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Video Game: Mega Man Star Force
aka: Star Force
Geo Stelar, On The Air!

Wave Battle!
Ride On!

Mega Man Star Force (Ryusei no Rockman) is a spinoff of the Mega Man Battle Network series, itself a spinoff of the classic Mega Man franchise.

Taking place years after the events of Battle Network, it stars a young boy named Geo Stelar (Subaru Hoshikawa in the original Japanese), who lost his father after a journey to space. Before he disappeared, Geo's dad left him a device called a Visualizer, which allows him to see electromagnetic waves. He meets a blue alien named Omega-Xis (War-rock in the original Japanese), who is on the run from Planet FM, with other rogue aliens hot on his tail. While his power is weak on Earth, Omega states that he needs to fuse with a human in order to unlock his full power. Geo reluctantly agrees, and is thrown into a battle against the other FM-ians for the fate of the galaxy.

In Mega Man Star Force 2, Geo and Omega encounter Lady Vega and her compatriots, who are obsessed with finding the lost contintent of Mu. Vega and her assistant Solo are seeking the keys to Mu, the OOParts via the use of UMAs - Unidentified Mysterious Animals - wave-based lifeforms like FMians that take the shape of cryptozoological creatures.

In Mega Man Star Force 3, Geo and Omega must stop Meteor G, a sentient asteroid, from destroying the Earth, while contending with the spread of Noise caused by it. In addition, a group known as Dealer, led by the public philanthropist Mr. King, seeks to use it for their own nefarious ends (basically the final premise of Battle Network 4, but without all the tournaments... and better use of the asteroid in question).

An anime adaptation of the series also aired but ended with an abrupt finale of the second season, Ryusei no Rockman Tribe, based on the second game. The English dub first premiered on Cartoon Network's now-defunct Toonami block before moving online to Toonami Jetstream. Only half of the first season was released. No DVDs ever circulated in the United States or Japan.

Finally, the series had a small Crossover with the Mega Man Battle Network series in the form of an Updated Rerelease of the first Battle Network game with a crossover scenario added.

Despite being the sequel series to one of the more popular Mega Man franchises, Star Force saw a quick decline in popularity after its creation, and is often singled out for abuse by fans for ruining the Mega Man franchise. One way or the other, the series saw declining sales, and seems to have had its storyline resolved in Star Force 3—the only Mega Man franchise besides Zero and Battle Network to finish its plotline.
Tropes used in Mega Man Star Force:
  • A Boy And His EM Wave Alien
  • The Abridged Series: Based on the anime. Has 3 episodes and a Christmas Special.
  • Academy of Adventure: Echo Ridge Elementary, oh, yes. What with 6 students: Geo, Bud, Luna, Pat, Claude, and later Jack; a pair of teachers: Mitch and Tia; and the Gardner: Damian all capable of Wave Change it certainly qualifies.
  • Ace Custom: With few exceptions, every Wizard on the planet is man-made. Acid is the only one that can engage in Wave Change.
  • A God Am I: Played on a smaller scale with Bud in the second game. At the encouragement of the Shaman, the villagers of Whazzap revered Bud — or rather, "Budicus" — as an emissary of Mu. Bud, who was then suffering from amnesia, went along with it primarily to enjoy the great food. Played fully straight when the Shaman becomes Terra Condor. In the anime, the shaman is roughly possessed by Condor, who believes this about himself — and starts gunning for Luna.
  • Achilles in His Tent: Geo in the first game.
  • After the End: The Apollo Flame "second quest" in Star Force 2. Holy crap. Needs to be seen to be believed.
  • Aliens Speaking English
  • Alternate Universe/Elseworlds: As Battle Network was this to the Classic series, most fans speculate that, between the several centuries since the end of its predecessor, the suddenly far more animalistic bosses, and the Darker and Edgier writing, Star Force seems to be the alternate form of Mega Man X or maybe even Mega Man Zero.
  • Always Check Behind the Chair: Not, perhaps, as much as in Battle Network, but present.
    • Kleptomaniac Hero Found Underwear: In the first game, examining Luna's dresser will cause Geo to acknowledge her frog stuffie, but he will abstain from rummaging through it. In the second game, Omega will force him to rummage through it to look for something interesting, which reveals a secret ES. In the third game, Geo happens upon... "a little girl's secret". He immediately panics, but he can't seem to stop staring.*
  • All There in the Manual: Plenty. Loads of backstory is stuffed into the Japanese-only Universe Compendium collection, including tidbits such as Dread Joker originally being designated Transcode-000.
  • Animal Themed Superbeing: Many of the bosses take this form, and some may even be mythical at that. A minotaur, a swan, a crab, a snake, a wolf, a Pegasus, a lion, a dragon, a yeti, a plesiosaur, a condor, a goat, and a crow.
  • Animation Bump: Most of the fight scenes use very simple footage, or just gussied up single image pans, and then there are battles like when Cygnus Wing returns and after Wolf Forest meets Mayu.
  • Anime of the Game: Was adapted into an anime that may or may not follow the canon of Mega Man NT Warrior. Notable for giving unique personalities to the FM-ians. And Hyde.
  • Applied Phlebotinum
    • Zet Waves; used solely in 1, though technically present through the whole game; the various EM Beings are technically made of them, like matter is the building block system of humans and other animals. Extensive exposure to Z-Waves, however, presents a risk of turning matter into more Zet Waves, and living creatures are turned into EM Beings. Daigo uses this to his crews' advantage by having War Rock soak them in Zet Waves, which saves them from bodily death in space. In the anime, the ability to transform matter into Zet Waves is the halmark of the AM-ian race, which is why War Rock is not the FM-ian he first thought he was.
      • Large concentrations of Zet waves (especially Murian ones) also work slightly in reverse — EM Beings may spontaneously become visible. A small story arc in the beginning of BerShiDin is based around this.
    • Noise, which appears in 3. Originally thought to be a kind of corrupted electromagnetism, interfering with Earth Tech and driving mass-produced Wizards violently crazy, comments from Spade Magnes R about the ability to use the Noise Wave suggest that it rather simply overwhelms the Wizards in question.
  • Arc Symbol
    • The chief symbol of Mu. Solo's clothes, Rogue's outfit, the Badge of Loneliness, Whazzap Lines, The Indie Proof, you name it. Shows up much less, but noticeably, in 3.
    • For the series itself, Geo's pendant. Mostly useless, but forms the basis for a very useful Wave Code in 2, and generally as a sign of completion.
  • Artifact of Doom: The OOPArts* worth worrying about here, however.]] are the last remaining artifacts of three famous civilizations that disappeared without a trace*, more so by choosing to localize the tribe as "Saurian", but still!]]; notably, these artifacts are made of an exotic material and leak massive surges of Zet-Waves. Later on it's shown that civilizational breakdown led the given OOPArt to consume the members of its tribe, where they still reside. Mastering the OOPArt allows Geo to wield it as an Amulet of Concentrated Awesome, which further enhances MegaMan's power.
    • In game, there's only one OOPArt worth worrying about, and only the one manages to get everyone's attention; however, you are given an "auto-brother", an otherwise pointless NPC who provides you with the other OOPArt in the title of whichever version you play. Not only are you able to transform into the second OOPArt's form, you can combine it with the original — in different ways, at that!*, elemental affiliation, and weapon of the second Tribe chosen]] After linking with the remaining version, you can use all three, which grants you the power of the Tribe King, which doubles the attack of every Battle Card you use. In the Tribe anime, all three are present, though Subaru only ever gets his hands on the Sword of Berserk. Until the Grand Finale, where Geo becomes the Tribe King.
  • Asteroids Monster: The Crimson Dragon's head blocks its core, but when you destroy it, it splits into two other heads. This doesn't make the fight much easier.
  • Atlantis: Actually Mu, but the concept is pretty similar.
    • Additionally, it's hinted that the ruins at the bottom of Loch Mess are those of Atlantis.
      • Maybe. The part of Loch Mess you walk around on is what's left after the original town flooded. Those could be leftovers of the old town, but they are very deep and a tad more luxurious than one might expect.
  • Awesome yet Practical: All three games have a card (usually Gigas but the second game had King Grandeur, a Mega card) that is basically an instant kill nuke to the entire enemy screen. Since chip codes no longer exist, they're all completely reasonable to use.
    • The "White Card" system basically allows you to have free access to a selection of specified cards established pre-battle; in the first two games you could "register" six different cards, including up to two Mega or Giga cards, which would recast their color as white. In Black and Red, this was Nerfed so that White Cards, while still free, came in predetermined sets of four. In-game, they were mostly distributed by Wave Stations, though these never exceeded a certain level. However, in keeping with the rest of the Noise Kaizou Gear, you could also input a password to gain a set, which was highly likely to contain a selection of very good Cards (this was the one feature of the NKG retained, and the official website has had the codes up for a while). Also, the set of White Cards was added on after considering a folder's initial 30.
    • See "Game Breaker" in the Your Mileage May Very section.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Finalization from Black and Red is clearly intended to be a major weapon in Geo's and Mega's arsenal (Black Ace grants MegaMan Auto Lock-On and Omni-Shoes, whereas Red Joker grants Status Guard and Super Armor, and both grant access to powerful folders), but it suffers from too many in-game balance problems to be much of overall use.
    • First, to Finalize at all, MegaMan must have a 200% Noise rating; to raise Noise levels in battle requires the use of non-elemental Cards, so right there a choice needs to be made whether or not you will exploit any potential elemental weaknesses. (Luckily for you, most bosses near the end are non-elemental). In virus battles, Noise rises by an overkill factor, basically the difference between the virus' leftover HP and the Attack Power of a Battle Card. Late in the game, with exceedingly powerful cards at your comand (Spin Blade comes to mind), Finalization becomes very easy against viruses. However, in Boss Battles, the rise in Noise Level is based on the damage done to a boss by a factor of 50% — in order to hit the minimum 200% cap, you need to do 400 non-elemental damage to a Boss. This is hard to pull off in the early game, where most strategies rely on elemental weaknesses, nevermind the fact that MegaMan is constantly losing Noise.
    • Having successfully achieved Finalization grants you three turns in the form a la the Tribe King and a folder stuffed to the brim with some pretty powerful cards randomly chosen from a selection of 35 unique to the "level" of the Meteor Server you accessed (the 200% cap grants you access to Level 1, but to reach Level 11 you must have 999%... a tall order without a hacking device). These randomly chosen cards may not work very well in the situation or even with each other, which is another issue.
    • By the time MegaMan can consistently hit usefully powerful levels of the Meteor Server, you've probably already successfully brought together a number of powerful, complementary cards that work well, and you will also probably have discovered that high levels of Noise in and of themselves are useful for several reasons, most notably allowing you to bypass your enemies' Mercy Invincibility. Since Finalization resets your Noise gauge, you may have to worry about interrupting combos. Also, banking on a good Finalization is likely less useful than setting up a powerful Merge Noise (see Combining Mecha).
    • Similar to the above, Finalization offers little to no unique weaponry that makes it all that worthwhile, except at the highest levels. Most of the cards you can use in the Meteor Server you can actually gain with enough overkill virus busting.
    • Finally, Finalization in and of itself is actually inferior to the highest capabilities the Secret Satellite Server can reach; after enough Guide Dang It in your dealing with the system (unless you live in America), MegaMan can actually start drawing cards from the Meteor Server directly without having to finalize at all. And this goes all the way to the top, including the secret 12th level of each set of folders. One questions the wisdom of designing a game whose intended mechanics are meant to render the ultimate Super Mode obsolete; perhaps they were suggesting MegaMan Took a Level in Badass?
  • Ax Crazy: Rey and occasionally Acid.
  • Badass: Geo certainly qualifies in the third game. Ace too.
    • How are Solo, Heartless, who basically kills King and gives him a epic speech while doing it, and Kelvin, who fought and held back Meteor G with just sheer willpower, by himself not mentioned?
  • Badass Boast: Geo gets a few epic ones in 3 that seem a bit out of place for a guy like him.
    Mega Man (to Jack Corvus): "Your wish will remain only a pathetic pipe dream!!"
    Mega Man: "Crimson Dragon!! For the people that I love... I will defeat you! You won't see the light of tomorrow!"
  • Bad Future: The Bonus Dungeon in the second game.
  • Bag of Spilling: Actually justified by the technological advances made between games.
  • Battle of the Still Frames: Plenty in the anime.
  • Betty and Veronica: Personality-wise, lonely, orphaned Sonia is the Betty and upper-crust, class president Luna is the Veronica; although there is some inversion due to Sonia being a famous musician not living in the same town, making her "Ms. Unobtainable", while Luna lives down the street and spends the first game trying to get Geo to go to school, making her more akin the "childhood friend". Sonia is also usually the one to be fan-serviced.
    • Luna's getting up there.
  • Big Bad: In series tradition, they come with massive Kaiju for MegaMan to fight. 3 offers a meta-subversion, where the Big Bad fuses with the Giant Space Flea from Nowhere and fights you, becoming the first Big Bad in the timeline (not counting Gaiden Games) to be fought directly.
  • Big Eater: Bud Bison, unsurprisingly. Depending on the direction you take the Dating Sim minigame in 3, Luna or Sonia or both will be seen scarfing tons of food. On her own, Sonia claims to be able to eat as much as she wants without gaining any weight. Lets not forget about What Omega-Xis manages to choke down in Star Force 2.
  • Bilingual Dialogue: Laplace can communicate only through a type of buzzing noise, but Solo can apparently understand him just fine, and even tells him to shut up at one point.
  • BFS: Rogue gains a rather nasty and impressive example in the third game.
    • Which isn't to say he doesn't have a pretty neat one in his original appearance.◊
    • And also Mega Man when using the Thunder Zerker power up in the second game.
  • Bond Creatures: EM beings, with the exception of most Wizards, who can also work on their own.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: "Touch the screen... er, train!"
  • Bullfight Boss: Taurus Fire and Queen Ophiuca have attacks where they charge you. They are, however, mostly out of your range, unless you have a Card that attacks your sides.
  • Cain and Abel: Acid and Joker. Notably for being a rare example of non-human brothers.
  • Came Back Wrong: In Star Force 3, Strong, Luna, and Ace all get destroyed in the same fashion. Guess which one is revived as a soulless shell of their former self.
  • Captain Ersatz: Virgo and Corvus are two criminals from Planet FM. The way it is set up (particularly with Omega's origins) brings to mind the villains of Superman II. They match up even better to the DCAU counterparts of said villains.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Literal example in the third game: the evil organization is called Dealer, and each of their members are themed after a different suit or face of playing cards.
    • Omega-Xis laughingly calls Dr. Vega a comic-book villain after she announces her plot to Take Over the World. In the anime, Vega goes so far as to self-identify as a villain.
    Orihime: Well, maybe you shouldn't trust bad adults!
  • Character Development: In a refreshing change from Mega Man Battle Network, whose characters remained largely static throughout the series, Geo goes from being mopey and introverted in the first game to having a chipper and outgoing personality (bar a slight setback) in the second one due to his experiences. In the third game, he has matured to the point where he is able to function as the team's pillar of strength after Luna gets blown up.
    • In the first game, Geo acted like asking someone to be his Brother was like proposing to someone, since he was timid back then. His first person that he asked to be Brothers with was Sonia. The first boy, incidentally, Pat. But in the third game, he went around getting Brothers everywhere.
  • Chest Insignia: Geo's Shooting Star pendant is embedded in the center of MegaMan's chest, rather than an artistic design. The official website notes that it symbolizes Geo's bond with his father, as well as showing that Geo is still in control of himself in his Finalized Noise Form.
    • Both the Black Ace and Red Joker forms each have a unique triangular variant on the symbol, displayed prominently on the helmet.
    • Most (if not all) Wave Change forms have one of the artistic design category, though none are necessarily located on the chest.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: A lot of the characters do this, most notably Copper and Pat, who have major roles in the first game, minor ones in the second, and only get a partial appearance and a mention in the third game (respectively).
  • Clark Kenting: Geo. To the game's credit, the one person really looking for Mega Man's identity, Copper, is actually suspicious of Geo (and even plants a tracking device on him at one point in the second game.) Nobody else puts the pieces together, though—not even when Geo turns up as Mega Man for the school play—then changes back when the lights go out.
    • Although it's implied that that's Luna seeing things as she sees Geo in the Mega Man costume, after all they are quite similar.
    • Curiously, none of the other characters who Wave Change do this, either by no longer looking human, or due a change in hair color/skin tone.
      • It might be because the other characters' fusions are done directly through the human's body, whereas Mega works through Geo's terminal, and Lyra through Sonia's guitar—and even then they have slight hair color changes (Geo's becomes a dark shade of purple, Sonia's lightens to a full blonde).
  • Class Is In Room X01: Geo, Luna, Bud and Zack are in class 1.
  • Class Representative: Luna Platz is Echo Ridge's fifth grade president, and is constantly trying to get Geo to go to school.
  • Cloning Blues: Hollow is well aware that he is a Replacement Goldfish, and regrets that he cannot recall any of Altair's memories in order to make Vega happy.
  • Color-Coded Elements: Red Fire, Blue Aqua (Ice, for Yeti Blizzard), Yellow Elec(tricity), Green Wood, same as the prequel series. Star Force 2 also introduces a darkness-themed Purple coloring for attacks from Burai or Rockman Burai, but these have no elemental affiliation.
    • It seems to be a Void style attack; when dealing with Murian soldiers, Geo will address them according to their element - the dark purple variants he addresses as "Ye born of Nothing."
  • Combat Clairvoyance: According to the Official Website, Rogue's visor can apparently trace the movement of EM energy in his opponents. No one's entirely sure how that works out, or whether it amounts to much besides, as most of his attacks are designed to keep you from moving, anyway.
  • Combining Mecha: MegaMan Geo-Omega has the unique ability to combine his various Super Modes when in battle. In BerShiDin, he makes his living out of this, essentially, combining three different forms in different ways to achieve the Tribe King. In Black and Red, he can combine two Noises to stack their abilities.*
  • Composite Character / Expy: An example of "Flirting With A Trope"; while not specifically imitations of the Original Generation, Geo, Omega-Xis, and their supporting cast fill many of the same niches.
    • Geo and Lan are similar largely as a matter of Phenotype. Lan's brash extroversion is a far cry from Geo's reclusive introversion. Post Character Development, Geo still makes a claim for a smoother, quieter cheer.
    • Omega-Xis replaces the calmer, disciplined Rockman character with all the brash extroversion Geo left aside.
    • Luna and Sonia are interesting cases; both actually derive from the same character, mixed with others. Luna blends Mayl's proto-Tsun Dere tendencies with Yai's hair color and affluence. Sonia takes an approximation of Mayl's phenotype and mixes it with her role as MegaMan's chief crimefighting companion, which she inherited from Chaud.
    • Bud fits quite nicely into Dex's old position, but with an emphasized penchant for eating - his family crest is a crossed knife and fork. Most aspects of Dex's character regarding food were only in the Anime.
    • Zack takes a great deal of Higsby's traits and combines them with Yai's shortness.
    • Solo is this intentionally, specifically given ProtoMan's penchant for swords and Bass' regenerating barrier.
    • More strictly defined Expies are Jack and Queen Tia from the third game, who are extremely similar to Prometheus and Pandora from Mega Man ZX. Count: One Fight Happy, Hot Blooded brother who attacks with ghostly fire and scythe-like wings, and his quiet, seemingly emotionless sister who peppers her sentences with lots of ellipses and attacks by manipulating the elements* with her staff.
    • Cancer Bubble possibly bears a small debt to Bubble Crab*; Bubble Crab weighs in at a full six feet.]] from Mega Man X, and may inherit his shortness and antisocial disposition from BubbleMan.EXE from Mega Man Battle Network.
  • Contest Winner Cameo: Goat Kung-Fu and Moon Disaster were designed by fans.
  • Continuity Nod: The 3rd game has a scene at the beach discussing the art of "boxers-off" from the Bowdlerised beach scene in the 5th Mega Man Battle Network (originally about peeking on the girls) that has been passed down though the ages. The strangest part? It is almost the same in the Japanese version.
    • A few quiz intros were kept between series. "Hey, hey! Ho, ho!"
    • The Net Navis in general being kept into Star Force 1; there's a bit of bite to the idea that Star Force was largely a way to Uncancel Battle Network by proxy.
    • Harp Note's level in PegLeoDra has MegaMan trying to fend off Shock Note attacks from all sides, remarkably similarly to how Lan had to fend off dummy soldiers in Battle Network 5.*
    • The third game in particular draws heavily from the Regal saga in Battle Network. The bad guy is named King, his plan involves an Impending Meteor and The Corruption, the heroes form a team to take him down, and the Noise Change system heavily mimics Soul Unisons.
    • Dream Island from the first game has a section filled with old terminals, including various PETs from the EXE series.
    • In the anime, MegaMan is afraid of ghosts.
    • Also in the anime, when Akane tags along for the art class in Tribe, she's carrying a bag with the Hikari Insignia on it.
    • In some classroom scenes (anime yet again), there's a kid running around in Net's clothes sans the bandanna and messy hair.
  • Creepy Twins: Gemini Spark.
  • Crossover: With Battle Network.
    • In the first game, Aaron and Lucian could be found hunting for Margrave Rymer. (This was Dummied Out of the American release, for some reason — dummied out of Lunar Knights was the Bonus Content in which Taurus Fire managed to wreak havoc in the Boktaiverse).
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: Rogue. This dies down the more he appears, but in his first appearance in Star Force 2, it's ridiculous how much the cutscene boasts of his power, despite only having 800 HP and none of his special abilities yet.
    • Jack Corvus too. He's probably one of the easiest bosses in the game (well, pretty much everything is easy in Star Force 3 if you know what you're doing, but still) but in your first boss fight the battle immediately ends before you can finish him off, cutting to a scene where Jack Corvus is at full strength and Mega Man is panting.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: In the second game, it seems like Geo can't do anything without the power of the OOPART. But the most ridiculous example ties in with Rogue's Cutscene Power to the Max, where Geo is helpless to stop his friends from being sucked into a black hole, despite being right next to the source of the black hole, which Geo was quite capable of OHKOing in the previous three cutscenes.
  • Damsel in Distress: Happens a lot with Luna. This comes to a head in the third game where her Damsel in Distress tendencies get her killed. Until the scientists find a way to put her back together.
  • Darker and Edgier: The main characters, especially Geo, are often inflicted with Conflict Balls and issues noticeably less cartoony than those of Battle Network, especially in the first and third games. In fact, a major part of the advertising for the third game was that it had a more serious story than the others.
  • Dark Magical Boy: Solo from Star Force 2. While Geo draws upon The Power of Friendship for his strength, Solo (check the Meaningful Name) uses his loneliness as his strength.
    • You can also choose to completely ignore the aesop, and use the same ability set yourself.
      • Of course, if you do, you generally have to be content that it offers you basically a weaker version of your primary Tribe (you can't use Mega cards, the dark Link Force Big Bang can only be used to counter your opponents time-stop cards, and that same Big Bang will rip you out of Burai form besides). However, there are several Wave Command Codes that will offer you Game Shattering stat boosts and your Burai form as soon as you can reach the Code screen; and the Burai form is optional.
      • In Star Force 3, however, Geo can more properly access some Dark Magical Boy Mojo himself in Burai Noise. Burai Noise is a general improvement on Burai Tribe, with the same Real Brothers nixing properties, but which more adequately reinforces the sword attribute boost, most notably taken advantage with the plethora of powerful, multi-hitting Sword-Attribute Cards.
  • Death Glare: Geo gives one to Crimson Dragon before the second round of the Final Boss battle in 3. Asskicking ensues.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Mild example. Taurus Fire is a fire-element boss; in the elemental zodiac, however, the bull is an earth type.
  • Dinosaurs Are Dragons: The Fire Dinosaur Tribe-On gives Mega the ability to, well, spit fire. Plesio Surf can also spit lightning.
  • Disc One Final Dungeon: In the third game, Dealer's Base probably counts, the later orbital base also seemed like the end as well.
  • Disappeared Dad: Geo's father, Kelvin Stelar, vanished while on a First Contact mission, though later we find out that he's been turned into a wave and is somewhere in space. In the anime he briefly speaks with Geo at the end of the first season before apparently going off to explore the universe, while in the games He comes back home alive and well after the menace of Meteor G is taken care of.
  • Discard and Draw: Each installment of the series has a different, more developed power-up system.
    • In the first game, Mega Man can draw upon the power of the AM Sages.
    • In the second game, they've left, but Mega Man can take advantage of the powers of ancient OOPART superweapons... and their mixes.
    • In the third game, Mega Man can, through either the Ace or Joker program, command into the power of Noise, which, short term, gives him the power of the FM aliens who invaded in the first game, and at its higher levels, can tap him into the power of the Meteor currently on a collision course with the planet.
    • Notably, the Big Bangs of the various powers tend to mimic each other. The Wood and Heat Big Bangs are always a tornado and a single massive blast, for example (even if he can wave the Extinction Blazer around a little bit) - and the Noise Force Big Bang for the Elec element deliberately reproduces Thunder Zerker's Thunderbolt Blade. On the other hand, the Aqua NFBB produces three large waves of water, in equally deliberate contrast to the Star Force Big Bang Magician's Freeze.
  • Disney Death: Luna in the third game. Sort of. See her profile for more details.
    • Also in the third game, Ace sacrifices himself to stop Joker from blowing everyone up. Every character present, and some that weren't, act like and state that he's dead... until he's shown bandaged up in the hospital during the credits with no apparent explanation other than it makes for a happier resolution.
    • Presumably, he was brought back the same way Luna was.
  • Downloadable Content: Each game allowed you to download a Secret Battle Card or two and possibly even extra BrotherBand Data... back when the Download Station still hosted them. If you have access to a hacking device like Action Replay, you can simulate the transmission and get them, anyway.
    • The first game offered you the Andromeda Giga Card and Legendary Master Shin's Brother Data (which net you a Giga +1 Bonus).
    • The second game offered the King Grandeur and Le Mu Cards, plus BrotherBand data for both L.M. Shin and the original Mega Man himself.
    • The third game had the Acid Arrest and Crimson Meteor cards, but no BrotherBand Data.
  • The Dragon: Hollow is this to Vega, and he's notable as such since the Bermuda Maze chapter is essentially his fault, down to convincing Harp Note to work for the Neo Mu Empire. He has a famous I Lied moment, but he does keep himself from "permanently" damaging MegaMan.
    • Gemini and Heartless both count as both The Starscream, and Heartless may arguably be a case of Enigmatic Minion.
    • Omega-Xis does something similar: Namely hijacking Geo's family's lawnmower and going on a joyride on it. Let's just say that after wrecking a particularly treasured item of Geo's during the joyride, Geo forces Omega-Xis to participate in a dog show in order for him to compensate for the damages.
  • Dub Induced Plot Hole: A few examples, ranging from minor to distracting.
    • Artifact Title: The original Japanese gives MegaMan Geo-Omega a unique title in "Shooting Star Rockman" (a deliberately English translation of Ryuusei no Rockman), but each of the localized versions use "Star Force", which ceases to be accurate after MegaMan loses the power of the Satellite Admins.
    • What Song Was This Again?: The finale of Sonia's concert at the end of her scenario in Black Ace/Red Joker comes complete with Sonia's own song, notably given lyrics. However, the song's subject is the eponymous "Shooting Star".* To Japanese audiences, this would double as a Title Drop, but the reference is lost to western audiences.
    • Title Drop: This reference is the primary loss in the games' localization. References to shooting stars abound, especially in 3; and some of the Murian Hertzes at the end of the 2nd game address Geo as the Warrior of the Fallen Star. Also, there was a Mythology Gag in which Geo and Omega exclaim "Let's Rock!" (And later "Let's Blues!"), which you might've missed if you weren't aware of one of the most basic translation issues effecting the original Mega Man games.
    • In the second installment, Solo is granted equipment called the "kamikakushi", which is the Japanese name for the phenomenon of being spirited away. He puts it to good use during a museum heist.
    • Inverted in the first game, where dub choices reinforce a line or two of dialogue. In Ryuusei no Rockman, Subaru accuses Luna*.]] of acting like his satellite. In MegaMan Star Force, Geo*.]] makes the same claim, where it has a tad more bite.
  • Dub Name Change: In the first game at least, a number of the name changes actually make more sense than the original names. With the aliens in the first game being named after constellations, Taurus and Lyra made for better names than the original Ox and Harp. However, the localization team apparently forgot to carry Lyra's Dub Name Change over to Harp Note.
    • Inconsistent Dub: That particular issue is fixed in the anime, although Lyra Note's human name also becomes Sonia Sky (perhaps because Sonia Strumm was too much of a Punny Name for the localization's tastes). Other attempts to deal with the conventions of the translation include restoring Ophiuchus Queen's original name (in the game, she refers to herself as "Queen Ophiuca"), and changing Mr. Shepar's name to "Shepard". One episode, however, contains an outright mistake - it's not the "Rock Buster", it's the "Mega Buster".
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Unlike its predecessor, where this trope is played annoyingly straight, it's averted here. In the second game onwards Mega Man essentially becomes world famous. This is especially noticable with the EM Bodies, who treat him like a superstar.
    • Played straight in the third game, though, as most of WAZA refuses to take Mega Man seriously.
  • Dummied Out: The localization of the third game removed the input screen for Noise and Purpose Cards, as well as the Secret Satellite Server. Thankfully, there are working Action Replay codes to access them.
  • Elemental Powers: Humans who combine with EM beings generally derive their powers from the four-part Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system. Some may also adopt secondary attributes, such as sword, wind, breaking, or some combination thereof.
  • Energy Beings: If a character isn't human, it's this. Even the artificial ones.
  • Empty Shell: Hollow (of Vega's lover, Altair) and Strong, after being revived. Strong recovers though..
  • Everything is Online: Including sunken galleons, lost medieval treasure, rocks and rotisserie chicken, and that's just in 2.
  • Evil Duo: Queen Tia and her younger brother Jack in the third game. Their FM-ian partners, Virgo and Corvus, were an Evil Duo themselves back on the FM planet.
  • Fanservice: One of the final episodes of the anime evokes the Hot Mom trope in extremely unsubtle ways.
    • Sonia, in her transformation sequence, gets a blatant ass shot.
    • The third game puts Sonia in a Sailor Fuku. Bud, Zack, and Geo appropriately go wild over it.
  • Fanservice Pack: The transfer from video game to anime created some rather, uh, noticeable changes to Vega's design.
  • Fight Like A Card Player: Wave Battle is basically a card game version of Net Battling, and MegaMan and company use Battle Cards.
  • Five-Man Band: Though Geo does all of the work, his inner circle has all the makings of a Five Man Band. When Geo does his work as Mega Man, Luna and Sonia's roles are reversed (since Sonia still has Lyra's powers, and Luna has none of which to speak).
    • The Hero: Geo
    • The Lancer: Luna
    • The Big Guy: Bud
    • The Smart Guy: Zack
    • The Chick: Sonia
    • Sixth Ranger: Technically Solo, but he comes and goes as he pleases. Ace is a better fit.
      • Pat also would've fit, and he was certainly hyped into position over the course of the first game, but, Well....
    • Ace clearly had this in mind when he created the Satella Police Commandos. Things perhaps didn't work out so well.
  • Five-Bad Band
  • Flunky Boss: Queen Ophiuca and Wolf Woods will summon snake and wolf viri to attack you. Hollow will actually summon viruses, and Ra Mu will summon Murian soldiers to take swipes at you.
  • Food End - In the credits of Star Force 3.
  • For the Evulz: Virgo and Corvus.
  • Foregone Victory: In the second battle against Crimson Dragon, you are invincible. Really. No matter what he shoots at you or how many HP you have left, you won't die. The whole point of this "battle" is to get to show off in Finalized form; in fact, the only way to beat him is to use the Noise Force Big Bang attack, which is suddenly strong enough to kill him off instantly.
  • Fusion Dance: EM Wave Change, and it's not just Geo who gets it.
  • Franchise Killer: The series was already on shaky ground with its fans due to the battle system, but for many Star Force 2 was the straw that broke the camel's back. Sales numbers of Star Force 3 and Operate Shooting Star seem to support this, and it's quite unlikely the series will ever return.
    • Similarly, the anime never made it past the second season, which seems to have been canceled early going by the plot progression and odd number of episodes.
  • From The Ashes: With some mild notation about how it being 200 years in the future (and none of the original cast are left), Star Force was a rather transparent attempt to keep up the flagging Battle Network series.
  • Gainax Ending: Only in the Star Force Double Tribe anime. The last episode was ridiculousy rushed and thus featured:
    • Solo/Bly's backstory being changed into something that had no relevance to the game and made no sense (so what, he was out to violently kill Mega Man just to protect his civilization?)
      • And his friends sacrificed themselves sealing Mu, thus giving him no reason to hate friendship!
    • Removed the backstories of the Big Bad and Hollow, the epic final fight with Bly, and the backstory about what happened to Mu.
    • Also, the final boss was defeated in one attack before it got to do anything.
  • Gambit Pileup: Star Force 3. So, let's get this straight: King is working to control Meteor G, Heartless is working to overthrow him and contact Kelvin, Joker is trying to fulfill his base purpose, Queen Tia and Jack are plotting to overthrow those three and destroy Earth's EM technology, Corvus and Virgo are ready to kill them if needed to take over Earth, and Ace betrayed them all to join WAZA. Never mind Solo's personal tirade against all of them to destroy their Mu technology and his use/abuse of WAZA to that end. Poor Geo's just about the only one without some sort of ulterior motive.
    • That actually serves to put his truly noble motives in evidence.
  • Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Geo seems to need at least two of these per game whenever he slips back into angst mode. Ironically he's doing these for everyone else in 3. Go go Character Development!
  • Geo Effects: Burning, Freezing, Paralysis, Gravity, Attack Boost, Assist Drone, and Broken are all panel effects - and let's not even get started on when War-Rock starts taking swipes at the territory.
  • Global Currency Exception: Two instances in Ace and Joker: As they travel the Wave Road, Geo and Omega-Xis will be granted the opportunity to rescue a number of Hertz from battle and to collect Noise Frags, the latter-day equivalent of Battle Network Bug Frags. King Root, in Hertz Square will accord them a point for every Hertz they save, and will exchange those points for various programs. Later in the game, Geo and Omega find a Noism who will do the same in exchange for the Noise Frags. Neither will except Zennys.
  • Geo-metric Magic: The second Star Force game seems to have been shooting for this, complete with Function and (small, almost inncouous) Ritual - an attempt that might've worked if Solo wasn't the only one using it on-screen. MegaMan can do it, too, but it's a lot harder to connect the dots when all you're looking at is a Wave Command Card.
    • The next time you try inputting the Tribe King Wave Command, take a look at the dots - it's an outline of MegaMan's Shooting Star symbol.
    • Star Force 3 carries this on with the Noise Kaizou ("Modification") Gear and its relatives.
    • In the anime, Burai's transformation does this with Instant Runes, instead.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual/See Thru Specs: The goggles given to Geo by Aaron Boreal (that belonged to Geo's dad) allow him to see EM waves.
    • Well, not at first. The Visualizer only starts seeing EM waves after Omega-Xis crashes into (and from the looks of the animation, bombards with EM radiation) Geo.
      • Actually, the Visualizer could always see EM Waves, although never so clearly. But the Wave Road was still completely invisible until Omega-Xis came.
  • Guide Dang It: Just try and use the third game's Secret Satellite Server without a guide.
    • In general, nowhere near as bad as its predecessor, but still irksome. Case in point, just try and use the third game's anything without a guide. Or a hack device.
  • Hard Light: Matter Waves and the successive Real Waves and Wizards. Hollow is a person made out of Matter Waves, or, well, almost.
  • Hartman Hips: Heartless. If you squint hard enough, you can seen it in the sprites. Definitely so with the artwork.◊
  • Heart Container: HP Memory again.
  • Hello, Insert Name Here: The third game explicitly says not to make your nickname naughty.
    • A notice which may actually be warranted, as the profanity filters the second game had, which changed anything indecent into a series of asterisks, are no longer in place.
  • Here There Were Dragons: The anime and second game reveal that the Wave Road (and a number of viruses) existed in the far, far past, during the age of Mu, so modern technology successfully managed to make The Magic Come Back. Whether Murian and Modern capabilities to interact with the internet count as Magic from Technology or Magitek is still up for debate.
  • Heroic BSOD: Zack and Bud have one in the third game when Luna dies... but not really.
    • Thanks to Character Development, Geo actually steps up and takes charge of the situation while Bud and Zack Freak Out over Luna dying.
    • Geo's had them in other games. In the second game, he has one over his failure to pull Zack, Bud, and Sonia out of the Un-Dimension... which just ends up depositing them in other places of the world, and then another one where Sonia betrays him for Lady Vega.
  • Heroic Resolve: The entire ending of 3, as well as how Kelvin was holding off Meteor G in the first place.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Acid Ace pulls a pretty heart-wrenching one after Geo's fight with Joker.
  • Hostage for MacGuffin: In the anime, Cygnus pins Geo down and threatens to kill him unless Omega hands over the Andromeda Key. Omega acquiesces, only for Geo to be saved by a Deus ex Machina moments later anyways.
    • In the Tribe anime, Hyde is teaching an art class when Subaru's mom - Akane - shows up, interested in taking part. After he learns who she is, Hyde immediately hijacks control of every viewscreen in town, showing that he's taken her hostage (really, she's just sitting for a portrait he asked to paint of her - and, no, nobody learns who Rockman is by association). When Rockman shows up unexpectedly (he got sidetracked by the portrait), Hyde wave changes to Phantom Black and kidnaps Akane, who is given one of the LEAST subtle ass-shots ever in all of shonen.
  • Hot Dad: Kelvin Stelar. Don't deny it.
  • Hot Mom: Hope Stelar. Taken to ridiculous angles in the anime.
  • Idol Singer: Sonia Strumm, who has to work with a corrupt manager who exploits her songs to get himself out of debt.
    • She quits at the end of her chapter in the first game, but gets back into the business with a vengeance before the second starts.
  • "I Know You're In There Somewhere" Fight: Subverted. Any time Geo has to fight his friends (such as the first boss battle with Bud/Taurus Fire), he worries that defeating the FM-ian possessing him/her will kill the host body. Omega-Xis, the alien who gave Geo his powers, assures him otherwise.
    • This is played straight in 3, when Joker makes Acid go Crush Kill Destroy. Extra points for the fact that he would've killed Ace from inside-out if he wasn't stopped.
  • The Inspector: Bob Copper (Heiji Goyouda), who generally finds himself involved in cases that deal with superhuman activities. He doesn't succeed, but he gets pretty darn close. Yes, yes he does remind you of Zenigata.
    • Secret Chaser: Geo and Mega work hard to keep ahead of Copper. They manage to turn him into a Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist when they try to slow his investigation, an effort which involves knocking him out with a baseball to the forehead, and cracking his computer to delete his entire report. Mega, who dragged Geo into it, apparently never hit on the idea that explaining the situation to a potential ally was an all around better option than behaving like a criminal and ratcheting up the policeman's suspicion.
    • Overshadowed by Awesome: Copper is actually quite competent, he's just utterly out of his league. Even in the anime, which gives him more screen time, MegaMan evades his clutches only through the virtue of his superhuman abilities. Again, Geo and Mega probably aren't helping things with their unquestioning distrust of the badge.
    • Occult Detective: Well, extraterrestrial detective, maybe.
    • Drives Like Crazy: In the anime Copper has some truly insane driving skills, being able balance his car at a forty-five degree angle on a railguard and still be able to drive forward. Omega-Xis was most impressed.
    • Broken Masquerade: Copper comes very, very close to connecting Geo to the weird activities going on in town in the first game (not least because Geo's house is radioactive).
    • Reasonable Authority Figure: Copper generally remains one throughout the series; he would be more of one if Geo and Mega didn't keep making him suspicious.
  • Invocation: Star Force tried to keep Battle Network's energy going with similar catch phrases. When Geo transformed in the first two games: "EM Wave Change! Geo Stelar, on (the) air!" In Japanese: "Denpa Henkan! [Wave Change!] Hoshikawa Subaru, on air!" To announce a boss battle (in both versions): "Wave Battle! Ride on!"
  • I Was Just Passing Through: The end of Star Force 2. "Your body was in my way", indeed.
  • Jekyll and Hyde: Played straight with Pat and his other personality, Rey.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Omega-Xis, later in the series. At the start he's just a plain old jerk.
  • Joke Item: Equipping certain upgrades on Omega-Xis is Star Force 3 can change the Mega Busters sound effects, as well as changing the L buttons help/talk messages to more humorous dialogue.
  • Justified Tutorial: Luna teaches Geo all about setting up a Player Page in the beginning of the first game, because Geo really doesn't know how to do it.
  • Kick the Dog: Joker blowing up Luna. It's purely this, regardless of his rationale, especially since at least part of the reason was to get Mega Man to react.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Most of the humans possessed in the first game/anime series suffer from this after being released. Omega-Xis has it too in the anime, with no memory of his past as an AMian.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: In an attempt to break Geo's spirit, Solo sends Bud, Zack, and Sonia into the Un-Dimension, and then sends them to Whazzup Village, Loch Mess, and the Bermuda Maze, respectively. Later on, the local shaman falsely makes Bud (now Budicus due to a bout of amnesia from falling on his head from the Un-Dimension portal) an emissary of the Mu civilization, prompting a deeply enraged Solo (an actual member of the Mu civilization) to attempt to beat Bud to death for befouling his ancestors through his actions. In other words, Solo kinda brought it upon himself for doing that earlier action.
  • Les Collaborateurs: Well, the formative stages of them, at least. Dr. Vega's chief plot is to bring about a new world order in which those she deems unworthy simply do not exist (she has a fairly good reason for this). In order to enforce this, she ends up unleashing the power of Mu. And suddenly the whole damn world is begging her to let them in, desperately claiming that their flimsy claims to talent mark them as special.
  • Living Weapon: Wizards/FM and AMians can be considered this. As well as the weapons that Omega-xis consumes to obtain the powers of Zerker/Saurian/Ninja
  • Lizard Folk: The original name for the fire tribe in BerShiDin is "Dinosaur", and their section of the museum features models of animals; and yet they have a Murian weapon and are treated as sentient.
  • Lolicon: The anime is packed with loli Fanservice, mostly Sonia. The first game has an ADULT MAN who is obviously in love with Sonia, as well as a female teacher who REALLY loves her students, but perhaps not that way, but that would more likely be Shotacon anyway...
  • Loners Are Freaks: And easy targets for the rogue military FM-ians who try to exploit their jealousy/shame/fears.
  • Lost in Translation: Shows up every now and again.
    • In BerShiDin, Geo, Luna, and Zack find Bud in an area called Whazzap. This is technically an accurate translation of the original Japanese "nanska" (a corruption of "Nan desu ka?"), but it loses the correlation to the Real World phenomenon the location references - the Nazca lines.
    • In the third game, Geo has a poster of the Pleiades star cluster on his wall. This makes more sense if you know Subaru is the Japanese name for that constellation.
  • Love Hurts: In the second game, the death of Vega's lover first inspired her to create Matter Waves and then (after she found Mu relics) decide to rule the world.
  • Loves My Alter Ego: To the point that even when Luna discovers Geo is Mega Man, she insists that her attraction is solely to Mega Man and not Geo, refusing to consider them one and the same.
  • Marked Change: Inverted with Solo, who loses his Facial Markings when he transforms.
  • Masquerade: Geo and Sonia do their best to hide Omega and Lyra from the public eye. This is made somewhat more difficult by the fact that the remaining aliens don't seem to care about exposing themselves to the world.
  • Meaningful Name: In spades. Solo and Copper come to mind.
    • At first, Joker only has that name to fit with Dealer's Theme Naming, but after he reveals his true form as the strongest Battle Wizard ever created, and his Villainous Breakdown, in which he turns into a crackling mess, it becomes meaningful.
    • Geo had some fun with this, calling Luna "Satellite Girl" early in the first game because the moon is the Earth's satellite, and Luna's always around him, nagging him to go to school. Interestingly enough, judging by dialogue in the second game, Sonia's name is apparently pronouced as "Sunya" (Geo stammers "S-Son-" and a nearby person states "Sun?"). And I'm sure we all know the relationship between the sun and the earth. No, not like that.
      • Also, just about everybody else who has a sidequest of some sort. There's gotta be at least 30 people from the first and second games whose names drop hints at your quest for them.
      • Interestingly, all the named NPCs remain in the series' installments - you'll see old job-givers all over the place, though withot any reference to previous incidents.
  • Mega Curls: Luna
  • Metal Gearing: Acumulate? You mean it builds up inside them?
  • Missing Trailer Scene: The Tribe anime's penultimate episode's On The Next sequence has a dramatic shot of RockMan as Thunder Berserk swinging his sword and lunging at the camera. Never shows up.
  • Mission Pack Sequel: It's a Mega Man game series, so natch.
  • Mole In Charge: Possibly. Somebody with access to WAXA's main lab sealed it with the Dealer Key.
  • Mood Whiplash: Star Force 2. One boss's threat is that he's going to tickle Geo's friends.
    • Well, it is possible to die from laughter, so it might be worse than it sounds.
    • For crying out loud, the area of the game where that happens is called Whazzap. To start conversations with people you have to say "Whazzap". Bud is being worshipped as a God. It's not a Mood Whiplash if you're not really expecting much.
  • Mundane Utility: Geo has on occasion used his EM Wave Change technique to accomplish relatively menial tasks, usually during sidequests. For example, early on in the first game he uses it to retrieve a propellor from a rooftop. A normal kid would've just fetched a ladder.
    • Technically: It's the second game, and the rooftop happens to belong to a condo complex (which is probably much bigger than it looks on the map), though you're right—another example is when he uses his powers to get to the upper section of Zack's room, despite the fact that there's a supposedly functioning elevator-step in plain sight.
  • Mysterious Protector: Geo swears to keep Luna safe in the first game. Luna, only half-conscious, manages to hear the specific line and has it added to the School Play.
  • Never Trust A Title: The "Star Force" in the title refers to the power MegaMan receives in the first game and is irrelevant to the other two games. It gets a passing mention in SF3 when Geo and WAZA name their save-the-world Team "Star Force," but that's the extent of its importance in the game. Also, the star/space theme isn't as strong in the other games as it is in the first game. Even the original title, Ryuusei no RockMan or "Shooting Star RockMan," is somewhat deceptive until SF3 where MegaMan is sometimes called "the blue shooting star."
    • Played straight in the third game as what they are doing is protecting the earth from an asteroid that would kill out all life.
  • The Nicknamer: Dr. Goodal of WAZA, who calls Omega-Xis "Meggers", and Acid "Acidina".
    • Surprisingly, she refers to Ace by his given name of "Arthur".
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In the second game, if you have at least one brother from the another version, you can mix tribes to create some awesome results. Ninja Dinosaurs anyone?
    • Not only that, but if you have another brother from the last version, you can fuse all three tribes into Tribe King and become a Ninja Dinosaur Swordsman.
    • Also, there were actually plans to have a Pirate tribe.◊ It was probably taken out because having a Ninja Pirate Dinosaur would have been too much awesome for the game to handle.
      • Incidentally, there were also plans for a non-elemental Angel tribe.
  • No Export for You: It looks like this is going to be the fate for the Star Force/Battle Network crossover. No real loss though.
    • Also the Lunar Knights link features in Star Force. And the Wave Command cards in the European version of Star Force 2. And the Noise Mod Gear cards in the non-Japanese versions of Star Force 3, yet they were mentioned on the North American version site.
      • In Europe, Starforce 3 was never released.
  • No Kill Like Overkill: A gameplay mechanic in Black and Red.
  • Ojou: Luna, complete with Princess Curls.
  • One Game for the Price of Two: While the first Star Force is one-game-for-the-price-of-three, Star Force 2 is, oddly, three games for the price of two.
    • Reverted by the third game, which reverts to the two-versions shtick, but there's no reason to buy both as none of the version-exclusive content can be transferred.
    • The differences among the first two installments were largely the nature of your power up. By Linking games, you could trade, create, and share Brother Cards, which would allow other players to access forms outside their own games (Leo and Dragon forms in Pegasus, for example). In the second game, this was much the same, but the most common use was to have a friend with the third Tribe grant it to you so you could become the Tribe King (unless you were using the Wave Command Codes). And while "version-exclusive" content (which largely amounts to the Black Ace or Red Joker forms) can't be transferred between Red and Black, Brothers could exchange Noise Data, which allowed for the exceedingly powerful Merge Noise transformations (basically stacking two Noise combinations* released in Japan listed several suggestions: Wolf X Gemini - for Sword+ and Paralysis Sword; Taurus X Corvus - for Fire+80(!) and HP Bug defense (and the black Taurus Noise is cooler than Corvus X Taurus; Virgo X Cancer, for defenses against Freezing and Bubble status; and Ophiuchus X Wolf, for Wood+, which takes serious advantage of all the Bullet Seed type cards.]]). This fits under No Export for You*, but Purpose Cards could be shared among Real Brothers in the third game, which seriously stacked the bonuses.
    • A little more detail on the version-exclusive content of Black and Red: The major form was unique (all the Noise forms were available in both installments, but certain ones were more likely to occur depending on your version), but so were the various Levels of the Meteor Server that could be accessed — each version had twelve levels to access depending on your level (though you couldn't get to the twelfth without certain Purpose Cards and maximum Noise, so it was really more 11 + 1. All together, this made for 24 levels.
  • One-Winged Angel: Played straight in the first two games, where both of the final bosses pull off one of these when their health gets low. However, in the third game this trope is actually inverted when MegaMan enters his Finalized form in a second round with the Final Boss, who hasn't changed.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: These ones become Cyberspace Wave Road entities when they transform!
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: The one hole in MegaMan's outfit is the one through which his hair protrudes. This would be less notable if he weren't the only one sporting the comet-do in town.
  • Party Scattering: Early in BerShiDin, Solo tosses Luna, Zack, Bud, and Sonia into the Un-Dimension. Geo successfully retrieves Luna, but is unable to stop the last three from being sucked in, though we later find they've been cast around the world. And in one case, into the hands of the enemy.
  • The Power of Friendship: Interestingly, this is an actual gameplay element in the games. The more people you link up with over Wi-fi, the more abilities you can use and you gain access to extra transformations.
    • In-story, it can apparently prevent you from being killed, instead leaving you at the Only Mostly Dead stage.
    • Rezon Cards (which were removed from the localized installments over licensing issues) were basically physical manifestations of this in Black and Red. There were a dozen or so of them, featuring various thematic groupings of EM Humans or Noised Beings depending on the specific Purpose, which was generally to be the "Ultimate [Insert Power Here] Master". Bonuses could be various cards getting a power boost, a free aura or barrier at the start, an extra turn of Finalization, a Charged Shot for the Finalization, or even for the Meteor Server to log you in one level higher than normal (which, if you had maximum Noise, would log you in to the secret twelfth level of the Meteor Server).
  • The Power of Rock: Sonia, when fused with Lyra, uses a guitar as an offensive weapon.
  • Powers as Programs: Battle Cards are part of the children's card game, Wave Battle, and are often self-contained instances of enemy attacks. MegaMan can weaponize them. Also, given the power-ups he can achieve, he can draw on the powers of other beings as he sees fit, though in lesser amounts, perhaps.
  • Punch Clock Villain: The FM-ians in the anime are portrayed like this, and actually spend more time screwing around, doing things like playing in game shows and shopping that they practically replace the real main characters as they go through their comedic antics. Which arguably makes it that much worse when Gemini murders each and every last one of them in cold blood as they spend their last day on Earth just having a good time.
  • Punny Name: OH GOD, SO MUCH.
  • Randomly Drops: Illegal Data cards in the third game. Wouldn't be nearly as annoying if you could still trade cards over Wi-Fi as in the first two games.
  • Recycled IN SPACE!: Mega Man Battle Network...IN SPACE!! Literally.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Subverted/averted. Mega, one of the main heroes, has red eyes, and Geo's eye color changes to red when he transforms into Mega Man.
    • Played straight with Solo.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Geo and Omega. Despite Omega being blue, he proves to be the hothead.
    • MegaMan and Harp Note. Geo tends to be the more serious of the pair, whereas Sonia's far more outgoing and perky.
    • Mega is the Red Oni to everyone. Except maybe Luna.
  • Remember the New Guy: Averted—Laplace is present in the third game with no explanation, and no one comments on it. His name is only ever even mentioned twice in the game itself, neither of which occurs during the main plot.
  • Replacement Goldfish: Hollow was originally created by Vega in an attempt to bring her lover back to life. It didn't quite work, hence the Meaningful Name.
  • Resigned to The Call: Geo's not much for heroism in the first game, but goes along anyway due to feeling With Great Power instinctively. He later accepts his role more wholeheartedly.
  • The Reveal: In the first game, Omega-Xis is actually a survivor of the destroyed Planet AM. In the anime, the Sages have to Reveal This to Him.
  • Reverse Mole: Heartless.
  • Rivals Team Up: The basis of a four-stage minigame in Black and Red, in which Geo and Solo attempt to take down a series of massive monsters of Noise that may remind you of the Dark Soul Monsters from Battle Network 5 and the Anime.
  • Sanity Slippage: In the anime, emotional humans who spend time under the influence of FM-ians may suffer from blending personalities with their FM-ian. Shinsuke and Tsukasa, in particular.
  • Scary Black Man: Joker certainly fits the bill. It doesn't hurt that he blows Luna up. Temporarily.
  • Screw The Rules, I Have Money!: Rich Dotcom's Modus Operandi, especially in the anime, where he even tries to bribe Geo, who immediately inverts this.
  • School Play: Luna first successfully got Geo onto the school's very grounds by telling him he was the only one who could fulfill a very important, nigh essential, part for the play Class 5-A was putting on. As it turns out...
    • You Are A Tree, Charlie Brown: Geo's important part is largely to model a pair of tree branches, which he wasn't aware of until it was too late.
    • Notably, the play ends up being about the Taurus Fire scenario from earlier in the game - complete with homemade MegaMan and Taurus Fire costumes. Unfortunately, Luna happens to be a Dreadful Musician when it comes to the Creative Arts in general*, so even when Pat can't make it and Geo ends up wearing the Hero's costume, Luna still fails to recognize him. (She also fails to draw the connection from having Bud wear the fearsome "Cow Man" costume — but, then again, she spent that particular fight more or less passed out).
    • And when he appears on stage, we're treated to a brief chunk of the Moving Scene score (normally reserved for moments of heroism), with MegaMan appearing in his full and proper costume... until Zack accidentally knocks out the lights. When he gets them back on, Geo's back in the miserable costume — both Luna and the audience are left unsure whether he was actually in the costume or whether Luna was imagining things.
  • Secret Identity: Geo and Omega have to bust their balls trying to keep it that way, though Omega is considerably less concerned with taking care of stuff like that.
  • Sequential Boss: Dread Joker R and Acid Ace R. In that order. Also Those Two Bosses because you have to fight them in a row!
  • Shout Out: Several. When Goodall asks Mega Man to investigate the areas where Wizards went out of control, Mega gets into a detective frenzy, and Geo remembers of a program he liked: WRI. On said mission, one of the Noise Hertz sings a part of "Somebody's watching me". Geo also has an earthworm for a school project; its name is James.
    • As for Capcom itself, at one point Geo's teacher mentions he drinks coffee blend #107.
      • Another one occurs with an NPC's name: Sho Ryuken
    • Alex Trebek. One sidequest even has Mega suggesting the guy "might be in Jeopardy!" when they hear the name.
    • Not to mention the fact that in the third game there is a generic satella male police officer named after Those Two Guys from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
  • Sliding Scale Of Antiheroes: Solo/Rogue is not a nice boy, and likes to hover between Types III and IV. He certainly has very little compunction regarding killing people, to judge from the fact that his first appearance in the third game is heralded by the Laplace Blade being hurled through the space where Jack Corvus was not two seconds before.
  • Smug Snake: Dark Phantom is just not as good as getting people to match his "script" as he wants to be. Also, King.
  • Socialization Bonus: The Brother Band manifests these, both for the players and for the characters in-universe.
  • Spell My Name with an S: In the second game, Plesio Surf (AKA Gerry Romero) calls himself Plesio Wave, possibly because his Japanese name is Brachio Wave.
  • Stay Frosty: Practically becomes Mega's Catch Phrase in the third game.
    • Or, his second favorite. "Buck wild" shows up more noticeably.
  • The Starscream: Dark Phantom is implied to be this by Solo before he and Dark Phantom fight each other.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Vega and Altair.
  • Stellar Name: Not just a play on the main character's name, but every FM-ian is named after a constellation (Taurus, Cygnus, Gemini, Lyra, etc.).
  • Stylistic Suck: The translation of BerShiDin more or less deliberately plays up the offbeat source material. Among the Saurian Tribe, we have the Chompsrealhardasaur vs. the Neckistoolongadon, and then there's the town of Whazzap.
  • Super Mode: Geo gets a new one each game.
  • Super Registration Act: In Black and Red, the use of Wave Change with the Hunter-VG automatically registers the EM Human in question with a designation called a Trans-Code (MegaMan is Number 003), which must be deliberately accessed (which nicely justifies the until now Invocation).
    • Again, this registration occurs the first time the Hunter-VG is used. Until the registration is completed, while it is a very brief process, the character is barred from Wave Change. Remarkably, nobody ever seems to have a problem with this. The last installment is either sitting pretty on the Ideal Side or sitting pretty on a Sequel Hook.
    • Leaning in the direction of Sequel Hook (though the emotional closure from Star Force 3 and the lack of sales make it highly unlikely) is the fact that the Satellite Server Website and Tom Dubius himself ranking in at Transcode-020 suggest that there are a small host of registered Wave Change capable characters out there.List - Spoilers]]
  • Sweet Tooth: Ace binges on candy bars constantly.
  • Tanabata: While the kids do not go to the festival, the main villian of the second game and her boyfriend is based on this.
  • Team Dad: Geo, after being adopted into Luna's gang. Especially notable when Luna drops out of the picture in game 3.
  • Team Mom: Luna, after Geo gets adopted into her gang. Especially notable at the beginning of the second game, following the tutorial, when she starts fussing over whether the boys are wearing warm enough clothes.
  • Terrible Trio: They aren't exactly villainous, but Luna, Bud, and Zack have this dynamic.
  • The Corruption: Noise.
  • The Man Behind the Man: The ending of the first game reveals that Gemini had been manipulating the FM King into destroying planets with Andromeda.
  • Theme Naming: Tying in with the above, most of the characters' names are associated with a theme, especially the boss characters. The first game is constellations, the second cryptids, and the third the different suits in a deck of cards.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The third game's Noise system is based around this. If you overkill an enemy with a card, your Noise rate will arise according to how much you overkilled them (e.g if the enemy has 80 HP and you killed it with a card with 150 damage, you'll get 70% increase in Noise rate).
  • The Starscream: Heartless, Jack, and Tia. Way to go King....
    • Gemini has nothing but contempt for the cowardly King Cepheus in the anime. In the games, he's just bad at keeping his cool.
  • The Something Force: "Star Force" in 3.
  • Those Two Guys: Zack Temple and Bud Bison, Luna's closest friends/fanboys.
    • Until the third game where Bud's compatible alien (Taurus) returns.
  • Title Drop: By the third game, Subaru signs into the EM network as "Shooting Star Rockman".
    • Also in game three the name of the final storyline team, dedicated to stopping Meteor G, is called "Star Force".
  • Took a Level in Badass: Cancer Bubble does in the second game. He's easy enough... and then you beat the game and fight his IF form, whose attacks come at you at the speed of light. Many people find it near impossible to dodge his claw attack at that point.
  • Touched by Vorlons
  • Trailers Always Spoil: One of the English trailers for the third game spoils the goddamn final boss!!
  • Transformation Sequence: Plenty for the Wave Changes. A number exist for the various Super Modes as well.
    • Transformation Is a Free Action: While most of the EM Wave Changes are fairly fast, usually just involving a pose and a shout (and at the most a dramatic pause), Solo's special EM Wave Change is an incredibly elaborate process that must be at least ten times longer than the normal versions, and yet nobody ever tries to stop him.
      • The Transformation Sequences in PegLeoDra and BerShiDin are big, show-stopping, mid-battle affairs. In Red and Black, the Noise Changes happen after battle. Most of the changes are largely simply changes in color, though the Finalization sequence plays this straight.
  • Transformation Trinket: The OOPARTs in 2, but not as apparent, since Omega-Xis SWALLOWS them.
    • The Ace and Joker programs as well - they allow for Noise Change.
  • Triang Relations: Oh boy, where to begin? Luna has a massive fangirl crush on Mega Man, eventually turning into a more subdued one for Geo, which he sort of reciprocates in the form of a desire to protect her. At the same time, he and Sonia come together due to both of them having shared similar tragic life experiences, and Geo exhibits such behavior as pining away underneath an advertisement billboard featuring her when he thinks she's become his enemy. The third game muddies the water even further by throwing in a dating-sim inspired sequence where you have to retrieve one character's belongings, and doing so nets the player a cute little scene between Geo and the girl of your choice (or Bud).
  • Tsundere: Luna.
  • Unexplained Recovery: How in the blue hell did Ace go from "dead via Heroic Sacrifice" to "perfectly healthy in the hospital during the end credits"?
  • Universe Compendium: The various official strategy guides, plus things like databooks on Wave Command Cards*, the Secret Satellite Server*, and the Battle Black Box*, all sorts of fun stuff]]. These are all in Japan, though you can buy them (or ask your parents really nicely for your only Christmas present this year) either on Amazon (the Official Complete Works for Star Force and Battle Network were translated into English not too long ago by UDON, but there should still be Japanese editions listed) or from E-Capcom, the company's all-Japanese shop site. Good luck.
  • Unrealistic Black Hole: AMAKEN's Science Museum contains a machine that actually generates a small black hole. At one point, MegaMan needs to repair it so he can draw together the fragments of the Wave Road and proceed.Meta Discussion
    • In the post-game of Black and Red, Planet FM is under attack by Sirius, the lord of a zone called the "Black Hole Server", where he stores and preserves planets and their peoples for his own uses; however, unlike Brainiac, he does this not for knowledge but so he can essentially play toy soldiers. It would seem that it's not meant to be an actual Black Hole, however, as the fact that it only appeared recently suggests Sirius can pilot it about as he pleases, and it seemed to be a good idea to Cepheus and Omega-Xis to fire a series of interplanetary missiles at it; also, while normal Hertzes seem to be drawn irrevocably toward the center, MegaMan can walk about easily as he pleases. Considering that MegaMan has Noise control capabilities, suddenly, it would seem that the Black Hole Server is in fact a massive Noise Cluster, writ large to a galactic scale.
  • Unwinnable by Mistake: The sidequest to adding Zack to your Brother Band in Star Force 1 can become this if you're not carefull. You see, you have to go to a particular wave world after looking at Zack's Transer-message and talking to him afterwards and fight 10 consectutive battles, without any healing inbetween. The problem is, the viruses you fight there are mostly G-versions, not to mention the strongest versions of their usual virus-line. The first battles are very hard, but doable, but then comes one battle where a magician-type Virus is on the field, either healing himself or the other viruses, summoning 'Holy'-Panels, which cut the damage you or any enemy suffer on these by half, or summoning a yellow barrier which absorbs much damage. Combine that with the fact that you WILL run out of battle cards if you just blindly try to fire your attacks anywhere in hopes of damaging the pretty fast-moving viruses, you will have to restart this several times. And may god help you if the magician-virus has transformed all panels into holy-type, is protected by the yellow barrier AND is the last one on the field OR the other viruses are in top-form with you having no battle-cards ...
  • Victor Gains Loser's Powers: You get abilities in the form of cards. Also in the third game, Geo can take on the forms and abilities of past bosses.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Hyde snaps in the third game when his plan to beat Geo fails.
    • Joker also starts to laugh hysterically upon defeat, which would work better if Geo wasn't the only character in the game with two different mugshots.
  • Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Well, two out of three ain't bad. In the first game, Luna's trying to get Geo to fulfill the "GO TO SCHOOL" (caps hers) part of the trope.
  • Walking Armory: Interestingly, only a few characters in the series make use of Battle Cards; for the first two games, only MegaMan has access to them, though Harp Note and Burai both use them in the anime. Acid Ace and Dread Joker can use them in Red/Black.
  • Walking Spoiler: At least one character from each game has a major chunk of spoilers under their belt.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Shaman of Whazzup Village in the second game counts as this: He legitimately wanted his country, Whazzup, to prosper, but to do this, he had to fake an amnesiac Bud's status as a representitive of the Mu civilization (an action that nearly got Bud, or rather, Budicus, killed by a ticked-off Solo/Rogue), and later accept a Murian EM, Condor, from Hyde and kidnapped Geo's friends, including a now-cured-of-amnesia Bud to sacrifice them and their laughter to Mu before being defeated, feeling that none of the advanced civilizations would help them due to being a backwater civilization. Of course, he gets better after being defeated due to advice from Geo and his friends.
    • Lady Vega, the main villainess of the second game counts as this as well. To elaborate, Vega, real name, Vegalia, grew up in the kingdom of Tanabata, which suffered from an extremely terrible leadership that was eerily similar to the Somoza Regime in Nicaragua (right down to spending most of the treasury on frivalous things while waging wars on trivial matters), which eventually led to her lover to be killed during one of its wars. She tried to revive her lover as an EM, but it didn't quite work due to not remembering anything about "himself". To this end, she decided to make herself a god and separate fools from those with abilities, not wanting a repeat of what happened to her. Like above, she ends up getting better.
  • We Want Our Jerk Back: The "EM meteor" in two episodes of the anime makes Omega act overly polite and gentlemanly, as well as causing him to make some... odd comments initially. Naturally, this drives Geo insane.
    • Hell, War Rock becomes an regular milquetoast - not only does he abhor violence, when he can be convinced to fight, he refuses to use Predation since it would be rude to eat while standing. Curiously, after the meteor passes, he goes on a rant about how awful the experience was.
  • Wham Episode: Luna's death. Sure, she comes back eventually, but damn.
  • What Could Have Been: In the second game, we could've had a Pirate and Angel tribe.
    • And a noise form based off of Harp Note in the third game, also some of the noise forms were to have the old Megabuster from the first two games.
    • According to earlier statements by Xebec, the Tribe anime was meant to have 55 episodes, same as the first season. Given the ration of Filler
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer: In Star Force 3, Geo, Sonia, Zack, and Solo are all trapped in Class 5-A. While Geo and Sonia puzzle over how to get out, Solo asks Zack where the Wave Station is; Zack tells him its on the first floor. Noting the direction, Solo immediately summons the Laplace Blade and punches a massive hole into the floor, which leads the cast to the Teacher's Lounge, and then a second one in the wall to get everyone out to the Wave Station.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Solo, complete with red eyes, tan skin, and Facial Markings.
  • Whole Plot Reference: Almost. In the anime, Wolf takes off from the FM Cluster and spends the next two episodes as the Denpa-Pet of Mayu, who is ecstatic to have a D-Pet of her own (and she ends up names him "Ricky"). They become close, and things go relatively well until Wolf catches sight of the full moon, which forces him into his wild, uncontrollable Super Mode. Rockman shows up and they fight, despite Mayu's pleas for him to return to normal; she even gives him a Cooldown Hug. Sadly, while crazy Wolf Forest doesn't want to hurt her, he has no such compunction against Rockman, though is thwarted in his attempt by ending up on the receiving end of an Atomic Blazer, which leaves Mayu with the impression that he's just died. He's not, but he refuses to return to Mayu, because, ultimately, he's an FM-ian. In his place he leaves a small D-Pet that looks like a cub version of him (perhaps a cub of one of his wolf viruses), which she takes in as Ricky's child. (The description doesn't do it justice, but there's quite a strong element of Old Yeller here).
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Jack and Queen Tia's life have been pretty much crap since their childhood, and they wanted to bring The End of the World as We Know It because of it.
    • Solo got the short end of the stick himself. Remember why he hates everyone?
  • The Worf Effect: If you find yourself in range of Hollow's leash, the only thing that will save you is the power of the Grand Finale.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Gender is no object when it comes to MegaMan's opposition, especially remarkable in that the original two cases were both Geo's Love Interests. In the anime when Burai, RockMan, and Harp Note fight, Burai makes a point of not just taking out Harp Note, but taking her out early, so she can't distract him.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: Geo's dad is safe in space, but has no way of navigating home, and Omega-Xis is a fugitive from his own planet. He also ends up lost in space for a few weeks at the end of the third game.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: As far as actual blue hair, Ace and Queen have matching shades of blue hair. Sonia's hair is purple, Pat's is green, and Heartless's is pink.
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