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YMMV / Mega Man Star Force

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  • Accidental Innuendo: At one point in the anime, Hope plays Shipper on Deck for Geo and asks if he's interested in Sonia or Luna. Because Hope and Geo are a Wacky Parent, Serious Child duo, Hope shows No Sense of Personal Space while Geo gets embarrassed and protests he's not interested in romance. When Geo successfully escapes the conversation, Hope smirks about Geo still being a kid. Subtitled screenshots of Geo being embarrassed by his mother and of Hope's smirk afterwards have been used as out-of-context jokes.
  • Adorkable: Once Geo's true personality emerges, he begins to behave like this. He fanboys over the trend of the moment (Space, the OOParts, the Satella Police), has no idea how to handle crushes or romance, and has a hard time accepting praise.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: In the first game, Cygnus comments that betrayal is the essence of society to his host Tom. While this could, at the time, seem like standard manipulation, learning the backstory of the FM King at the end of the game places this line in a light. Was Cygnus truly just preying on Tom's fears, or was he as jaded as Cepheus due to all of the betrayals that had been suffered in pursuit of the throne?
  • Americans Hate Tingle: Luna is much more divisive in the west, partly because her archetypal Tsundere and Ojou tropes are less popular outside of Japan and partly because her exposure overseas was dominated by her Flanderization into an Alpha Bitch from the games. Her more sympathetic Moe traits in the anime are less known abroad, as the dub was canceled less than halfway through, literally ending in the middle of Luna's focus arc at the height of her Clingy Jealous Girl portrayal, leaving only those aware of the anime's continuation knowing about it. Because she challenges the Fan-Preferred Couple, shippers find even more reason to dislike her.
  • Anvilicious: Having friends is good. Isolating yourself is bad.
  • Awesome Music: See the franchise page for examples.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Luna tends to be one of the more divisive characters, even outside of shipping reasons. As an archetypical example of the tsundere and ojou in the first game, along with said traits being exaggerated in the second game, she got a lot of flak as an annoying bitch that Geo was within his rights to be annoyed by, especially when compared to his well written relationship with Sonia. Fans of the anime and players of 3 however enjoy Luna's more adorable behavior and displays of Character Development, particularly her brief death and the pathos born from it, and if anything wish she got more of a role going forward. In the years since the games release, the divide on Luna has largely become a Western issue, with Luna being much more warmly received in Japan.
    • Solo has his fans who enjoy his rivalry with MegaMan, his cool design, challenging boss fight and being the only villain who directly challenges Geo's ideals; though some despise him being a hypocritical edgelord who gets far more screentime than he deserves and that his rivalry feels tacked on when characters such as Pat (and Rey) or Jack Corvus would've been better rivals to Geo.
  • Breather Level:
    • Libra Scales' dungeon in the first game is surprisingly simple to beat, since the puzzle involves rapidly answering some rather easy questions (in multiple choice). You only get punished a measly 10 HP per wrong answer; it doesn't even bounce you to the beginning of the "test" path, so there's no trial-and-error element involved.
    • Queen Ophiuca's dungeon is also much easier than what came before or after. The map has a very simple, straightforward layout, and the main puzzle of the dungeon doesn't also rely on Trial-and-Error Gameplay and/or touch screen controls.
  • Broken Base:
    • Fans of Battle Network either enjoy Star Force or accuse it of being a waste of effort on Capcom's part. Drama ensues.
    • Debates over who is the female lead of the games can be pretty heated. Even outside of shipping discourse, many debate over whether or not Sonia or Luna is meant to be the female lead. Proponents for Sonia point out how her design evokes Mayl from the Battle Network games, her "Lyra Note" form more traditionally looks like Roll from the original Mega Man, her bond with Geo has more overt focus in the first two games, and she's a consistent Action Girl across the three entries. Proponents for Luna note that while she was initially designed as a joke character, it was Geo's relationship with her that allowed him to unlock "Star Force" and "Tribe On", her concept notes for 3 specifically noted her design now taking inspiration from Mayl, her relationship with Geo having more focus in the third game, and post-series content using her when promoting the various series via their female leads like Roll and Mayl. It doesn't help matters that the MM25 Mega Man & Mega Man X Official Complete Works book decided to depict both of them alongside Geo.
  • Character Perception Evolution: Geo's characterization from the first game was initially received negatively in comparison to his predecessor Lan Hikari, being dismissed as whiny and lacking initiative. However as the years went by and people became more understanding of loneliness and depression, Geo's characterization and by extension the entire game is considered to be a believable portrayal of depression from losing a loved one, and that his budding friendship with Omega-Xis makes for a interesting story where Geo grows into the role of a hero and learns that he isn't alone in terms of human suffering.
  • Common Knowledge: Sonia's voice actor never sang the lyrics to "Shooting Star" shown in Star Force 3. The vocal version floating around on the internet is by a sound-alike nicknamed Souwer under the fan label colis Records.
  • Complete Monster: See the franchise page.
  • Contested Sequel: To Mega Man Battle Network. You either feel that it streamlines Battle Network's mechanics with its own unique spin, or you find it a watered-down and less interesting version of Battle Network's gameplay, with little in-between.
  • Cult Classic: The first game was only a modest success, while the next two games did increasingly worse and the series faded into obscurity for awhile. However, nowadays it has a strong cult following that is slowly growing, especially after the reveal of the plot of the cancelled fourth game led to attempts at a Fan Sequel much like its predecessor series. The demand for a Legacy Collection of the games is also almost as strong as for Battle Network, which the latter eventually got.
  • Demonic Spiders: When it comes to "Star Force" enemies in general, the entire Grabity line of viruses can relied on when it comes to viruses that can either draw out battles at best or make them Unintentionally Unwinnable at worst. If you don't come into battles with sword cards or Fox-Fu cards, you will completely unable to damage them. Worse still, one of their attacks outright allows them to drain HP from you and cannot be dodged.
  • Die for Our Ship: Many Geo/Sonia fans despise Luna. In fanfics, she is usually bashed or treated like a spoiled brat.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: FM King Cepheus is surprisingly popular in Japan.
  • Epileptic Trees: Dr. Vega mentions being from a war-torn country lead by corrupt authorities. While it's clear that it's not the same nation that Dr.Regal hailed from, it's possible that the two nations are neighbours or that Tanabata is Nation Z after 200 years of developmental changes due to them being corrupt states with a thriving science scene. Furthermore, Jack and Tia were said to be child-soldiers fighting in a war, so it could be possible that Vega's nation may've either had child soldiers or had to deal with them as enemies.
    • In the Alternate Future, what happened to Solo? Was he killed by Hollow in their climatic fight? Was he killed by Le Mu or Apollo Flame after MegaMan was defeated? Was he rendered Deader than Dead or did Apollo Flame consider him too weak or not worth resurrecting like he did with the other EM-Beings? In the same vein, what happened to the Satellite Admins? Star Force 2 mentioned their satellites disappearing at the beginning of the game yet they are completely fine in Star Force 3. Did Apollo Flame kill them too? Were they simply trapped in Deepspace unable to do anything?
    • Considering that Star Force 3 established that Geo could take on different Noise forms based on different EM-Beings past and present, could it possible that he could access his Star Force or Tribe On transformations if he manifested them as Noise forms too?
    • MegaMan Star Force 4 would've involved a plot where Geo and a descendant of Lan Hikari are up against the Satella Police. Could it be possible that Project-TC allowed the Satella Police to become a shadowy authoritarian police state that employs Wave-Changers to crush any dissent against them?
    • Considering that General Auriga fits the constellation Theme Naming of the FM-ians, why didn't Sirius recruit him? Does he not exist in the main timeline? Was he exiled or destroyed? Was he created or recruited by Apollo Flame? Was he Deader than Dead in the Alternate Future? Or did Sirius think he wasn't worth taking and picked Apollo Flame because he was far stronger?
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • The AM-ians and FM-ians were both named for western constellations, but only a few of those constellations were used. Likewise, at least three characters were named for individual stars. This leaves a lot of Sailor Earth potential.
    • With Acid establishing that purely artificial Wizards can do the Fusion Dance with humans and the replacement of Luna's original EM partner Ophiuca with her new wizard Vogue, it's not unheard of to find fanart of Luna and Vogue as a single EM Human Stage Magician. A Zack and Pedia wave change also exists in fanart, but not nearly as common.
    • Duo promised to return to Earth at the end of Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun and Blue Moon. While he didn't get around to it during the series, there's always the chance he could do it in fanfic.
    • Mad Scientist Lady Vega and Creepy Children Jack and Tia each lost loved ones in a war years before the events of the series. Was it the same war, and if it was, were these characters allies, countrymen, or enemies?
    • Project Trans-Code (a Satella Police project only available on the now-defunct website) indicates Cygnus Wing is designated Transcode-020, which means there are at least twenty registered Wave Changers. While there are more than twenty bosses in the series, only nineteen can do Wave Change. Of these, Jack Corvus and Queen Virgo aren't registered, while Libra Balance's and Queen Ophiuca's human and FM-ian components have not reconnected. This leaves at least five potential Sailor Earth candidates among the Transcodes.
  • Fanon: A popular fanon theory is that Geo or Sonia are decendants of Lan Hikari.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: The second game is resented and ignored for its long-winded and nonsensical plot, obnoxious Flanderization, ridiculous random encounter rate, and having nothing to do with space.
  • Friendly Fandoms: With Kamen Rider Fourze, which is also about a Henshin Hero student with connections to space.
  • Game-Breaker: The series has a dedicated page.
  • Genius Bonus:
    • "Laplace", the creepy, unintelligible Murian life form, is a reference to Laplace's demon.
    • The Big Bad and The Dragon of the second game are based on the mythology of Tanabata. In the localization, they're named for the stars that feature in the myth.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ho Yay:
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: While fans were torn over the differences between Star Force and Battle Network, game critics thrashed the entire Star Force trilogy because they felt that the games weren't different enough.
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • Star Force 2: Hollow is an EM Wave being created by Dr. Vega to replace her lover Altair, who later became her most competent ally. Quiet yet ruthless, Hollow blackmails Sonia with Geo's safety to track Mu in the Bermuda Maze before getting her to fight him. Secretly following them to Mu, he sets them up and Solo to eliminate each other before he and Hyde steals the OOPArt from Mega Man to revive Mu, with it he and Vega launch their world conquest to create Neo Mu, as he dispose Hyde and Solo. Anticipating Mega Man coming, he resurrects his old foes before confronting him, nearly trapping him in the void if it weren't for Solo. When he sensed Vega in danger after Mega Man defeated Le Mu, Hollow returns to her side, taking down Mega Man before shielding Vega from Le Mu's explosion, dying from it, but using his final moments to call Altair to save and redeem Vega in his stead to free his master's burden.
    • Star Force 3: Heartless is a spy who plays her targets for fools while achieving her agendas. An agent of WAXA, Heartless was task to spy on Mr. King, working for him as his right-hand, while secretly learning his tech. Setting his downfall with him in the palms of her hands, modifying his orders to her benefit, getting him to eliminate her main threat Joker and giving her access to his weapons, sabotaging them while framing her actions on Jack and Tia. With Joker gone and King distracted by Jack and Tia, Heartless uses this chance to eliminate King, using his Noise to shut his system and eliminate him, before revealing her true allegiance to Geo and giving him the plan to stop Meteor G and save Kelvin.
  • Memetic Badass: Bob Copper's exaggerated declarations of heroism in the anime and his dramatic monochrome promotional wallpaper for the third game have earned him some facetious accolades.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Screenshot-based Let's Plays have again made the blink animation a common joke, making characters look extra-annoyed or like Smug Smilers.
    • "I'm 30 years old."note 
  • Moe:
    • The anime (especially under Shingo Adachi's art direction) gives the cast cuter, quirkier scenes and personality traits. This is notable in the case of more hostile characters like the FM-ians and Luna, who has sympathetic scenes depicting her flustered or dismayede.g..
    • Luna's concept art from the third game also depicts her with a variety of nervous, worried, or embarrassed expressions, a far cry from the intentionally silly and over-the-top haughtiness in her concept art from the first game.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • In the anime, for Gemini, it's either when he just starts killing the FM-ians, just when he kills Wolf, or when he kills his other half.
    • Joker vaporizing Luna. Sure, she gets better, but then he laughs and pulls a What Measure Is a Non-Super?, calling her "a stain upon the Earth." simply because she's a normal.
  • Narm:
    • Cygnus Wing is obviously a campy character, but his plan to imprison people while they died from suffocation would be much easier to take seriously if his method of imprisonment wasn't forcing them to do ballet.
    • The Gemini Spark chapter and its followup tries really hard to pretend that Geo is heartbroken over the villain, but, thing is, Geo didn't have any kind of relationship with Gemini Spark's Secret Identity until his chapter, making the whole thing seem rushed, forced, and silly. Geo's extended session of sulking and rejecting Luna's and Sonia's attempts to be helpful don't make it better.
    • Terra Condor's plan upon kidnapping Luna, Bud and Zack is to tickle them due to Whazzap's culture celebrating laughter as a way to thank the gods.
  • Never Live It Down: Zack's haters will never forgive him for his treatment towards Geo in the first game and is considered to be the worst among Luna's posse. Most notably during the Harp Note scenario, Zack reports Sonia's location to the manager then blame Geo for being involved in the cancellation of her concertnote . He infuriates fans even more by snobbishly write Geo off as being irrelevant, speculating that Sonia herself was too big a snob to perform in Echo Ridge, and then, when Geo gets mad for Sonia's sake, accuse Geo of being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All.
  • Older Than They Think: While the Wave Command Codes and Noise Modification Gear are famously game-breaking features, Capcom has been using Merchandise-Driven game boosters for since the GBA era (Mega Man Zero 3 and Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun and Blue Moon, specifically) with e-Reader cards. You can also see the prototype of this in the secret Navi modifications of Battle Network 3.
  • Play the Game, Skip the Story: The second game's plot was met with much revile, but its multiplayer scene was quite popular back then.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • The entire series suffered from boring and frustrating puzzles and minigames. The first game fell into the same rut that many other Nintendo DS games fell into early on, with level puzzles relying largely on touch-screen gimmicks rather than button pressing. Star Force 2 did away with this until the final dungeon, where the Elite Mooks had to be avoided lest they initiate a minigame on contact. Fans agree that stylus controls are better suited for SF3's noise minigame than manual D-Pad aiming.
    • The second game locked numerous upgrades behind doors that required players to find friends with copies of the game, which is now Permanently Missable Content because the original DS Wi-Fi is no longer supported, making it impossible to obtain certain items without using Action Replay or the like to dupe the game into thinking you've met the conditions to unlock the gates, some of which are so exacting that even the cheat code makers don't know what to do!!!
    • The Noise Changes, which only change if you defeat Giant viruses, and each one you get is random. Coupled with the fact that a lot of them aren't very good (Libra Noise, for example, is weak against Break-type attacks, which are used by many enemies and all bosses), you're forced to use one, otherwise you can't access the finalized Noise forms, which are actually very good.
    • One major complaint against Star Force 3 was how the modified battle system arbitrarily isolated some of the Battle Cards you drew each turn, especially the more powerful ones; this is almost universally reviled because of how it interrupts combos and general cohesiveness.
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: Compared to its predecessor Battle Network, bosses in the Star Force series are quite a bit meaner. The 3D leap allows for much more dynamic fights, and the first game has HP totals comparable to the second Battle Network trilogy (2,000+ for a V3 boss is normal). The series expects you to play the games in sequence too, as the gimmicks and HP totals ramp up with each installment.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Geo/Luna shippers and Geo/Sonia shippers are not well known for being amicable. The only thing they can usually agree on is ignoring the second game, since it makes both pairings come out looking bad thanks to Luna suffering flanderization and Sonia's brief stint as a Fake Defector.
  • Sophomore Slump: The first game was decent, but most people have to agree the second was a fair step down...but the third was a much larger step up.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: After the rough first game syndrome and the heavily disliked story of the second, Star Force 3 is basically considered the reason why anyone should actually play the series overall, not only for paying off various ideas and character arcs but also for having the most comprehensive of mechanics and generally being the best functional game of the trilogy hands down. It alone made the cancelled Star Force 4 actually desired by the small overall base of fans that managed to make it that far in the first place.
  • That One Attack:
    • When you're confronting the SP version of the Satellite Admin in the first game, they have one deadly trick up their sleeve at low health — their personal Giga card that inflicts massive damage and can neither be dodged nor blocked. If the attack doesn't defeat you outright, you'll be left at low enough health that the rest of the Admin's attacks can easily finish the job. No other boss in the series behaves like this.
    • Le Mu's Thunder of Mu allows Le Mu to charge up a giant laser which hits the entire battlefield and deals heavy damage. The attack requires near frame perfect blocking in order to defend against, but fortunately only comes out at low thresholds of Le Mu's HP.
    • Apollo Flame's Prominence Flare will be the bane of your existence. Snake-like flames emerge and move around, and it's very much guaranteed that their movements will trip you up at least once. If you're looking to obtain his strongest cards, this attack will ensure that you'll be frustrated as you try again and again to take him down as quickly as possible. While this isn't as much of a problem in Star Force 2 where hitting him can interrupt this attack, Star Force 3 allows this attack to operate passively and independently of his movements.
    • Dread Joker's Missile Stream has him fire multiple missiles which need to be shot down due to MegaMan's shield being unable to stay up long enough to guard against them all. Later versions of him such as Dread Joker v3, Dread Joker R or Dread Joker Ω fire them so fast that if they hit you, you'll be stun-locked at best or dead at absolute worst.
    • Sirius himself is merely annoying when you fight him, but later versions such as V3 or Σ can make you suffer with either his Bit Wings or Omega Wave. The former sends yellow lasers to attack you, which erases any Barriers/Auras or special panels and ensures that you'll be in constant danger. The later has Sirius fire multi-coloured lasers, all of which can and will hit any elemental weaknesses you may have.
  • That One Boss: Listed on the franchise page.
  • That One Level:
    • The Bermuda Maze from the second game is where hope dies and despair begins. When you navigate through the dungeon, you realize that it unfortunately lives up to its name with level design to make Shin Megami Tensei proud. Whenever you pick an area, you have to hope that you don't end up in a virus house or you'll be stuck fighting groups viruses you can't flee from. For a small mercy, the dead ends with viruses are very heavily telegraphed and only trigger a battle if you step into the center of the room. If you get far enough to see groups of Hertz, you then have to follow the hints on the top screen then try to figure out the correct path because some of them lie to you. After this, you have to follow a specific path to even get to Mu or another to find Vega's lair to find an item required to start the post-game.
    • The Meteor Server in the third game involves searching the area for fragments of Kelvin's memories to proceed. You get a function to give you brief glimpses of where those fragments are, but the area is big and lacks landmarks so it's easy to get lost. Not helping is that you get swarmed by Noise on the way, and an unwelcome virus encounter can disorient you.
  • The Scrappy: This series is thankfully short of them but even so, a few stand out:
    • Zack Temple is the least liked member of Luna's little entourage due to him treating Geo and Bud both like crap while acting superior to them. In the first game, his involvement in Sonia's scenario makes the problem worse by having him tell Sonia's manager where she is or his belief that Sonia was too much of a snob to even do a concert at Echo Ridge. Whereas Bud and Luna had their good moments and their scenarios were at least important to the game, Zack is basically an obnoxious hanger-on. In the second game, he's not as obnoxious and the game at least tries to make him useful via the Zackpedia but even then, the Messie scenario has him at his worst due to his selfish character motivationnote  following by the game trying to make him sympathetic by having Jerry Romero trap Zack in a submarine. To top it all off, his Brother Band/Link Power is unlocked/raised by completing the hardest sidequest in the game (i.e a 10 round gauntlet of viruses).
    • Solo had a very rough start to the series due to his reputation as this in Star Force 2, something which the Star Force 2 Anime and Star Force 3 tried its best to undo. In his debut game, he works with Vega's team and accepts Hollow's help (i.e the Indie Proof), both of which are rendered hypocritical due to Solo's insistence that he hates bonds of all kinds and refuses to accept help from anyone. In his first bout with MegaMan, he's got Cutscene Power to the Max in full effect while Geo and his friends have Cutscene Incompetence to make Solo look better. In all of his cutscenes, Solo is an insufferable edgelord who constantly claims that friendship sucks, which the main character treats as an annoyance, despite Solo being portrayed as The Rival and Evil Counterpart to MegaMan. The most hated example of Solo's Wolverine Publicity is the post-credit fight with him after beating Le Mu XA and having to endure unskippable credits; this is because losing to Rogue SX forces you to fight Le Mu XA and watch the credits every time you lose.note  After defeating Rogue SX, even MegaMan is sick of Solo's bullshit and decides he's not worth bothering with.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • A Broken Base arose over the new battle system, which removed much of the logistic and strategic complexity of Battle Network in favor of gameplay that heavily relied on timing and reflexes. Its detractors refer to the new battle system as a watered-down imitation, while fans compare it to the reflex-based gameplay of the main series' timeline.
    • Fans weren't in particular sure whether they preferred Mega Man's first design or his Costume Evolution in the third game.
    • One of the main reasons for the second game's subpar reception is the way it strayed too far from the core premise and motifs, having no concern for space at all.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Bob Copper, the quirky detective who investigates Z-Waves in the first game, uses a reflecting barrier to keep Z-waves away. Omega-Xis claims this is technology humans shouldn't have yet, but the games never dig very deep into Bob Copper and his cool toys. Even when Geo is openly working with the Satella Police in 3, Copper barely appears in the game.
    • The NetNavis and Matter Waves of the first two games have a lot of interesting potential applications (Ollie lets you go Sky Surfing!) but only have one-off story uses and maybe a sidequest or two each. The third game sidesteps the issue by returning to the one-on-one partnerships with humans and wizards.
    • Dr. Orihime promised to reconnect with Geo after the events of the second game, but never did. Notably, the third game missed the opportunity to capitalize on her backstory by connecting her with two new characters who also lost loved ones to a past war.
    • Hyde (aka Dark Phantom) is one of the most wasted characters in the game aside from Solo. For starters, he's able to use Residual Waves to force Luna to transform into Queen Ophiuca, which could've easily been used to make him a threatening antagonist who corrupts Geo's friends into turning against him. This alone could've justified Gemini Spark's return in the second game (and also play into the Theme Naming of him being named as a reference to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) and give solid justification for having fights against Taurus Fire and Harp Note. In addition, him being able to recruit other adults and have them use EM-ian creatures would've made for an interesting twist on the first game's formula by having Dark Phantom take advantage of people with selfish motives in stark contrast to the FM-ians taking advantage of lonely people. Furthermore, he could've easily served as a Disc-One Final Boss or Big Bad Wannabe instead of a Starter Villain due to his script theming giving him a solid frame as a villain and tying that into his corruption of selfish adults and later Geo's friends after a Villainous Breakdown after his defeat.
    • Pat/Rey only makes a cameo after his Heel–Face Turn in the first game as an Optional Boss, and hints that he wishes to make things up to Geo, but feels it's just a fantasy he can never have. Meanwhile, in the third game, Ace wishes to recruit as many experienced wave changers as possible to combat Dealer, initially wanting Solo (who rejects this). You'd think this would be the perfect time to bring him back, but he is completely absent from the third game.
    • Solo could've been so much more than a shoehorned rival in a series that didn't need one. For starters, losing your entire civilization would be traumatic for anyone, and would better explain Solo's hostility to bonds. In addition, him taking Budicus personally and his backstory of being ganged up on could've been tied into Whazzap by having Mu and Whazzap being rival tribes and having Solo's trauma exacerbated due to Whazzap's people being hostile to him for being a Murian. His willingness to work with Vega could've been a case of An Offer You Can't Refuse, and being the The Friend Nobody Likes to the other villains would actually go a long way to addressing the discrepancy of having him work for Vega despite despising bonds instead of making him look like a Hypocrite. His motivations for his antagonism against Geo would stem from seeing him as everything he's not and resenting that he has friends and people who support him while he's stuck with being the last of his kind and working with people he hates. His story arc could've hate Geo absolutely hate his guts and end in pitying him after Solo gradually realizes that Mu wasn't the perfect society he believed it to be.
    • Apollo Flame in theory would've made for an interesting contrast to the Satellite Admins. Due to being implied to be the son of Ra Mu note  and being a Villain of Another Story due to him killing off most of the main cast in the Alternate Future, it's such a shame that he ended up as Generic Doomsday Villain. While Star Force 3 did improve upon his character by having him be The Starscream to Sirius and being a believer in the natural laws of the universe, his status as a villain was never taken advantage of in Star Force 2. Most of the potentially interesting things about him are only ever implied and unfortunately take a back seat to the IF Warriors being flat characters with cookie cutter dialogue, with only Dark Phantom IF, Hollow IF and Gemini Spark being interesting.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • The series never really dives into the darker implications of the Brotherband system. The game makes it a point to showcase the benefits of the Brotherband but not any potential downsides such as an antagonist who forces others to create brotherbands with them to gain more power or how someone might start discarding old friends simply because their new friends provide better abilities with their brotherbands. Or how they could've explored genuine friendships vs fake self-serving ones in a later game or the possibility that in some workplaces, it could've led to nepotism due to people getting in because they have a Brotherband with the boss.
    • Part of the criticism for the series, particularly the second game, was that the writers weren't taking advantage of either the setting or the characters. See how the second game focused more on zany and silly scenarios instead of advancing the overall plot and how it wasted time retreading moments from the first game. It also wasted Solo's story arc by never allowing him to grow as a character. Star Force 3 makes a concerted effort to fix this.
    • The second game is basically a Sequel Goes Foreign type of deal. However, despite taking place 200 years after the Battle Network series, it does nothing with the idea of showing how various nations such as Netopia, Netfrica, Yumland or Creamland have changed over the last two centuries and instead goes for several stock nations designed as set dressing for antagonists who don't even join the main villains after their scenarios are finished. If the writers wanted to showcase that Geo's world was worth protecting in favour of adventures in space, then the opportunity was wasted.
    • The premise of the multiple tribes being wiped out due to a war and the fall of Mu leading to their modern day revival left a lot to be desired. It's mentioned that the OOPart would destroy MegaMan if he couldn't control it yet nothing comes of it. This could've been tied into Link Power and how as Geo accumulates more Link Power, he eventually learns to make the Tribe On power his own and allow the spirits to regain their faith in bonds. In contrast, as Solo becomes more embittered, he taps into his own power and uses the Rogue Tribe forms opposite to the player's. When the player finally reaches Mu, it can be used to show that Solo is so deep in denial that he breaks down upon realizing that Mu was nothing like he believed and transforms into a dark version of Tribe King, allowing for the culmination of Geo's story arc in "Star Force 2".
    • The second game's Bonus Dungeon is a Bad Future, but doesn't explore why there's no Mega Man or Solo, why the FM-ian bosses are running around (and why they don't recognize their human names or MegaMan himself), or the implications of Apollo Flame (and his mother). Geo barely even reacts to the IF bosses as anything more than Mooks, with only Gemini Spark IF's death eliciting sadness on Geo's part. As a result, Alternate Future ends up being nothing more than a set of recycled maps with a monochrome filter used for a harder Boss Rush with it's main villain Apollo Flame being a Generic Doomsday Villain rather than the Villain of Another Story he should've been.
    • The series missed a choice opportunity to capitalize on having Duo from Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun and Blue Moon return in the third game, especially since it also involves a meteor threatening the Earth.
    • During the preliminaries for the release of the third game, Luna was very clearly being set up for an expanded and more sympathetic role, featuring in a variety of promotional images and being given uncharacteristically troubled expressions in official art and promotional desktop wallpapers. In the game itself, however, her expanded role mostly amounted to yet another Designated Victim Damsel in Distress scenariospoilers with no actual Character Development before or afterwards to show for it, wasting a prime opportunity to heal Luna's Broken Base.
  • Underused Game Mechanic: The Star Force series conducts repeated experiments with Utility Party Members (Navi Cards, Matter Waves, borrowed Wizards, etc.), but never managed to find a way to implement them into general gameplay; many of them have only very limited uses. This is a shame for things like Ollie the skyboard, since Sky Surfing could have been a convenient way to get around.
  • Unexpected Character: The Bonus Dungeon from Star Force 3 featured the surprise return of the AM Sages and the FM King Cepheus.
  • Values Resonance: Somewhat. The game series is completely unsubtle about it's message, but considering we live in a time of growing isolation and even friendlessness, that may make it resonate more as people without close friendships or relationships is one of the bigger problems of the modern age.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Pat (as in Patrick, not Patricia) is dressed in purple spandex, and wears a purple headband with long hair. His androgynous name was probably an intentional carryover from the Japanese version, where he was named Tsukasa, a common Japanese name for both genders. To further the point, the name Tsukasa is usually written in hiragana if it belongs to a girl, and kanji if it belongs to a boy. But Tsukasa Futaba Takes a Third Option and writes his name in katakana. In fact, there's fanart featuring him as a girl that was produced before the first game came out.
    • How long did it take YOU to realize that Ken Suther was a guy? No points if it took learning his name for you to get the memo.
  • Woolseyism:
    • Zigzagged in the case of the FM-ians, who share Theme Naming for western constellations but for some reason were given a mix of Latin and English names. The English-named FM-ians who were part of the main story had their names changed in localization from Ox and Harp to Taurus and Lyra, but Wolf and Crown are not renamed Lupus and Corona, for some reason. The anime at least made sure that Lyra and Sonia's wave change form was actually named Lyra Note rather than Harp Note, like in the games.
    • The Big Bad and The Dragon of Star Force 2 are themed after the East Asian myth of the princess and the cowherd, but in the west are named after the two stars that feature in that myth, Vega and Altair.
    • Pat's name is an attempt at keeping the androgyny of his original Tsukasa; Rey's is a Punny Name based on "ray of light", reflecting the meaning of his original name Hikaru ("light").

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