybe a medium shot, but not by a long shot.

The Options

Bonus content is great and all, but what good is it if you’re not able to enjoy the games you’re playing? Okay, so there’s an entire streaming market out there telling me to shut my mouth right now, so I’ll just get on with it.

I mentioned before how my time with the Mega Man Star Force series upon its original release was cut short, and that was due in no small part to the frequency of the random encounters in Mega Man Star Force 2. They were simply maddening. I would play the game as what it was: a portable game, meaning I would come in and out for small bursts of time. Problem is, random encounters were so frequent and the battles took just long enough that it proved very difficult for me to get my bearings on where I was and where I needed to go in the short bursts I got to play. It was start, take a few steps, and into battle. Once that was done, I tried to go again, but boom, random battle after a couple more steps. It was infuriating.

And eventually, I found something else to play or do.

In Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, the big change to make things easier was the Buster Max mode, which magnified the Mega Buster’s power a hundred times, allowing you to basically mow down enemies. It was a brute force method, but it more or less worked.

Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection, on the other hand, provides a bunch of different options for fine-tuning things, and they get downright granular in the amount of options you have. If Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection was offering you a large mallet to handle those issues, then Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is not only providing you with a scalpel, but an entire case of tools.

Now, suppose you liked the cut of Buster Max’s jib. Well, you’re covered here, and then some. You can adjust the power of the Mega Buster in multiples of 100 percent, up to 500. But that’s just for starters. You can reduce damage taken from enemies from 0 percent all the way up to 100, in increments of 20. The amount of Zenny you get from a fight can also be multiplied the same way as the Buster damage, you can decide whether you get your Hit Points refilled after each battle (like in the first Mega Man Battle Network), and whether or not you’re guaranteed an escape from enemies if you decide to flee. In short, the power is in your hands. The only thing you can’t really do is make it harder for yourself, which some may find to be a negative.

And that’s just the difficulty settings! There is so much more you can tweak to make Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection as enjoyable an experience as possible within the confines of the original games. There are Assist options that can be activated by your choice of pressing or holding a button, which allows for faster movement and adjusting the encounter rate. That’s right, in addition to all the stuff above, you can also choose whether random encounters vex you the standard amount, or you can set them to occur with low, high, or maximum (with every step, similar Operate Shooting Star‘s antipiracy measure) frequency. Or just have none at all! Not only will this prove to be a lifesaver in that middle entry, but it’s probably going to encourage some interesting speedruns somewhere down the line, too!

While these are the sweetest plums of the customization options, they’re by no means the only ones.

“They call me ‘Stelar’ because of my stellar beach bod!” “What?! No they don’t!| “Shhh, Mega, let me have this!”

In the “Screen Layout” menu, you can set the layout of the two game screens: Center, top/bottom, left/right, and vertical (aka Tate mode). Size Ratio allows you to use a slider to adjust the size ratio of the two game screens (can’t make second screen bigger, though; it maxes out at equal size). Resize Speed adjusts the speed that the screens resize when you press the button, and
Position adjusts the position of the two game screens, moving the second screen up or down on certain layouts. What’s strange is that these settings show the second screen on the right, whereas during gameplay, it’s on the left. Not a big deal, just a peculiarity I noticed.

Controls offers basic button mapping. You can’t remap movement or confirm/cancel on menus, which unfortunately corresponds to Mega Buster and Battle Card use, which can mess with things a little across versions. Curiously, the Switch version has a different setup from the other versions, where the A button activates the Battle Card and Confirm actions, while the B button is for your Mega Buster and declining. Now, these are technically the same on the Xbox version I tried, but the thing about that is that as we all know, button placement varies across companies. I’m told that the PlayStation and Steam placements for those two actions are the same as Xbox, leaving the Nintendo version to not only be unique, but also more faithful to how it was on the Nintendo DS. Go figure.

At least the Shield is in the same place on all of them. Still, it’s a rather strange place to draw the line in light of all the other options we’ve been gifted here.

Let’s see, what else is left? Well, you can choose your wallpaper options, as usual. This includes ten different backgrounds to set your gameplay windows against, including character art, space, and just solid colors. You can also pick from three border options that frame the screens themselves.

For languages, you can have text in English, Japanese, simplified Chinese, or traditional Chinese. For voices, you only get English and Japanese. But hey, you can mix and match them, and have that authentic subbed anime experience, if you like!

Other audio options include a Master Volume slider to adjust the volume of the whole game (hey, my TV has one of those, too!), as well as individual volume sliders for background music, sound effects, and voices. You can also set your background music selection to decide what tracks will play in the games from the Original, Arranged, and Favorites menus.

The Online:

So, I’m probably not going to be spending too much time online for a while, if ever. To be perfectly honest, while I’m better at Mega Man Star Force than I am at Mega Man Battle Network, I’m still really only good against CPU opponents, and tend to get slaughtered against human opponents. And I have no idea when or if I’ll be able to commit the time to it to “get gud” at it, but I was at least compelled to see what the online experience provided before getting my Recycle Bin handed to me (does that terminology work? Let’s pretend it does).

In the Network menu, you’ll first be warned that there is no Autosave, only Zuul — I mean, Manual. (What was that? Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing…)

From there, you have the following choices:

Ranked Match: Battle opponents of similar rank. Earn or lose Rank Points based on the outcome of matches

Casual Match: Battle opponents for fun in matches that do not affect rank points.

Preferences: Select the titles used to search for matches, as well as select and view saved data. Multiple titles can be selected at the same time for an optimal matchmaking experience.

Trade: Trade Battle Cards with other players. To trade, first create or join a room to connect with a specific player, then select a card to trade.

Friend Match: Start a match against a friend.

Brother List: View and edit Brothers

I have no friends, so I couldn’t try out the Friend Match — wait, let me start over. I have no friends playing this on Xbox, and so I couldn’t try out the Friend Match there. This highlights one of the collection’s biggest shortcomings, and that would be the lack of crossplay between platforms. This is especially unfortunate, as while this collection has drummed up a groundswell of support and even sold out in Japan, it means that the player base is split across four different platforms, which ultimately limits everyone’s options.

Please just pretend that Rogue is me as another MegaMan who is getting severely beaten up right now.

Still, I gave the Ranked and Casual Match types a try, to see how they perform. Unfortunately, after some five minute waiting periods/practice sessions against a MegaMan training dummy who doesn’t fight back in each mode on Xbox, I never found a match.

Nintendo Switch wasn’t looking any better — at least, not at first. The same five minute test yielded nothing, and I was about to hang it up, but I wound up going back in to quickly check some things between versions in the training/waiting room, and got a Ranked Match after two minutes on the Switch. The match didn’t last nearly as long as the wait, but from what I could tell, everything seemed to respond pretty well — I didn’t notice any lagging or anything on my end, so the pounding I took was purely a result of my own n00biness. Of course, a lot of the attacks in play were those that freeze everything while the animations go on, but they seemed to run fine.

Likewise, I got a Casual Match really quick on a second try on Switch. And just like before, I didn’t even get to say what I wanted on my tombstone before it was over. (Pepperoni. The answer is always pepperoni.)

In Conclusion

When it comes to Capcom’s collections, they only seem to be getting better with each new one they release, be it Mega Man or otherwise. So it should come as little surprise that Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is not only no exception, but it’s raised the bar as Blue Bomber fans cross their fingers for Mega Man Legends to get this treatment.

Is it perfect? No, but what is? Even so, stuff like the shimmering I spoke of are pretty minor grievances on the whole. Meanwhile, The Rockman.EXE Zone has found some other common issues and provided fixes for them that we can only hope Capcom will take care of through updates eventually.

You get a Zerker! And you get a Zerker! And… that’s it, we’re all out of Zerkers.

Still, this package does so much and brings so much to the table, one can’t help but look at the updates Capcom has made to previous Capcom Fighting Collection entries to bring older entries up to par with their latest improvements, and hope that maybe they can bring a fraction of what Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection does to Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection.

Unless you’re a Sky-Hi Colosseum junky, this looks to be the definitive way to play these games. It’s helped revive my love of this series, and has provided a way for me to finally take care of some unfinished business in my life as a Mega Man fan.

That said, I’m less familiar with the multiplayer components and maybe some of the deeper elements of the single-player. If these are the kinds of things that concern you, I highly recommend giving ShadowRock ZX’s Q&A video a look, and seeing if he can provide you with the answers I’m less equipped to handle.

But if you’re a newcomer to Mega Man Star Force, or are even just like me, someone who fell off partway in for some reason? This is the perfect opportunity to EM Wave Change that, get on the air, and see why Geo Stelar and Omega-Xis are worthy bearers of the Mega Man legacy.

Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection was released on March 27th, 2026 for Xbox (version played for this review), Nintendo Switch (also played), PlayStation 4, and Steam. The whole thing can be purchased physically and digitally for $39.99 USD. A copy was provided by Capcom for this review.

LBD "Nytetrayn"

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

For a full list of places to find him online, click here.