Just like with Double Team, when the title appears we're treated to hearing either Geo, Omega, or Ace shout out the title. There's limited voice acting in this game for Big Bangs and other miscellaneous stuff (Star Force 2 had some too but it was removed from the English release entirely) and just like Double Team's it's something of a mixed bag as far as quality goes. While the Japanese version had the seiyuu from the then-recently-ended anime reprising their roles (with Ace being voiced by Tetsuya Kakihara; something that I found amusing as he resembles Simon to a fair degree) the English voices seem to be trying to copy Jason Spisak's and Kyle Hebert's voices to mixed result. Omega sounds like what you'd expect an alien canine monster to sound like, while whoever's voicing Geo is caught in the throes of Dull Surprise 24/7, and his voice is the one you'll be hearing the most. Probably because he doesn't have an English dub voice to emulate, Ace's is the best of the bunch.
Also like Double Team and Star Force 2 there are two save files available, even though there's only one version on the cartridge now. Anyway, let's begin the game itself.
The game opens on a rooftop with a boy and a young woman looking up at the starry night sky, at a conspicuously-large red star in particular. The boy asks his sister if she knows of the superstition that if you wish upon a star three times before it fades your wish will come true. She replies that in that case, their wish will definitely be granted, for that red shooting star will never fade, not before the planet's final day dawns...
Following that is the usual brief recap of the setting before we fade in to Geo Stelar's classroom at Echo Elementary. Today's an exciting day for him because the whole class is upgrading to the latest new personal electronic terminal, the fang-shaped, forearm-mounted Hunter-VG. Their teacher Mr. Shepar
◊ sends everyone the data, and soon enough the touch screen UI comes to life, displaying a 2D image of Omega-Xis and our current zenny total. For this game the action was moved up to the top screen, so the touch screen is exclusively on menu duty from now on. There's also a limited encyclopedia function that we'll be able to access from the pause menu shortly that records certain pieces of terminology for the player to review, though it's nowhere near as deep or robust as similar datalog features that are found in other games. The rest of this scene goes through the usual tutorial stuff: making a handle for your personal page and stuff like that.
One of the new features of the Hunter-VG that Mr. Shepar explains is the pop-up system, which is like a condensed version of the last game's personal pages. When talking to someone a pop-up icon will appear on the bottom screen that displays their name, their AI partner if they have one, and other icons depending on if they have a job request they want fulfilled, if they're Brothers with you, as well as a special badge if they're allied with an organization of some sort. For example, all of the Echo Elementary teachers and students, Geo included, have the school emblem displayed on their screens. These icons will also pop up when you do stuff like choosing which floor to take an elevator to or using public transportation to travel to a different area.
After Mr. Shepar reminds everyone that the upgrade overwrote everyone's Brotherbands Omega gets the urge to come out of the Hunter-VG, but we have to go to the school roof via the elevator because Geo's worried about someone seeing him. The rooftop's pretty nice-looking. There's lots of green, a student garden, and even a greenhouse up here. Geo materializes Omega, who immediately starts complaining about Geo upgrading him without giving him proper warning. The scene quickly explains that everyone having their own personal AI partner has become popular again, and the successor of Net Navis are known as Wizards. Thanks to this, Omega no longer has to hide himself from other people as he can simply pretend to be Geo's personal Wizard. Another piece of technology that's brought up are Real Waves. Real Waves are pretty much the exact same thing as Matter Waves from the last game, only they're not sentient and used in more utilitarian ways. For example, in Echo Ridge there's a bridge over the local stream that pops into existence whenever someone needs to cross it, and it's thanks to this technology that EM beings like Omega can be fully materialized in the real world, visible to all without the aid of Visualizers. Speaking of Geo's Visualizer, in this game you can't see or interact with humans when it's on; you just see their shadows instead. You can at least interact with Hertzes and whatnot without having to Wave Change though.
After the mechanics discussion/exposition, Geo gets a phone call from his friend Luna calling him down to the cafeteria's snack shop down by the school's front foyer. But as we make for the elevator Geo's distracted by three members of the science club coming out onto the roof to test out a small rocket that they built. And as soon as they start setting up one of the garden sprinklers starts going haywire, the result of a virus infecting the sprinkler's on board computer, or Cyber Core. The kids try using their Hunter-VGs and battle cards to delete the viruses, but without Wizards they're not very effective. So Geo and Omega decide to step up to the plate and delete the viruses themselves as Megaman.
Now, about Wave Changing in this game. There are two paper airplanes lying on the ground of the roof, so you're probably thinking “Ah ha, that must be where the wavehole is!” but you'd be wrong. No, Geo no longer needs a wavehole to Wave Change, allowing him to become Megaman whenever and wherever you want, and the animation's really quick too. Convenient.
However, not-so-convenient for our heroes is the fact that when Geo ducks out of sight and tries initializing the Wave Change for the first time, nothing happens, even though he said the usual invocation and everything. Instead, his Hunter displays a message mentioning the Satella Police accessing it. Geo fears that he's in trouble, but just as he says that the message changes to “Registering Geo Stelar and Omega-Xis as EM Wave Change ID '003'.” A Transcode ID card for Megaman then appears on the bottom screen. So huh. It makes sense that the Satella Police would be interested in identifying those that can Wave Change after the events of the previous two games. Yeah, after two games of the Satella Police being only represented by Detective Copper here they finally make a showing and are one of the major factions in the plot.
But anyway, Geo and Omega put that aside and then Wave Change as normal. Apparently the Satella Police did more than simply register him for once in the Wave World Geo realizes that his Megaman form looks different now. If you didn't look at the art I linked to earlier his armor's now a little more sleek and gained new highlights while Omega's head has been replaced by a normal hand, albeit one with a special gauntlet that does look a little like him. After commenting on this we have to walk over to a green device called a Wave Station (there's one in each area) that allows us to access the wave roads. Every Cyber Core in the game is accessed via the wave road and you can see an “ACCESS” stub over them. Stand on the stub, hit the icon that pops up on the touch screen, and in you go. Some Cyber Cores you won't be able to access without a certain security key. To the surprise of no one, there are three Mettenna viruses inside, so time to begin the Tutorial. For the final time!
Unfortunately we can't skip the explanation again like in the last game but there are some changes in the battle system worth talking about. First, the battle cards on the Custom Screen are no longer displayed in a neat 3 x 2 grid. Instead they're loosely arranged as such, as if they were floating around. This has the effect of there being two “planes” with some cards being shown closer to the screen and others further way. Mega cards also appear physically larger than Standard cards, and Giga cards are larger still.
Notably you can not pick cards from both planes simultaneously. So if you pick one “far” card you cannot select any more “near” cards, and you can only select one “far” card at a time. However, cards that are in the background have the option of being transformed into free support effects depending on the card's original element as follows:
- Normal: becomes an Area Eater
- Fire: adds ten attack points to the previously-selected card
- Aqua: becomes an Invisible
- Elec: adds a paralyzing effect to the previously-selected card
- Wood: becomes a Grass Stage
The Area Eater effect is by far the most useful of the five as it temporarily shrinks the field by one row, drawing enemies into range for a big attack, like the Beast Slap series (Omega himself appears in battle to swipe a 3 x 2 range).
Oh, and remember how I mentioned cracked and broken panels back in my liveblog of Star Force 1? Well it turns out that I was full of shit; it's this game that reintroduces the mechanic. Even though broken panels won't hem Geo in (if the center panel of his row is broken he will simply skip over it when moving from side to side) they're still a hassle as you need all of the little room you have to maneuver when it comes to viruses and bosses in this game.
Just like in the last game Omega insists that Geo should brag to the science club members that he deleted the viruses as Megaman but Geo naturally puts the kibosh on that idea, wanting to keep the number of people who know his secret to a minimum. Before we pulse out we can grab a Long Sword from the Blue Mystery Wave that's inside this Cyber Core and read a whole bunch of tutorial review mail that Geo receives from Omega and his other friends.
Back in the real world the club members rejoice that their rocket was saved but decide to postpone its launch until tomorrow, just in case. One of the kids claims that he saw a blue boy entering the Cyber Core and the leader wonders if the rumors that Megaman attends their school are true. Geo quickly cuts in, asking about their rocket. The club's building a larger version in the school's science lab, but since they've run into a lot of problems they decided to do a proof-of-concept with the small one here. The leader says that the club has joined a Team with the Purpose of “ launch a rocket.” Omega asks what he's talking about, and Geo explains that a Purpose is a goal one writes in their Hunter, and those with the same Purpose join together to form a united Team. You can see this information on a person's pop-ups, and Purposes can be anything from the science club's to one of Geo's classmate's “get chewed out by Prez something fierce.” Team members get an additional spiffy badge on their personal pages.
The leader finally introduces himself as the sixth grader Woodrow Boffin
◊, though everyone just calls him Woody. Geo wishes him luck in his endeavor and the club members pack up their rocket and return to the science club room. After mentioning that the subject of rockets makes him think about his father, Geo realizes that he still has to go and meet Luna. Before we head on down, if you flip on the Visualizer you'll see a virus attacking a Real Wave tree that's on the roof. There are a number of viruses on the overworld scattered about like this, and deleting all of them I think allows you to open an achievement door in the postgame area. I'm not entirely sure though, but I know it does something. This game isn't quite as ingrained in my head as past ones are since it's the most recent, so who knows, I might discover some new features during this playthrough!
When we reach the foyer we encounter a scene of the school nurse and her Wizard helping a boy who scraped his knee, which launches an exposition drop from Geo on the nature of Wizards that I outlined above. Omega decides to materialize himself in the hallway, saying that while he doesn't care much about Geo's explanation he's at least grateful that he doesn't have to hide himself anymore, as that was really boring. To illustrate this, some other students crowd around him, thinking he looks really cool and powerful. Omega, of course, loves the attention.
Anyway, Luna, Bud, and Zack are over at the cafeteria corner (though it's always looked more like a cafe, personally) and Luna is of course very peeved at Geo for being late though her mood improves a bit when he explains how he had to delete some viruses. Well, improve is an interesting way of putting it, for then she says that he should've come down here as Megaman instead and expresses her distaste for Omega. He puts her in her place by materializing and chasing her around a bit.
Once everyone finally settles Luna explains why she called everyone here. There will soon be an election held to determine the president of the student body, and Luna has set her sights on winning. To that end, the four of them will form a Team with the Purpose of winning the election. First they reform their Brotherbands (instead of waiting for the right scenario like in the last game) and each of the three offers sixty points of Link Power for a total of 180. No secrets or anything in this game. Characters that Geo forms Brotherbands with gain an additional personal page pop-up, and on the save screen there's a scrolling ticker that displays all his Brothers. With that done, the four become members of the Team “Luna 4 Prez.” Everyone laments Luna's horrible naming convention sense. We do get our own custom Team emblem though, an icon showing Luna making a speech at a podium.
The first step of their campaign will be to find students around the school who need help and to offer assistance to earn their support, with Zack's information calculating and processing Wizard Pedia keeping trap of Luna's approval ratings. Zack's currently the only one of the group other than Geo who has a Wizard, incidentally. Talking to some of the student's meandering around the foyer indicates that we should start by returning to the roof.
What follows is a series of events of helping some students reprogram a Real Wave tree on the roof to change to a cherry blossom tree as a birthday present for one of their friends. We get to be intimated acquainted with the interior of the school during this, and we even get to visit the science club room, which is oddly right where the broadcasting studio was in the first game. We can see the rocket that they're building in its half-completed state. It's not overly-huge or anything, but it does look like an awfully big engineering project for a middle school student and his elementary classmates. We can access the Cyber Cores of a display monitor in the science lab and the Real Wave memorial tree on the roof for two Gravity Plus cards. The memorial tree Cyber Core is different from the others we've been in up to this point as it has a huge, sprawling layout instead of the standard X-shape. Some Cyber Cores just happen to be like this. They're almost mini-dungeons, complete with regenerating Green Mystery Waves.
During this bit a new function of the Wave Stations that are scattered about become available. They're like information kiosks, essentially. Examining them lets us read the news, see what viruses are in the area, and download a set of four white cards to add to the end of our folder. We can no longer select favorite battle cards, so this is the only way to have white cards that aren't naturally so. Each Wave Station has a unique set, and each new download naturally overwrites the old one. However, the regular system from Battle Network does return in the form of allowing us to select one card as a default that will always appear on the Custom Screen at the start of battle. There aren't any memory restrictions either, so feel free to go wild.
After helping the students out with the tree and Luna securing their support we have to then go down to meet another trouble student at the cafeteria area, where Omega notes that it seems like Luna's just following Geo around. The student in question is upset because she had a fight with her friend and can't get in touch with her to apologize. The friend's supposedly in Echo Ridge's park right now, so that's our destination.
We're still stuck canvassing, but at least we can get out into Echo Ridge now. Echo Ridge hasn't really changed any from the last game aside from the addition of an information kiosk and a stop for our new form of public transportation, the Wave Liner. Poor Iver Gatte seems to be in the grip of full-on dementia now, but at least he has a Wizard of his own to help him out. The girl that we're supposed to look for is in the park in front of the closed Big Wave and since she doesn't know anything about getting any messages from her friend we have to go onto the wave road to see what's causing the holdup. The Echo Ridge wave roads aren't very complex, and after dealing with the viruses that're preventing the delivery of the mail we go back to the student, where Luna obtains the girl's support and finally thanks Geo for his help.
One more incident to take care of here at school. Zack calls Geo and Luna to the science club, where we see that we're going to be helping them complete their rocket. Bud insists that they know nothing about rocket science but Woody says not to worry, all they need is a Giga Energy Card to complete it. His Wizard Magnes
◊, who has a tendency to repeat the word “yup” a lot, explains that he'll be the one piloting the rocket – all the way up to space. Huh, um...what kind of brainfood is Echo Elementary feeding their students to pull that off? Oh wait, the Study Wave. The issue with the Giga Energy Card, Woody explains, is that it's something that only law enforcement and scientists are usually allowed to use. Luna offers to buy one for them but Geo and Zack immediately shoot that idea down for basically being bribery. While everyone mulls over how to surmount this obstacle Geo gets an email from Mr. Shepar saying that there's someone here to see him down at the school entrance. Before we go though, examining a box of cables yields an HP Memory 10.
The four relocate down to the foyer where a man in a white jacket walks over to them. After complimenting their cafeteria's snack shop on their selection of Mega Snack candies he introduces himself as AC Eos, or just Ace. Ace says that Geo's famous in his line of work, as is Megaman. He's not willing to reveal how he knows Geo's secret identity, but he tells them to come to a place called Spica Mall tomorrow in order to participate in a Wave Battle tournament. If Geo does, he'll get them the Giga Energy Card he heard that they need. He leaves the kids to wonder who he is, and Omega comments that he has a similar vibe to Geo.
We're now free to go home, so first let's check out Echo Ridge's Wave World. There are two Cyber Cores that we can access: the info kiosk and the school gates for 500z, a Large Energy Sub Card, and an HP Memory 10. The school gates' Cyber Core is another one of those mini-dungeons and there's a teleporter there that's blocked off by a security door that won't open unless we have something called an Omega Piece. Omega Pieces are not something I see myself getting any time soon. Finally, there's a Sub Card merchant right at the start of the town's wave road:
- HP Memory 20 – 1000z
- HP Memory 20 – 2000z
- HP Memory 20 – 4000z
- Small Energy – 100z
- Large Energy – 200z
- Unlocker – 4000z
While traveling the Wave World sometimes a giant red “WARNING” message will begin to flash on the bottom screen. When this pops up it means that your next battle will be against either a set of G viruses or a wandering third-form boss if they've been unleashed.
Sometimes when you examine objects the bottom screen will start to flicker and the Hunter-VG will note the detection of a large amount of EM distortion, or Noise. This means that you've uncovered a Noise Wave which is like a spooky, black Cyber Core with a chaotic layout. The background is even reminiscent of the Undernet's static. In battle there will be special Noise panels that Geo won't be able to traverse at all, so enemies that step on them can potentially avoid even Mega Attacks. Noise Waves are home to weird red EM beings called Noisms that are barely intelligible. They're pretty creepy places to be sure, and you can't pulse out of them – you have to leave manually, but they have BMWs to plunder. There's a Noise Wave coming out of the doghouse in front of Bud's house that contains a Beast Slap 1.
There's nothing that important in the Stelar household at the moment other than a Noise Wave inside the living room thermostat that has a Dyna Energy inside. If you talk to Hope
◊ she mentions that she's glad it looks like Geo's having lots of fun at school after his shut-in days, and the household Hertz seems to have a crush on her. Geo's room now has some baseball posters in addition to his astronomy stuff, and there's a new poster of the Pleiades star cluster, which is his Japanese namesake (Subaru). Welp, that's all for our first day. Bedtime.
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.
- Base Mortar
- The latest in the "immobile artillery" virus series. Despite the name, these viruses are actually Gatling guns, and they'll fire a barrage of bullets at Geo when he enters their sights.
- Crowcar
- Whenever these birds manage to align with Geo they will charge down the column at him. In that sense they are basically Fishies, only more annoying since they don't stick to one row and are generally faster and give you less warning.
Soundtrack
- Shooting Star (Star Force 3 ver.)
- The third and final iteration of the theme takes a more...techno approach I think is how to describe it? You can certainly hear the "wub wub" with headphones.
- Homeroom (Star Force 3 ver.)
- Echo Elementary got a new track along with its new renovations.
- Incident Occurrence! (Star Force 3 ver.)
- Another game, another one of these.
- Warning Bell! (Star Force 3 ver.)
- This is my favorite crisis theme of the series because it doesn't have the same sense of in-your-face nagging that the others tend to.
- Cyber Core
- Now this is a Battle Network track. Actually, the game's soundtrack is a collaboration between the two main Battle Network composers, Akari Kaida and Yoshino Aoki.
- Ride On! (Star Force 3 ver.)
- This is my favorite of the three virus battle themes.
- Wave World (Star Force 3 ver.)
- And this is my favorite of the Wave World themes.
- Wave Station
- This plays whenever you examine a Wave Station and it reminds me of an advertisement jingle.
- Hometown (Star Force 3 ver.)
- Very relaxing.
- Noise Wave
- Now let's close out with some creepy. And it really does just stop in-game.
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