Megaman StarForce Spectacular

 So, how much do I like the Star Force series?

 Enough to own all versions and the Artbook, I´d say a lot. Truth be told, while replaying them I found out that I don´t like the series as much as I used to, but they were still enjoyable, except StarForce 2, but I´ll get to it in a jiffy. All games follow the same basic formula, you explore the town as Geo Stelar, and accept quests from townfolk, but to do the fighting, Geo turns into Megaman. While playing as Megaman, you are subject to random encounters. While Fighting, you are placed in a 3x5 Grid. Megaman can only move to the sides, while enemies get to move through rows too. Before each battle, you get to pick among 6 cards, randomly selected from your 30(Up to 5 mega and 1 giga card per deck) card deck. You have a choice of six cards, but you can only choose: Same cards, cards of the same Column or cards of the same row. While fighting, a gauge starts filling, once it´s filled, you can pick new cards. After each fight you either get money or a new card.
 Battles use a Rock-Paper-Scissors kind of system. Fire cards deal double damage on Wood enemies or enemies standing over Wood panels. Wood deals double damage to Electric enemies or enemies over electric panels. Electric cards deal double damage to water enemies and enemies that are frozen. And Water deals double damage to fire enemies. There are also non-elemental cards. Megaman, usually, is non-elemental, but if he uses one of the special forms, he gains an elemental affinity. Get hit with your weakness, and you revert to Normal Megaman.
 Megaman can only increase his HP by collecting HP ups hidden throught the world, or by equipping abilities(StarForce 2 and 3 only). Another trend, is that there are alwasy 150 standard cards and 5 giga cards. Mega cards vary from game to game(30 in SF1, 42 in SF2 and 45 in SF3). Then there are the special forms, each version of each game has a different form for Geo to use in battle, if he fulfills a certain condition. A neat extra, all games have "achievements" of sorts(Get all Standard cards, beat all V2 bosses, etc) and they grant you medals on the Push Start screen.
 Sadly, all three games suffer from the same flaws:
A) Most of the cards from each game carry over to the next. There are very few new cards introduced per game, and most of the time, they act as some of the older cards.
B) Bosses must be refought many times. Up to four times in SF 2, more if you plan to get every card on the game.
C) Getting cards is a grindfest. SF1 and SF3 have the Card Finder, which make sure that after every battle, you will get a card, but getting the card you want can take a while, which means loads and loads of battles. And getting the stronger cards of the bosses means getting an S rank on them, not an easy task.
 With all that out of the way, onwards to...

 Megaman StarForce: Dragon/Leo/Pegasus.

Favorite Transformation: 

Leo!

 I mean, Red and Orange? Fire related? Plus he looks badass? Yeah, this is my fave.

Favorite Standard Card: Break Sabre, a diagonal slash that deals 200 dmg. Awesome.

Favorite Mega Card: Cancer Bubble, leaves the enemies in a bubble, opening them up for a follow up. Use an Electric card, and it deals double damage. Neat!

Favorite Giga Card: Pegasus Magic, not as strong as Leo Kingdom, but leaves the enemy frozen, allowing a follow up. Like an Electric card for double damage.

Favorite Charged Shot: Pegasus. Leo is too slow, Dragon is unimpressive. Pegasus freezes!

Favorite StarForce Big Bang: Atomic Blazer. Yes, Magician´s freeze freezes, but Atomic Blazer looks much more awesome.

With that out of the way... Megaman StarForce begins with a depressed Geo. He´s been skipping classes for a long time now, and neglects friends, due to fear of being hurt, since his dad went into space some years ago and he neve came back. Eventually, Geo meets the alien Omega-Xis, Mega for short, who grants him the power to turn into MegaMan. Due to many circumstances, he befriends the trio of Luna Platz, Bud Bison and Zack, and he starts going back into school. This is just a small introduction, the story is actually pretty solid and engaging, specially for a portable kid´s game.

 The game takes place in the future, so there are tons of technological advancements and comodities. For starters, when Geo turns into Megaman, he becomes and EM-entity, unable to directly interact with the real world. He can, however, jack into various devices, and he will need to, in order to clear the viruses. While Geo himself cannot walk on the EM-Roads, he can put on his visualizer  in order to see them and talk with nearby EM entities. To turn into Megaman, Geo has to stand over  over special zones, and he goes directly into the EM-wave roads above town. Worth mentioning, since the next games will change this quite a bit. Interestingly, each of the intitial dungeons have some sort of gimmick that requires the player to use the Stylus. They are not bad, but they are just a gimmick.

 The game is a grindfest, though. Getting cards means hours of grinding. Y´see, each enemy holds a different card, and after each random encounter, you either get ONE card from ONE of the enemies or money. Don´t get the card you want? You have to earch for the same enemy again. And you will need to get all cards in order to access the post-game. Luckily you can find the Card Finder, that makes sure that you will get a card, or the Zenny Finder, which makes it so that you can only get money from random encounters. Bosses are a whole different can of worms. First of all, refighting bosses is a bit of a chore, as they are the rarest random encounters, and getting to them doesn´t mean you will get the card you want. There are three versions of each boss card, and they depend on the rank you get. 1-7 is the vanilla card, 8-10 is the V2 card and 10(rarely) or S gets you the V3 card. Get ready to grind a lot.

  In order to use the transformations, Geo has to get the StarForce card and pick it. While you can only use the version of your form, if you link up with players with the other versions, you can use their transformations. You could do this via Wi-Fi, but I doubt the community is still alive. This also means that I´m never deleting my Pegasus file, since I have all the transformations avaiable. Another change between versions are the Giga Cards and the last Boss. Pegasus players be warned, Pegasus Magic is the hardest of all three AMians.

 The 3D, used in battles, looks very nice, although the rest of the game is made in 2D. While I felt the sprites looked pretty nice(Megaman has a different sprite for facing left and for facing right!), the next two games make it look quite crappy. The game lasts a solid 20 hours, and there are loads and loads of quests.... which can get a bit annoying, since you need to:

1st) Pulse into the Wave Roads, get above the NPC, read his transer(A device everyone carries around, like a cellphone)

2nd) Pulse out, talk to them as Geo.

3rd) Do the quest. You can´t accept any other quest until you finish the last one you accepted.

It gets a bit tedious having to traverse the wave roads just to read their transer first.

 StarForce 1 is a 7 out of 10.

 Megaman Starforce 2 Zerker X Ninja/Zerker X Saurian.

Favorite Form: 

Zerker Saurian!

 Zerker Saurian is the result of a Zerker activating a Saurian transformation. He looks awesome

Favorite Standard Card: Elec Slash, deals 150 damage and paralyzes.

Favorite Mega Card: Cancer Bubble
Favorite Giga Card: Flying Impact, but I usually turn a blank card into Pegasus Magic, so...

Favorite Charge Shot: Thunder Slash
Favorite StarForce Big Bang: Elemental Blade.

 First of all, the whole game has been redrawn. All the 2D sprites now look way more colorful, and way prettier. From the town to the characters. While the 3D models look the same, the grid looks much tidier. Combat itself feels a bit tighter too.

 Sadly... the story isn´t as engaging. While the introduction of Solo/Rogue is a bit neat, the whole ancient civilization stuff isn´t too interesting. Megaman lost the ability to use the powers of the three administrators(Leo, Pegasus and Dragon), so now he gains access to the ancient tribes. Fire Saurian, Electric Zerker and Wood Ninja. Unlike the previous game, if you are playing the Saurian version, you cannot turn into a Zerker or a Ninja... however, if you befriend Zerker or Ninja players, you can "Double Tribe" into a combination. Combinations have the strengths of both tribes, while only having the weakness of the tribe that was used last. If you have friends of all tribes, you can Triple Tribe into the over powered(and ridiculous looking) Tribe King. While in Tribe King  form, all cards deal double damage. So, for example, if you use Pegasus Magic, instead of dealing 450 damage, it would now deal 900. And it freezes the enemy, which grants you a free hit, overpowered alright.

 The out-of combat sections also were improved upong. This time around, Megaman walks on the ground, just like Geo, however, only Megaman can walk over the EM roads that extend from the ground. It looks much neater. Another neat, and pointless, addition, is that when using the visualizer, you can see Omega-Xis tagging along! Sadly, taking quests is still annoying. Since EM roads are no longer above the ground, getting to the NPCs to read their Hunters(The Transers got upgraded!) is much easier.

 The best new addition, by far, is a customizable Megaman. By registering real-life players or some NPCs you gain ability points, which can be used to customize Megaman. Maybe turn his Charged Shot into an X shaped attack? How about a forcefield at the start of the battle? Maybe take two Giga cards instead of 1? It´s pretty neat. Combat, while it feels tighter, has two new additions, first, you may randomly get to fight Giant Viruses. When beaten, this enemies leave behind "Star Cards". This cards use special slots in your deck(Meaning that they are not part of the 30 cards that make up your deck) and add extra damage to the non-star versions of the card. Hardly game changing. The other addition are Hertzes. During random encounters, you may find a Hertz. Beat the enemies without the Hertz getting damage, and he will give you an ability to customize Megaman with.

 The game has a few issues though. The bosses are incredibly hard, even their normal versions. It was probably done in order to balance the incredibly over powered Tribe King, but since most players won´t get to use that form unless they befriend all three tribes or cheat, it becomes a bit taxing, specially S-ranking their hardest version just to get all the Mega Cards. There´s also a pretty big reason as to why I hate this game... The Skywave. You will have to use the Skywave to reach some places, many times( And many more if you plan to do all the sidequests). The Skywave can only be accessed by Megaman, which means Random Encounters. It´s also a pretty labyrinthic place, where it´s easy to get lost or wound up in places you didn´t want to reach. This area alone makes me despise this game with passion. It´s a vexing and annoying area that must be visited many, many times. Sure, you can open up some short cuts later on, but it´s still easy to get lost. 

 While it looks better and feels tighter than part 1, the story is not as interesting, and the Skywave is way too annoying, making this game a drag to play.

 StarForce 2 is a 4 out of 10.

 Megaman StarForce 3: Black Ace/Red Joker

Favorite Form: Red Joker/Rogue Noise

 For standard forms, I prefer Rogue Noise. Not only does Black Megaman look badass, you get enhanced Sword Cards and a regenerating barrier. Rogue Noise is amazing. But, between both Finalized Forms, Red Joker looks so awesome. Black Ace may be cooler, but Red Joker... I MEAN JUST LOOK AT IT

Favorite Standard Card: SwordFighter deals 50 but slashes 5 times. It looks awesome

Favorite Mega Card: Cancer Bubble/ Apollo Flame
Favorite Giga Card: Dread Laser.... or Pegasus Magic

Favorite Charge Shot: Rogue Shot
Favorite StarForce Big Bang: Red Gaia Eraser.

 The story, this time around, has Geo fighting off the terrorist group Dealer, led by King. It sounds simple, but it deals with some darker elements, including the death of two characters, one being one of the main characters(Both of them get better though, one is resurrected as a matter of fact). While it is still a kid´s game at heart, the new darker themes are much more interesting. Heck, you can even get some one on one time between Geo and Sonia or Geo and Luna depending on a certain choice(I picked Luna both times).

 Gameplay wise... there are loads of new features, the best one, you can turn into Megaman any time you want, no longer have you got to find those annoying portholes, about time! Getting Quests is also made simpler, you just talk to the NPCs as Geo, and if they have a Quest icon on the touchscreen, you touch it and BAM! You just accepted a quest. The customizable Megaman from SF 2 returns, albeit slightly deeper. Now, Megaman has access to 11 different forms(You gain them after defeating giant viruses, you can choose to change or keep the form you are using). Each form has it´s own abilities, use them a lot and you unlock those abilities for you to customize Megaman.

 Battles now have a "Noise" gauge. You fill it up by using non-elemental cards. Whenever you defeat an enemy, if you deal more damage than needed, that overflow goes towards the Noise gauge, for example, kill an enemy with 30 HP left with a 50 damage card, and you increase the gauge by 20. During boss battles, half the damage you deal goes towards the Noise gauge. When the Noise Gauge reaches 50, Megaman "Colors out" and his armor takes the color of whichever noise he is affected with, and gains it´s charge shot and Big Bang attack. If you register real-life people, you can mix noise forms. Now, if you go beyond 100 in the noise gauge, it gets interesting. For starters, the gauge will drop steadily until it gets to 99. While above 100 noise, you can hurt enemies as they blink. If you reach 200 or beyond, you can access the Meteor Server, which lets you use Black Ace or Red Joker forms. Besides being stupidly powerful, you have access to the strongest cards in the game while in this form, however, the Noise Gauge drops back to 0.

 It doesn´t end there, if you finish a battle with over 100 noise, you get Illegal data instead of the normal cards. Illegal data means cards from older gamess, including the overpowered Pegasus Magic! What card you get is random, but S-Ranking the bosses with over 100 noise give out 3 different rewards. Picking cards also got reworked, now cards have different sizes and positions. If a card is above another one, the latter card takes special properties. You can either use it as a support card(Different elements have different support uses) or pick that one single card and use it normally. It adds a bit of randomness and strategy at the same time, which makes fighting a tad more fun.

 This game has many more cards and forms than the previous games. The story is as tight as the first entry, and the tone is a bit darker and more serious. Another neat thing, in this game you can see just how much the cast has grown. Geo is no longer the depressed character he used to be, he is much more confident and strong willed than before. And it finally provides closure to the series and Geo. This is the best Megaman StarForce game, but it´s probably a good idea to play StarForce 1 to get the most of it.

 StarForce 3 is an 8 out of 10.

 And thus concludes Megaman StarForce Spectacular. I´m not doing this again. Ever. Except maybe for Onimusha(Oh Capcom, why do you make the games I love the most, yet try to rip everyone off, why?!)