Like the Battle Network games, this one kicks off with a brief narration that lays out the foundation of the series. It is now the 23rd century, 220X to be precise, and mankind has finally detected signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Unfortunately, the space station Peace, which was studying ways of communicating with them, disappeared with all hands. What's worse, a piece of it was eventually found in the ocean, and NAZA put the program on indefinite hold. That was three years ago...
The game opens proper in the household of the Stelars, where Hope Stelar is seen talking about the above incident with family friend Aaron Boreal. Hope's husband, Kelvin, was one of the astronauts aboard Peace when it vanished, so the family took it pretty hard. Their son, Geo, especially. According to Hope he's been very closed-off towards everyone since then, preferring to stargaze and fiddle with machines than being with people. As they're talking about him Geo emerges from his room and makes for the front door without a word, only going over to acknowledge his mother's and Aaron's presences when told to. His mugshot's rather surly, immediately letting you know that Geo isn't Lan Hikari redux. Aaron introduces himself and gives Geo a brief spiel about how he used to work with his father but now runs his own space research center and is met with nothing but monosyllabic responses until Hope makes Geo introduce himself.
This brings up a name input screen. You can actually make Geo an example of a Hello, Insert Name Here protagonist, but presumably due to character limits concerns you're limited in what you can input. His first and last name can only be six letters long. I'm just sticking with defaults, because this feature doesn't impact the game at all aside from ruining a minor bit of wordplay and perhaps giving Geo an identity crisis on top of his other issues. Once that's done Aaron reveals that the reason he's visiting today is because he found an old possession of Kelvin's: a special pair of glasses called a Visualizer, which are quickly added to Geo's sprite and mugshot. With that, he tells Hope that he's heading for his usual spot, and leaves the house.
Outside is where control is first given to us, and everything's pretty much identical to Battle Network at this point, with the same top-down isometric perspective. The D-pad moves Geo around and A lets him examine stuff. There's no “hold B to run” function as Geo automatically moves at a decent clip, an improvement over Battle Network as the default walking speed there was as slow as molasses. The main menu, accessed with the X button (this gave me a massive case of Damn You, Muscle Memory when I was playing Double Team), is also very similar to Battle Network's, with an option to edit a thirty-battle card folder, a data library that's divided up into Standard, Mega, and Giga sections, an email inbox, and a save feature. There are a few options that are currently unavailable, but they'll be ready pretty soon.
Finally, all the action is on the DS's bottom screen. The top screen currently displays info on Geo. How much HP he has, his six favorite battle cards, etc. Those aren't relevant, but will be shortly.
Geo's hometown is called Echo Ridge, and like ACDC Town it'll serve as our main hub for the series. In fact, Echo Ridge is pretty much ACDC with the serial numbers filed off as if something was in ACDC, it's in Echo Ridge too, like a small park area, a few houses for important NPCs including an upscale condominium complex, the gates of the local school, and even a battle card shop called Big Wave (closed, of course). The name of the city that Echo Ridge is a suburb of is never revealed, but since the setting is still the country of Electopia I like to imagine it's still Den City, two-hundred years in the future.
Speaking of, it's kind of interesting, at least I think so, to compare the aesthetics of Star Force's society with its predecessor's. There were some outliers, but the clothes and architecture seen in Battle Network were for the most part pretty contemporary, while Star Force's future has a sort of tomorrowland look to it with buildings being brightly-colored and looking somewhat plastic-like. Clothes seem to run the gamut from “completely mundane” (Hope) to “normal but with 'futurey' flourishes” (Aaron, many minor characters), “somewhat unusual” (Geo), to “I'm glad I won't be alive to wear that”. There are some Space Clothes scattered around here and there, but moreso in the later two games than this one, from what I remember.
Talking to the NPCs sheds a little more light on the setting. PETs are no longer in use, instead everyone has a device called a Transer, which is basically a DS mounted on a somewhat-bulky wrist-mounted holder. They come in three colors, red, blue, and green, depending on which of the three satellites (Leo, Pegasus, and Dragon) that maintains the Wave World's broadcast the Transer is affiliated with. Geo's is the same color as the version being played.
The biggest departure from Battle Network so far is that Net Navis are no longer central to the world. They still exist, as many of the generic humanoid NPCs on the wave roads are Navis, but gone are the days when they were widely used in everyday life. Now they seem to just be used for minor, specific tasks; for example in the previous scene Hope mentions that Geo was being home-schooled by the “Teacherman program.” Viruses still exist and need to be deleted, but according to the anime Transers basically cut out the middleman as simply swiping a battle card through a Transer is enough to bust them. Or at least the weak ones.
Also, I have to get this off of my chest: the font for dialogue boxes in this game looks awful, being very small and mono-spaced. At least the character limit for cards and item has been raised from eight to twelve, so the card names and descriptions aren't as badly truncated as Battle Network's tended to be.
A staircase leading to another section at the north end of town next to the school gates is Geo's destination, but he won't be getting there without being accosted. As he reaches the steps a voice tells him to wait and he's approached by three kids. The leader, a girl who introduces herself as Luna Platz, identifies Geo as the student of Echo Elementary Class 5-A who refuses to come to school. She feels that as she's class president it's her duty to have him come to school, otherwise things wouldn't be perfect. Geo wants nothing to do with her and expresses as much, angering her cronies the big Bud Bison and the short Zack Temple. Geo soundly ignores their anger at stepping to “the Prez” and continues on his way.
Beyond that is Vista Point, a small park and lookout spot that overlooks the town. Notable is that there's a display of an old steam locomotive here, which needless to say looks very out of place. Even here Geo isn't free of Luna, for she's decided to continue pestering him by sending an email containing material that they recently covered in class. This email introduces one of the main elements of the setting.
That is the Brotherband. To not put too fine a point on it, a Brotherband is a special registration between two people that, to use the old shonen parlance, serves as a proof of their friendship, and allows them to stay connected no matter where they may be. As you can imagine from Geo's attitude, The Power of Friendship and its related aesops form the cornerstone of this series, and the Brotherband is the biggest example of that. The special thing about Brotherbands, and one of the reasons why Geo is so opposed to having any Brothers starting out, is that you have to disclose your deepest secret to your Brother. A lot of characters treat this like it isn't that big of a deal, having nothing to hide, but for others that actually have serious issues it certainly is. So naturally one of the big themes of the games is overcoming those sorts of issues.
Luna's tutorial covers Brotherbands as a gameplay element, where they essentially serve as Socialization Bonuses. In this game there are slots available for up to six Brothers (this menu can be seen on the top screen by toggling with SELECT) which are gotten both in-story and by entering the Friend Codes of fellow players. Then Luna has us set up our profile (normally accessed from the new “BROTHR” option on the pause menu) which entails writing a short message and secret. Also displayed on the profile are options to edit our six favorite battle cards and our Best Combo, a system which will be explained later on but for now I'll say is basically Star Force's take on Program Advances. There's a little more to cover, but I'll also wait until they come up in gameplay to cover them. Once Luna's done with this explanation options to connect with a real-life Brother's game are added to the main menu.
With that out of the way, Geo is free to ascend the steps to a large view platform to stargaze once night falls. He starts talking to his absent father, telling him about Mr. Boreal's visit and the Visualizer. He decides to put it on, wondering if doing so will allow him to see his father, and of course sees nothing. Just as he's chiding himself for being so foolish his Transer begins to beep, and he realizes that it's his father's access signal. The beeps intensifies, and the boy is struck by a beam of light.
When Geo comes to he realizes with a panic that not only can be now clearly see the wave roads in the sky with his Visualizer, but that there's now a beastlike monster floating before him. He quickly sees that the monster is made out of EM waves as well, and when it tells him not to gawk Geo asks who he is. The creature introduces himself as Omega-Xis (but insists that he just be called Mega as “humans get it all wrong) and says that he's an alien from Planet FM. After some rather redundant expository dialogue it seems that Omega already knows Geo's name. In fact, he claims to have met his father out in space.
Before the no doubt bewildered Geo can ask about his father there's a commotion in the park and the two see that the locomotive has somehow started up and jumped its display. Omega explains that EM viruses also from Planet FM have been pursuing him and no doubt intend to use the train to destroy the town below. He tells Geo that if he wants to stop it, he has to do what he says, and invites himself into Geo's Transer. Not letting up for a second, he tells Geo to go find a wavehole.
Control's briefly given back to us. From this point forward the Y button will have Geo slide his glasses on or off, allowing us to see the wave roads and anything else related to it. Waveholes appear as swirling orange vortexes and even without the glasses you'll be able to see where they are as they're always marked out by something on the ground, whether it be a design on the flooring, a lone patch of grass, litter, etc. There's a wavehole right next to the viewing platform, and there Omega says to swipe a card that he put some of his power into. This is accomplished simply by hitting the R button.
What this does is initiate the process of EM Wave Change, a transformation where Geo and Omega fuse together, turning Geo into a being of waves himself. So Geo himself will be serving as the Megaman of this series, and the process gives him an appearance similar to a Navi with blue helmet and armor. Considering that his left hand is replaced by Omega's head, it's a rather off-beat design compared to the other Megamen in the franchise. Geo's naturally even more alarmed when he sees his new state and finds himself on Vista Point's wave road, and Omega gives him a quite crash course on Wave Change, explaining that they have to do this to fight effectively because for some reason he's not as powerful on Earth as he normally is. In this form we can “pulse in” to objects with on-board computers, and “pulse out” by hitting R once more, exiting either a computer or the Wave World entirely. Geo insists that he can't fight, but Omega has none of that, tells him to stop whining, and that he'll teach him how to fight once they enter the locomotive's Computer Space. To do that we just have to get as close to the train as we can and the tiny wavehole on it will begin to flash. One tap of the stylus sends Geo in, and that's how the Cyberworlds of most objects in the game are entered.
Inside Geo finds three Mettenna viruses waiting for him. It's time for the good ol' Tutorial.
So up until this point everything's been largely familiar for Battle Network veterans. The battle system is where Star Force really starts to differentiate itself. The first big change is that unlike the rest of the overworld, battles are rendered in 3D, and the second big change is that the grid is no longer split up in to two distinct areas. Geo is stuck in the back row and can only move to the panels to his right and left. The camera is positioned over his shoulder, so what would've been columns in Battle Network are now considered rows and vice versa.
Like Battle Network, battle cards are our primary weapon and at the moment a lot of them are taken straight from its predecessor (Cannon, Sword, etc.). In between each turn the Custom Screen displays six battle cards on the DS's bottom screen arranged in a 3 x 2 grid. The big departure from Battle Network is that unlike battle chips, cards are not sorted by code. However, this does not mean that we're free to pick whichever cards we want. Under normal circumstances we're only limited to picking two at a time – one card and another in the same column of the grid, but there are provisions for choosing more. Aside from the general rule of picking as many duplicates as you like, Star Force has its own version of the * code in the form of white cards. These cards have silver borders and can be freely picked as well. There aren't all that many cards that are naturally white, mostly attack multipliers and stuff like Invisible, but the six cards that the player chooses as their favorites are automatically turned silver as well. Any card of any class, even Mega and Giga cards, can thus be turned into a white card.
The five elements (Fire, Aqua, Elec, Wood, and Normal) and their weaknesses return from Battle Network. Attributes remain as well, but only the sword, break, and wind ones. They work the same as before (damage shadow-based enemies, break through guards, and remove auras and barriers).
Battle itself passes by in the same ten-second intervals that Battle Network did as the Custom Gauge refills. Geo can use battles cards with the A button, and the queue is shown at the bottom of the screen. The Mega Buster works a little differently than in Battle Network. Just by holding down the B button it fires automatically, so it's more useful than Megaman.EXE's. It automatically charges when not in use, and when finished the next shot Geo fires will be a Charge Shot at 10x base power. The Mega Buster still has the Attack, Speed, and Charge stats, and they're powered up not by individual programs, but through equipment that can be worn by Omega by accessing his status screen from the main menu. He starts off with the Mega Weapon “Pointed Fangs,” which has an attack and charge rate of one and a speed stat of two. Incidentally, Omega's head serves as the Mega Buster's barrel.
Now since Geo has so little room to maneuver around in he's given some extra perks to give him a fighting chance against enemies. The first is the Mega Attack function. Pressing down on the D-pad activates a crosshair that'll automatically lock on to enemies that are either in the same column as Geo or in diagonal range. When locked on, Geo will automatically warp in front of the enemy when attacking with a card and firing or swinging his weapon at point-blank range, so this feature works a lot like Beast Out did in Battle Network 6 in that regard.
On defense he has the ability to erect a shield by pressing Y. Many attacks, especially late in the games, are impossible to dodge so Geo has to rely on this shield to protect himself. Timing is everything with this, especially with attacks that hit multiple times. A lot of late-game enemies love throwing screen-filling attack after screen-filling attack, so one needs to get good at it. The only kinds of attacks that Geo can't block with his shield are ones that either have a breaking attribute, or otherwise involve the enemy physically slamming into him.
Finally, stunning enemies by countering them with card attacks also returns, and the reward for doing so is that a random copy of one of the cards in your folder will be added to the queue. Like with white cards, any card of any class can be copied, so if you get lucky you could wind up being able to use two or more Giga cards in one battle. To balance this out somewhat, countering an enemy with a card received as a bonus will not give you another.
That's the basic battle system in a rather large nutshell. Some would argue that the removal of codes removes a lot of the strategy and nuance that Battle Network had...and they'd have something of a point, admittedly. Star Force's battle system isn't really geared towards that though. It's generally faster paced and demands good reflexes once battles really start getting hectic, and it favors stringing together powerful combos and putting up big damage numbers. Despite being similar in many ways, it's really a different beast when it comes to execution. Lastly, the same busting rank system is still in place, handing out zenny or battle cards depending on how well you performed.
Geo's pretty amazed that he managed to delete the viruses, and even Omega admits that he's caught his attention. So the alien decides to stick with Geo for a while longer, and gets him to agree with this by dangling the promise of information on his father over his head. It goes without saying that Geo's quite skeptical as to this alien suddenly barging in on his life but he likely doesn't have much choice in the matter given Omega's personality. And so a rather unlikely duo for a new era is born.
Virus Listing
- Mettenna
- The classic Mascot Mook returns as the most basic enemy virus. Mettennas move from side-to-side on their row and send a shockwave down a column with their pickaxes whenever they line up with Geo. They only attack one-at-a-time and stronger versions will protect themselves by hiding underneath their helmets when not attacking.
Soundtrack
- Shooting Star
- The main theme for the series is a worthy successor to Battle Network's.
- Zero Gravity
- As space is a big part of the series, a lot of the tracks have a very "spacey" quality to them, achieved through either use of ambiance or in the case of this track, the use of old-timey motifs.
- Hometown
- Echo Ridge's theme is quite peaceful, very different from ACDC's.
- Happy Company
- Geo objects to the "happy" descriptor.
- Agonizing Wish
- Unlike Battle Network, a number of motifs are reused wholesale throughout the series. I think this is one of them, but I may be wrong.
- Tension
- A new Suspicious Mood for a new era, I suppose.
- Incident Occurrence!
- It returns!
- Warning Bell!!
- The Wave World gets its own panic music in this series.
- Cyberworld
- Individual computers also get their own theme.
- Ride On!
- The title of the battle music track is taken from the boss battle invocation which is yet to show up: "Wave Battle! Ride On!"
- Winner!!
- The victory jingle...
- Game Over
- ...and the game over jingle.
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