Megaman 9: In the Image of the Old

I downloaded Megaman 9 on virtual console yesterday, and I have been playing it quite a bit since. I have already managed to defeat all eight Robot Masters, and have made a couple of attempts on Wily's Fortress. There is something very nostalgic about playing a game deliberately made in the image of games from twenty years ago. The similarities go well beyond graphics: Megaman 9's gameplay is firmly based on the early Megaman games. However, there are also clear signs in the gameplay that Megaman 9 is not an actual NES game, and draws upon innovations and developments made in later entries in the franchise.

One way that Megaman 9 does strongly resemble the games it was based on is in its stage layout. All eight main stages in Megaman 9 generally scroll from left to right as the player advances, with occasional stretches of having to climb or descend vertically. There are no large maze-like structures, alternate rooms, or separate paths branching off from a central hub, which are all somewhat common level design features in later entries of the franchise. There are also no stages built around an unusual form of transportation (first appeared in Megaman 6, but popularized by X4). So the overall flow of the stages feels just like it did in the original games. One design element in particular that gave me a strong sense of nostalgia was having to jump down into pits in order to advance onward, going through a single intermediary room before reaching a new horizontally-scrolling area. I haven't seen something like that in any of the recent games.

Perhaps the biggest way that Megaman 9 emulates the original series is in its enemy AI, particularly in the way bosses fight. As the Megaman series advanced, bosses tended to have more attacks, more distinct weaknesses, and much more complicated AI routines. Megaman 9 returns to the era when many bosses just ran back and forth in their room, jumping and spamming their one weapon (ironically, these kinds of bosses are much harder to fight than smart ones). Unlike in later games, none of these bosses change their attack patterns and capabilities based on their remaining health or if they are hit by certain weapons. Finally, the only sign that a weapon is effective is that it does more damage than other choices, unlike in later games where a boss would often have a special damage animation.

However, there are a couple of ways in which Megaman 9 is clearly a later installment of the Megaman series; most notably, the addition of the shop and special challenges. The shop is clearly at odds with the 8-bit design of Megaman 9, since only Megaman 7 (SNES) and Megaman 8 (PSX, Saturn) have previously had shops. However, the addition of the shop itself is pretty, minor; it is the presence of bolts (currency) in the stages that really stands out. In particular, the sound made by game when Megaman picks up a bolt is not one of the sounds found in the original 8-bit games, which actually threw my brother off a couple of times (once, he thought I had picked up an extra-life instead). Of course, the challenges also stand-out as being new, since they are a completely new addition to the series.

A less obvious, but much more significant, difference can be found in the presentation of the game's story. The opening cinematic of the game is itself much longer and more involved than is typical for an old-school Megaman game. What really stands out though is the presence of several cut-scenes that occur as Megaman vanquishes the Robot Masters, in which Megaman recovers pieces of the defeated Robot Masters to be analyzed. This kind of sequence first began to appear prominently in the series in Playstation era. Furthermore, the game's story also involves the morally ambiguous fact that robots get shut down and dismantled after a certain term of service, a plot element that is much more similar to entries in the X and Zero series than the normally happy and carefree original series.

Overall, while Megaman 9 embraces the design of the earliest Megaman games, there are still tell-tale signs that it is a later product of the franchise. So Megaman 9 really represents a really interesting hybrid of the new and the old. With the apparent success of Megaman 9, I am curious if other franchises will be given this kind of retro treatment.

Megaman Starforce 2: Giga Class Cards

All battle cards in Megaman Starforce 1 and 2, like the battle chips from the Battle Network series, are organized into three categories: Standard Class, Mega Class, and Giga Class. Of these, Giga Class battle cards are the most powerful and rare in the game. A player can normally equip only one Giga-card in his folder at a time, and the Giga-cards can only be found near the very end of the game. Unfortunately, despite their rarity and overall power, the Giga Class cards in the two Starforce games have been disappointing so far. While they have power, they just are not very visually impressive or cool enough to match all of the hype built into the concept of the Giga-class cards.

A big part of the problem is that many of the Giga-cards in the Starforce games are based on the attacks of the various bosses from across the game. The problem is that all of the more than 40 Mega-class cards are exclusively based on boss enemies too. For example, Taurus Fire has a set of three Mega-cards named after him that execute a spreading fire attack that does various amounts of damage, ranging from 100 to over 200 points, based on the specific Mega-card. However, there is also a Giga-card called Ox Tackle in both Starforce games that is also based on Taurus Fire. This card executes a linear charging attack that does around 500 points of attack. This just seems weird though, since both of these attacks are fairly basic attacks used by the same boss. If anything, Taurus Fire's spreading fire attack feels a lot more like his ultimate attack, particularly since there is nothing flashy or impressive about watching Taurus Fire shoulder charge an opponent.

In comparison, almost none of the Megaman Battle Network Giga-chips were based on regular bosses. Instead, Giga-chips were based on the most powerful and distinctive enemies in the series: the optional super-bosses Bass and Serenade, the various final bosses, and Megaman's powerful rivals Protoman and Colonel. So while a Giga-card would be historically appropriate for a character like Rogue (who both channels a lot of Bass and Protoman's style and is the most powerful enemy in Starforce 2), it makes a lot less sense for a minor throwaway villain character like Blizzard Yeti to be associated with a Giga-card.

Another problem is that the list of Starforce Giga-cards contains a lot of really bland choices such as Aqua +50, a battle card that increases the power of another Aqua element card by 50 points. While this card can be very useful in certain situations, it completely lacks any kind of style. There were support type battle cards in the Battle Network series, but those were cards like Folder Back, which had the unique effect of restocking the player's folder (allowing the player to repeatedly use powerful combos), and Hub.bat, which was not only based on a long-standing plot element from the series but also completely supercharged the user's stats.

A problem particular to Starforce 2 is the lack of a version-themed Battle-card. Ever since Battle Network 4, the player has usually received a Giga-chip/card that was based on the particular version of the game as part of the plot. For example, a player going through Megaman Starforce 1 version Leo will receive a Leo Kingdom GX Giga-card as part of the plot. I have always liked this tradition, since these Giga-chips have often been the coolest and most thematically appropriate Giga-chips of them all. In Starforce 2 though, the player gets a bland boss-themed Battle card in place of one of these.

Here are a few ideas on how to improve the Giga-card selection in future Starforce games:
1) Drop the boss-themed Giga Class cards. Rogue gets an exception.
2) Make the three Admin cards from Starforce 1 recurring. They were cool cards that are based on characters that are still out there somewhere.
3) Create more Giga cards that work off of the themes of the various games: constellations in SF1 and ancient civilization in SF2.
4) Make the cards based on the Final boss into normally available Giga-cards instead of rare tournament prizes that regular players never get to see. Version specific Le Mu cards that used Le Mu's vulcan, sword, or drill arm attacks would have been very cool.
5) Create interesting and flashy cards like the Phoenix/Death Phoenix pair from Battle Network 6.

Getting Giga Class chips or cards often takes putting in hours of work in a game's post-game section. The end reward should not disappoint. So every Giga card should be cool and exciting.

Megaman Starforce 2: Post-Game

Just like with every previous entry in the Megaman Battle Network/Starforce series, just because you complete the main story of Megaman Starforce 2 doesn't mean you have seen everything the game has to offer. I beat the final boss over a week ago, and I have been playing the post-game since. While this may not be the first of these post game sequences that I have played through, it has certainly turned out to be an interesting one.

Every post-game in the series has been very different from the others. Battle Network 2 had a hidden dungeon area filled with a series of secret bosses that culminated in a second ending. Battle Network 3 had an extensive mass of labyrinthine areas, several normal secret bosses, two extremely powerful special bosses, and a whole series of special challenges that culminates in a rematch against an vastly improved version of the game's final boss. Battle Network 4 had... something I never qualified to see (thanks to a severely flawed game structure). They all differ greatly, and how much I have played through these different post-game sequences varies just as much. I almost completely cleared Battle Network 2's post-game (other than unnecessary 100% chip collection), I went very far into Battle Network 3's massive post-game, but couldn't beat BassGS and never saw the Serenade Time Trials, and I never really got into it for other games. A large factor in determining how far I made it was difficulty (such as the previously mentioned difficult BassGS fight, and the similarly hard BassBX fight in BN 6), but at other times there have been other factors involved. For example, I never even really started Battle Network 5's ambitious post-game simply because it forces you to acquire close to two-thirds of all the battle chips in the game in a very short period of time. These post-game sequences are always a lot of fun because of the focus on intense difficulty and big rewards, which helps balance out the sometimes too-easy main game, but they can be uneven in execution.

Megaman Starforce 2's post-game is probably one of my favorites so far. It is longer than Starforce 1's disappointingly short post-game, but much more manageable in size than something like Battle Network 3's post game. Also, unlike some, it paces out the difficulty properly so you don't have to force your way through an extremely difficult fight (like BassGS) in order to see large sections of it. Instead, almost the entire post-game is focused on a side-plot that is introduced right after you complete the game, progresses through a rematch with a powered-up "IF" version of every boss, and culminates in an appropriately difficult battle against a totally new enemy. The actual size of the post-game special area (the Alternate Future and Trans-Dimension zones) is much larger than ever before, which helps spread out the large number of new viruses better than before, making it easier to gather every standard battle card (a typical requirement for progressing through the post-game).

One particularly good feature of the Starforce 2 post-game is the way it has organized the "challenge gates" that are typical to the series. In most previous games, you had to pass through a series of doors that can only be opened by completing certain challenges, such as S-ranking every boss, gathering every card of a certain type, or acquiring every available transformation. These doors have typically been arranged so that you need to clear every one in order to reach the end of the post-game, but Starforce 2 changes it so that almost all of them are optional. Instead of unlocking them in order to progress, you unlock them to get special prizes, such as Giga-class Cards and powerful Abilities. In addition, a lot more of them have been added, including some with an incredibly high level of difficulty (defeat every SP boss in under ten seconds?!), transforming them from bothersome obstacles into fun optional goals.

If I have a complaint about this post-game, it is that the requirements needed to progress can be a bit too vague at times. The post-game starts by giving you a clue that leads you to the key needed to enter the post-game area, but how you are supposed to actually use that key is left vague, and is in fact very counter-intuitive, even if it is easy to do by accident. Much more notably, after defeating the boss of the Trans-Dimension you are instructed to find the 6 badges in order to find "true despair", but you don't get any hints on where to find these badges. The first five are easy enough to get (gather all Standard, Mega, and Giga battle cards, beat the game, and complete the Trans-Dimension plot), and are mostly gathered in the process of getting that hint, but the sixth isn't hinted at all. In order to get that one, you need to gather the first five badges and re-challenge the final boss, who has transformed into a much more powerful foe. This is not the kind of thing that you are likely to stumble across just by exploring the game world (particularly since I originally thought you needed all six badges to even fight the improved final boss), and I only found out about it thanks to looking it up at GameFAQs. This kind of poor hinting is something where just a small addition to the game can prevent a lot of frustration for the player, and the game mostly avoided the problem, so I was rather disappointed to run across it.

Other than that, my only other complaint is that the ultimate challenge of the game, the battle against RogueSX, is put in a bad place. In order to even reach this battle, you need to collect all six badges, defeat the improved final boss again, and fight RogueSX after the credit roll. Since you can't save between the boss battle and the RogueSX battle, it means you need to win one of the hardest battles in the entire game over and over again every time you even want to challenge RogueSX. Since it took me four tries to beat the powered-up final boss, and another four in order to beat him again and challenge RogueSX (a battle I quickly lost), I simply don't have the will to keep going at it any more. The entire thing is simply too tedious to bother with.

Still, this is the first Battle Network/Starforce game where I have even seen the improved final boss, let alone beaten it and collected all of the star badges, so I feel pretty happy with the game. The entire post-game simply had a much more graceful difficulty curve and more manageable challenges than any Megaman game before it, which made it a lot more fun.

Megaman Starforce 2: Mega Buster

At this point, it seems like the only aspect of Megaman Starforce's game system I haven't talked about is the Mega Buster, Megaman's "main weapon" that is seen in every Megaman game. Of course, calling it his main weapon in the Battle Network/Starforce series is a bit flawed, since it is classically very weak in these games. The Mega Buster/X Buster/whatever may be extremely powerful in some Megaman (the X series comes to mind, where it tends to overshadow the boss weapons), but in Starforce it is little more than a weak side-arm that you only use when all of your Battle Cards run out. However, other that a few flaws, Starforce has the best version of the side-arm style Mega Buster that I have yet seen.

One thing that works well with the Megaman Starforce and Starforce 2 Mega Buster is that it is easier to control than in older Megaman games. The Mega Buster fires at full speed while you hold the button and charges while the button is released. It both plays to the basic assumption of using the Mega Buster (that you are charging whenever you are not shooting) without asking you to wear out your thumb holding the button down, and lets you shoot rapid-fire at full speed without forcing you to rapidly button mash. Because you don't need to hold down the button to charge, you don't need to be paying attention to your secondary weapon while using your primary weapon, the Battle Cards, and you can freely mix the two types of attacks with little effort. Other than the fact that it can be a little hard to tell whether you have a charged shot ready or not, the controls work beautifully.

Another new idea in the Starforce games is the ability to add on additional properties to the Mega Buster so it can do things other than raw damage. Megaman Starforce had several "Mega Weapons" (equipable parts that change the properties of the Mega Buster, essentially a simplified version of the more flexible Megaman Legends Buster Parts system) that add a negative status condition (like confusion, blindness, or gradual HP drain) to an enemy target. Thus, you could turn your Mega Buster into either a powerful attack weapon or a tool that let you disable enemies until you could activate more Battle Chips. Megaman Starforce 2 adds on to that even more, by adding new kinds Abilities that let you turn a Mega Buster shot into a spread weapon or use it to transform battlefield panels into Ice panels, Grass panels, or the like. With all of these properties, the Mega Buster is a versatile tool that can be modified in many different ways to become an important part of game strategies in a way it never has been before, at least in theory.

An overriding problem with the Starforce 2 Mega Buster is that its different modifications come from different subsystems of the game that don't interact and often contradict each other in unusual ways. The Mega Buster's basic damage capabilities and ability to inflict status comes from the equipped Mega Weapon, but spread capability and ability to transform panels comes from Link Power Abilities. Tribe On form greatly modifies the very nature of the Mega Buster charged shot, altering the basic statistics of the Mega Weapon and, much more problematically, completely overriding the ability to inflict status or equipped spread abilities. As such, while you are in Tribe On form (the default state for the latter half of the game), you can't take advantage of a lot of the Mega Buster's more strategic features, even if you are spending Link Power or giving up a lot of attack power in order to equip them.

One thing that could be done is to remove the entire Mega Weapon subsystem. It existed in Starforce to replace part of the Program subsystem from the Battle Network games, but since Link Power Abilities were designed to be a much more thorough replacement for that system in Starforce 2, Mega Weapons are no longer needed; everything they do can be folded into Link Power Abilities. Also, the modified Buster attacks of the various transformed forms should have been designed to be compatible with the spread modifications, and the fact that status conditions don't work with Mega Buster attacks is simply a mistake.

Megaman Starforce 2: Side Jobs

Like many games, Megaman Starforce 2 contains a number of optional jobs that you can undertake throughout the game in order to earn better stuff. You take on these jobs by talking to characters while in Megaman form, and there is one for almost every character in the game. It is a pretty common kind of thing, but there are many elements of this system that just annoy me in this game.

For starters, simply taking on these jobs requires an unnecessary amount of time. In order to take on the job, you need to talk to someone in Megaman form, but to actually find out what the job is and what you need to do, you need to talk to that person as Geo. Since you can't just transform between the two freely, this can involve a lot of walking, and probably a few random battles. This system also means that you really have no idea about the specifics of a job before you actually take it on, which means that it is easy to get stuck doing a difficult job when there were several much easier jobs available in that same area. The most annoying thing about this is that the entire process simply feels redundant. It would have been just as easy to skip one of the steps (looking at the person's Star Carrier as Megaman or talking to the person as Geo), and let the player either actually start the job as Megaman or take on the job as Geo.

What makes that problem even worse is that you can only take on one job at a time, and you can't cancel them. As I just mentioned above, this leads directly to problems like getting stuck on one job and thus being unable to take any others on. It also means that completing several jobs can eat up a lot of time. For example, take two jobs that both start in Echo Ridge and require the player to visit Loch Mess (one of the longer distances to travel in the game, particularly when the route first opens). If you could take multiple jobs at once, it would be easy to take them both on, make the trip to Loch Mess once, and get them both done with. Instead, you have to take on one job, switch to Geo to start it, switch back to Megaman to make the journey, complete whatever was necessary in Loch Mess, switch back to Geo to finish the job, switch to Megaman to take on the second, switch to Geo to start it, switch to Megaman to make the second journey, spend another long trip to Loch Mess, complete the task, head back, and switch to Geo in order to finish. Regardless of what the actual task is, this simply requires too much of the player's time that could have been spent on something more fun.

Yet another problem of the side jobs in Starforce 2 is that they often don't give rewards to match the effort the player puts into them. Several times I have spent quite a bit of time on a job that only rewards me a Battle Card that I already have, or a minor cheap item that I don't need. Such jobs almost never give something unique or valuable. What is more, the few jobs that actually tend to give useful things are often the easiest ones that require the least time and effort, while the hardest to complete jobs will often give the smallest rewards.

Overall, this is one aspect of the game that I really don't have any praise for. Compared to much more interesting versions of the same concept, such as Elizabeth's Requests from Persona 3, or the Hunter's Guild jobs in the Arc the Lad games (something I need to write about another day), the jobs in Megaman Starforce 2 are simply bad.

The Megaman Formula

It is impossible to ignore the fact that all Megaman games follow a common formula. With very little exception, almost every core Megaman title follows the same structure: beat eight bosses in any order, steal their powers, then challenge the final dungeon, where Megaman has to defeat all of the bosses over again before challenging the final boss. With some variation, that formula has remained the same for all 24 core Megaman games (which includes the original series, X series, Zero series, and both ZX games). Yet, this formula has never diminished my enjoyment of the Megaman series. If anything, the Megaman formula is one of the key elements that makes the Megaman series so successful.

The basic formula of the Megaman series has quite a few inherent strengths that have helped make it so enduring. The basic premise of letting the player tackle the game's stages in any order allows for a lot of freedom. If the player finds one stage too difficult or frustrating, the player can just leave and return later with more experience under his belt and new abilities. The free selection of stages also gives Megaman games a high replayability factor, because a player can get a different experience out of tackling the game in a different order. Personally, I greatly enjoy the process of working out which bosses are easy to kill first and which bosses are vulnerable to which weapons. It isn't something that can be experienced in a linearly structured action game.

Furthermore, just because the Megaman series has had the same basic formula for over twenty years doesn't mean that the series has gone stagnant. From the get-go, there has been a lot of experimentation, elaboration, and incremental improvement done on the game structure. The expansion from six bosses to eight, hidden upgrades, introductory stages, mid-game story stages, mini-bosses, optional missions, mission objectives, side-quests, stores, more than one controllable character; almost every iteration of the series has added something to the formula. Certain games have also experimented with radical variations on the formula, such as Megaman X5, which added a time limit to the game, alternative means to reach the final dungeon, and multiple endings. Later Megaman games such as Megaman Zero also used a mission based structure that both stayed true to the original formula and allowed for more varied stage designs. So while the basic formula has stayed the same, it has also evolved considerably over the years.

Being formulaic also doesn't mean that Megaman games lack plot, characters, or fun gameplay. Over the years, the game designers for the Megaman franchise have learned how to write interesting stories that can be presented effectively alongside the game's structure. The Zero and ZX games in particular manage to tell good stories with fun characters without breaking down the basic formula of the series.

If anything, the formulaic structure of the Megaman series gives it certain strengths. The Megaman formula is familiar to anyone who has played a Megaman game. For me, there is an element of nostalgia when I play a Megaman game that harkens back to the days when I played the series as a child. There is something familiar and comfortable about the series. It is no wonder that the Megaman series has cultivated a strong following over the years that became very excited over the recent release of Megaman 9.

Even though the Megaman series is very formulaic, I don't see that as a bad thing. As a long as a series continues to incrementally improve on itself, staying true to its roots can actually be a strength.

Megaman Starforce 2: BrotherBands Part 2 (Gameplay)

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, the mechanics behind the BrotherBand system make it so the player's own experience of the game matches with the basic theme of the Megaman Starforce games that having friends makes a person stronger. You just need to register a friend's copy of the game as a Brother over either a wireless link or a Wi-Fi connection, and you get some great benefits. The basic concept is simple, but it works elegantly. However, a lot of the details of this system differ between the two Starforce games, and many specific aspects of the system work better than others, so for the sake of having something interesting to write about I am going to examine some aspects of the system one by one.

The "On Air" System: This feature was only included in Megaman Starforce 1. It allowed a group of people who shared a BrotherBand to connect their games to each other wirelessly or over Wi-Fi so they were connected constantly during gameplay. In addition to allowing quick access to multiplayer battles, card trading, and the game's email system, this allowed special benefits such as free access to a Brother's Best Combo attack and improved power of chips that were equipped at the same time, making the single-player mode a lot easier. All of these benefits were very interesting, but the problem was that it could be very hard to coordinate, since it required two people or more to be playing through the single-player mode at the same time. Even organizing that with just my twin brother who I see all the time could get bothersome, and I imagine it was simply too cumbersome to bother with for many people, so I can see why this aspect was not implemented in Starforce 2.

Brother Cards: As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, one feature of the BrotherBand system is that you can access a Brother's Favorite Cards using a "Brother Card" that is created for each BrotherBand you form. In Starforce 2, these cards also allow you to transform. These cards are a bit unreliable, since the Favorite Card you get is chosen randomly, but they work well to make BrotherBands distinct from each other and important to battle.

Sharing Transformations: In both games, having a BrotherBand with a player using a different version of the game lets you use that version's unique transformation modes. Overall, this is a great benefit. I am pretty sure I already covered the rest of this system's details earlier, so I will move on.

Game Character Brothers: One of the notable improvements of Megaman Starforce 2's BrotherBand system over the original is the way it separates the "Game" BrotherBands from the "Real" BrotherBands. In both games, characters in the game can form a BrotherBand with the main character which gives very similar benefits to a BrotherBand formed with another player. In the first game, though, these Game BrotherBands took up the same limited number of slots that are also used for Real BrotherBands, which lead to some unnecessary problems and dilemmas. In Starforce 2, the four Game Brothers have dedicated slots, which leaves six slots completely free for Real Brothers, so there is no longer a need to choose between them. At the same time, though, they changed it so that Game Brothers no longer give the player Brother Cards, which I believe was a mistake. I can understand that they probably did not want Game Brothers to match or surpass Real Brothers, and wanted to prevent the player from utilizing an excessive quantity of Brother Cards (which may imbalance the Tribe On system), but there were probably better options that did not reduce Game Brothers to be merely sources of Link Power and nothing else.

Abilities and Link Power: This is another place where Starforce 2 brought nothing but improvement. In the original Starforce, special abilities that were mainstays of the Megaman Battle Network series, such as "Super Armor" (which prevents Megaman from flinching when hit) and "FloatShoes" (which negates harmful panels), were tied directly to the Game Brothers, so that they were in constant effect so long as the associated BrotherBand was still in effect. This was certainly interesting and appropriate, but there was no real trade-off being made other than the problematic dilemma of choosing between Real BrotherBands and Game BrotherBands. Megaman Starforce 2 replaced all of this with the Link Power system, in which every BrotherBand has an associated Link Power value that increases as the game progresses. This value is used as the maximum capacity for equipping Abilities that are acquired throughout the game. It preserves all of the important thematic elements of the original system, in which you gain power through bonds with friends, and also extends that to Real BrotherBands and adds a degree of customizability and need to make trade-offs, which makes the game that much more interesting.

Auto-Brothers: This is one of the additions made in Starforce 2 that I am not impressed with. Put simply, Starforce 2 lets you form a BrotherBand with an entity called an "Auto-Brother" that you name at the start of the game and is associated with the other version of the game that is loaded on the cartridge (so if you choose Saurian at the beginning of the game, your Auto-Brother is Zerker). This is an outgrowth of Capcom's change to putting multiple "versions" on the same cartridge, and allows a group of players to use the Tribe King form using only two copies of the game (or Double-Tribe using only one copy), so this system has a few very good benefits, but it suffers greatly because the Auto-Brothers themselves are incredibly generic characters that practically break the continuity of the game when they briefly enter into the plot. In my opinion, it would have worked a lot better if they simply gave the cross-version role to one or two of the Game Brothers.

Megaman Starforce 2: BrotherBands Part 1 (Story)

I believe games should have strong central themes that gets integrated into their mechanics, and the two Megaman Starforce games are examples that only reinforce this belief. These are games that are built around the ideas of loneliness, friendship, and the struggle between the human need to be accepted and the all too real ease with which people can hurt each other and push each other away, and these powerful themes find a perfect reflection in the BrotherBand system. This system, which exists as both an element of the game's setting and an extremely important game mechanic, works as a bond that lets friends give each other additional power. People who haven't formed any BrotherBands are isolated, miserable, and often helpless against the evils of the world, while people who have many BrotherBands are happy and strong, and this applies equally well to the player as it does to any of the game characters. It may seem a bit simplistic and overly exaggerated at times, but it works amazingly well to create an endearing story.

One of the most important roles Brotherbands have in the game story is the impact their existence within the setting has on the way characters act and think. Everyone in the world of Megaman Starforce is absolutely obsessed with the idea of BrotherBands. It seems like every character talks about nothing but the BrotherBands they have formed, BrotherBands they want to form, their difficulties in forming Brotherbands, etc. As a result, the subject of the importance of friendship is brought up almost constantly throughout the course of the game. The player has no choice but to think about the topic almost every time he plays the game. The idea that friendships are important is made clear to the player from the very beginning.

The constant discussion of BrotherBands is taken to new levels in Starforce 2, where the addition of "Link Power", a numerical rating of the strength of a person's BrotherBands (which you can see displayed for every character in the game), adds whole new levels to the obsession. Among many other things, in that world someone can apparently get discounts on bus fares, VIP treatment at hotels, and preferred seating at theaters simply by having a lot of close friends. Because Link Power, a numerical value for the "power of friendship", is portrayed as providing the various material goods that many people associate with "being happy", the game is pretty putting forward the idea that friendship is the thing that gives people the things that make them happy. This is only expressed more strongly when Link Power is put forward as being more important than money in various parts of the game (such as the snow resort chapter in which a man who tries to get everything he wants with money is the villain trying to force a man with very high Link Power out of business). And of course, the player has a Link Power score as well, and building this value up is necessary for a lot of the fun things in the game.

With a world built upon BrotherBands and Link Power, it is no surprise that the villains of the Starforce games embrace the idea of loneliness. The villains of the original game, the FM-ians, are alien entities that take over the bodies of those who are consumed by loneliness. Every boss battle in the original Megaman Starforce is a battle against someone who has essentially been eaten away by their own suffering and turned into a monster against their own will. Thus, the FM-ians (and their monstrous weapon Andromeda) are essentially metaphors for the destructive effects of loneliness, as well as the terrible mix of emotions that both lead to that feeling and result from it, such as fear, despair, anger, jealousy, and paranoia. Megaman Starforce 2 continues the trend by including a villain (appropriately named Solo) who has rejected the world and hates even the idea of friendship, though I have not yet reached the end of the game so it is hard to say any more about him. In every case, loneliness is portrayed as the worst possible state a person can be in, something that eats away at the soul and leads nothing but hatred for the world, and worse still is the situation for those who reject what friendship is offered to them.

Surpassing all of these elements, though, is the basic story of the main hero, Geo Stellar, in his growth from being a lonely kid who has no friends to help him get through the misery of the loss of his father to becoming a hero who helps others and has many close friends to rely on. Having the main hero start out without any friends at all was one of the great decisions made by the game designers, and even greater still was the way they link progressing through the main plot to Geo's slow acquisition of BrotherBands (and strengthening those bonds further in Starforce 2, which is the reason the addition of Link Power to the BrotherBand system in Starforce 2 was so good). Still, the greatest aspect of Geo's story is that it isn't simple, straight path from "lonely" to "happy"; it is filled with ups and downs in which his attempts to open up and find new friends hurt him almost as much as they help. It portrays the act of forging meaningful bonds with other people as a terrible struggle (both directly and metaphorically), but one that must be fought and has great rewards awaiting at the end. This message, that it is important to open up and understand others despite very real difficulties, is the heart of the Starforce series.

It seems that I might have wandered a little bit away from the whole "story and mechanics are integrated" idea that I started with, but that assertion is still true. Just as Geo's story is built upon the idea that it is essential to have friends, the game mechanics are built around the idea that the player should have friends, and that having friends makes the player stronger. However, this post is probably long enough already, so I will focus on that aspect a bit more next time.

Megaman Starforce 2: Best Combo

As I continue my discussion of the various game system elements in Megaman Starforce 2, I think it is time to discuss the "Best Combo" system.

One of the most significant side-effects of the change from the Megaman Battle Network "Battle Chip" system to the Megaman Starforce "Battle Card" system is that it removed the structure that made the special chip combinations called "Program Advances" possible. With a Program Advance, it was possible to do things like combine three Cannon chips into a much more powerful GigaCannon attack, but this is only possible by combining the letter codes in certain specific orders, and as such the system is simply incompatible with the Battle Card system that does not use letter codes. Program Advances that relied on using battle chips of different types at the same time would be even harder to create and use in the Battle Card system. As such, Program Advances needed to be replaced, and the resulting system is the new Best Combo system.

The basic idea of the Best Combo is that, if you achieve certain conditions within certain battles, the player can record a chain of battle cards he used in battle as a "Best Combo", which allows that sequence of attacks to be used again as an unstoppable super-attack at a later time. Unlike the pre-built Program Advances, Best Combo attacks are designed by the person playing the game, giving them a lot of variety (though at the cost of making them less flashy and distinct). Of particular note is the fact that this system is thoroughly connected with the BrotherBand system, and encourages sharing Best Combo attacks with other players, so your own chosen "Personal Best Combo" becomes a way of showing off your own battle style and accomplishments to other players in a very useful and fun way. I love the basic concept of this system, but it does have a few flaws that still need to be sorted out.

One problem is that acquiring new Best Combo attacks can be extremely tricky. In Megaman Starforce 2, the rules for acquiring them are a bit unclear (as always, better documentation would have helped), and the changes in these rules from Starforce 1 have made it harder to deliberately set up an intricate combo, since an enemy attack will break the attack chain you are trying to put together. Also, the fact that you can only create a Best Combo against an EX or SP boss means that you can't create them early in the game. Fortunatley, these problems are minor, and it is easy enough to create decent Best Combos simply as a byproduct of fighting a boss well, so I will not complain too much about this.

A much bigger problem is that, in Megaman Starforce 2, there is almost no real practical way to make use of Best Combo attacks. In Megaman Starforce 1, it was possible to use a friend's Best Combo through the "On Air" system, but since the On Air system was removed from Starforce 2, you can only use Best Combo attacks through Legend Cards, cards that can be bothersome or expensive to acquire and disappear after a single use. As a result, it is simply impossible to make regular use of Best Combo attacks in this game, since valuable Legend Cards are only really worth using in SP boss battles and the occasional difficult plot battle. I don't think this is the best situation, so something should change. Simple solutions would be to either link Best Combos to Brother Cards again as they were with the On Air system, or to remove the unusual "can only use once" limit from Legend Cards. Since a freely-useable Legend Card would be about equal to a Giga Class card (which like Legend Cards is also limited to a single card per folder), I think it would work well enough with the latter solution. Certainly, the current situation, which limits the Best Combo system so much that it is nearly useless, is far from ideal.

Megaman Starforce: Scavenger Hunts

A few days ago, I accepted a side-quest in Megaman Starforce 2 that has lead to me taking a short break from the game. The basic premise of the job was simple enough: the player has to follow a clue and examine the corresponding object, which would give the player a new clue, and so on. However, the moment I read the first clue I was immediately stumped and overwhelmed.

The first clue was two simple words: "Ancient fish". Immediately, several possibilities jumped into my mind, such as the bottom of a lake I visited earlier in the game and the ancient drawings and fossils of sea life in the desert. Unfortunately, getting to those areas could some time, so I was looking forward to spending half an hour running around the game world. Thanks to a suggestion from my brother though, I did find the correct location pretty quickly; it was a fish fossil in the nearby museum. The next clue was where things really got hectic. I was told to look for "four wings that catch the air". Naively thinking the second location was somewhere nearby, I spent a long time checking nearby areas for anything matching that description. Nothing. So I followed my instincts and went to check out the only thing I could think of: a dragonfly fossil tucked away in a remote, hard to reach corner of the desert area. When I finally got there, I discovered that there was no clue, and that the entire trip was one big waste of time. Shortly thereafter, and after having spent an entire hour on this minor sidequest, I gave up in frustration and checked GameFAQs. It turns out I needed to go to the lake town's windmill.

This is a pretty good example of why it can be a very bad idea to put a riddle into a videogame. When some developer came up with the "four wings that catch the air" riddle, he must have thought that the answer was pretty obvious. Unfortunately, game developers can't afford to assume that the players will think the same way that they they do; what may be obvious to one person may be the last possibility on someone else's mind. Compounding the problem in this case, the developers overlooked an obvious alternate solution: the four winged dragonfly. Honestly, I had completely forgotten about the existence of the windmill by the time I accepted the sidequest. I would have figured it out as soon as I saw the windmill again, but the lake town would have been the last place I would look, since it is the hardest area to reach from where I was. After my initial guesses failed, I had only two recourses: go over every area in the game with a fine-toothed comb (which can take hours), or cheat and look up the answer.

Honestly, I think puzzles like this one should never be put into video games. Scavenger hunts with vague clues can be fun only as long as the conditions are reasonable. As long as the area of the scavenger hunt is restricted to a small size, the player has the luxury of getting to know the area in detail and being able to use the brute force approach without wasting an undue amount of time (this was the case in the underwater scavenger hunt earlier in the game). Alternatively, the game can provide the player with additional clues if the player gets stumped earlier on, so the player's brain has more information to chew on. However, demanding that the player go over the entire game world with only a vague clue to go on is simply a bad idea. It only leads to frustration.

Megaman Starforce 2: Tribe On

As has been the case for every iteration of the Megaman Battle Network/Starforce series since Battle Network 2, the hero of Megaman Starforce 2 can transform into several different special forms that are unique to this particular entry in the series. This time around, the system is called the "Tribe On" system, in which Megaman can fuse with an artifact left behind by one of the "Tribes" in order to transform into a more powerful state. At the surface level, it looks like a cheap gimmick like some previous versions of the concept, but it actually works quite well, and I like the system quite a bit. It has some flaws, but it does add some value to the game.

Before I go any further, I have to say that I think the particular "Tribes" that are used in this game are all ridiculous. I'd admit that I think ninjas, dinosaurs, and medieval berserkers are all cool things just as readily as the next guy, but throwing them all together with no rhyme or reason like they do in this game is just cheesy, and it gets worse when you start using the "Double Tribe" system to get Ninja Dinosaur Megaman. The game has enough trouble trying to replace the coherent and fun constellation-based naming scheme and alien-based plot established in Starforce 1 with some plot based around a tenuous connection between the lost civilization of Mu and UMAs like the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness monster, and adding a group of randomly selected "Tribes" with no clear connection to anything else does not help that uphill battle in the least. If the Tribes were rooted in UMA creatures and ancient or mythical civilizations like the Mayans or Atlantis, it might have worked, but as it stands it just doesn't. Fortunately, once the poor naming scheme is safely ignored, we are left with one of the best Megaman transformation systems to date.

The advantages of the Tribe On system start with the actual mechanism used to enter the form. Starforce 1 used a clunky system of "Starforce Cards" in which you had a single Battle Card in your folder that let you transform if you got lucky enough to draw it, which became rarer and rarer as you slowly acquire things like Brother Cards and Legend Cards that dilute your Folder. Starforce 2 replaces this by linking the Tribe On ability to Brother Cards, so you actually greatly increase your odds of transforming by forming more BrotherBands, which is far more appropriate given the themes of the Starforce series and is a lot more fun. In addition to this, Starforce 2 gives you an optional ability that lets you start every battle in Tribe On form, which adds to the visibility and usability of the form.

Starforce 2's system has a few more advantages over the Starforce 1 system in that different forms actually have enough variation and power in order to make using the different forms worthwhile. These forms combine the traditional abilities like passive elemental bonuses, the "Super Armor" and ninja substitution abilities, the ability to charge Battle Cards to get new effects, and modified Megabuster charge shots with Starforce 1's incredibly fun Star Force Big Bang attacks to get a very solid result. These forms have weaknesses, but they are unquestionably worth using, and just as importantly they are all clearly differentiate enough that each Tribe On form has its own unique value and can be used with its own strategy. While this is not unique to Starforce 2, it is certainly an improvement over Starforce 1's lackluster forms.

My biggest praise, though, goes to the development of the "Double Tribe" system, which strikes a fine balance between giving proper emphasis to the Tribe form corresponding to the player's version that is important to the story and allowing the player to experiment with the abilities of the other Tribes. With this scheme, you can add the power of a Brother's Tribe on top of the Tribe determined by which version you are using, so if you choose "Saurian" as your Tribe you can use the base Fire Saurian form, as well as the Saurian Ninja and Saurian Zerker forms that use the element and weapon of Ninja or Zerker but use the same basic powers as Saurian. As a whole, this system has the same focus on a specific form that some older Battle Network games had, such as Battle Network 6's focus on the Gregar and Falzar forms, which helps keep the story and gameplay in sync and makes version important (avoiding the pitfall of Starforce 1 where, once you form a few BrotherBands, you can use forms from different versions equally well). At the same time, it gives you a fair amount of flexibility and rewards forming BrotherBands with people of different versions. I particularly like the way Megaman's character model and abilities are different depending on whether he is in Saurian Ninja or Ninja Saurian forms. The only flaw I can think of with this set-up is in the Double Tribe Link force Big Bang attacks, because they don't make the distinction between whether you are Zerker Ninja or Ninja Zerker, which leads to problems like the fact that I can never make use of the Zerker-style triple slash Big Bang attack, or the fact that Ninja Saurian uses a shuriken volley even though he is not holding any shuriken (and is using the Dino Cannon instead).

Finally, I have to mention the Tribe King, the ultimate form you achieve by combining all three Tribes. This is probably the first form in the history of the Megaman franchise that really deserves the term "ultimate form" (I always found Megaman X's "Ultimate Armor" to be more bark than bite). The fact that it has all of the abilities of the three Tribes combined, a very powerful Megabuster charged shot, and an unstoppable Big Bang attack would be enough to cement that title, but the Tribe King's ability to double the power of every Battle Card goes well over the top and wanders into the realm of "much too powerful". I like the fact that it makes gathering all three tribes worth the effort, and I like that an "ultimate form" actually exists, but it is just a little bit too much. Getting Tribe King essentially means instant victory, which means a boss fight or multiplayer match can be decided simply by a player getting a little bit of luck. Also, I am sure the game artists put in a valiant effort, but any attempt at making a fusion of Megaman (himself a fusion between a kid and an alien), a dinosaur, a ninja, and a medieval warrior look impressive and cool was doomed from the start.

Megaman Starforce 2: Star Cards

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I want to write a bit about the Star Card system introduced in Megaman Starforce 2. Basically, in Starforce 2 you can occasionally acquire rare "Star Cards" that are improved versions of normal Battle Cards. You can only use three of them at a time, but while a Star Card is in your folder all other Cards in your folder that share the same name will have increased power to match the power of the Star Card. It lets you both slightly break the "maximum of three cards of the same kind" limitation, and lets you improve the effectiveness of certain kinds of cards. It is essentially just a replacement for a bonus provided by the "On Air" system in the original Starforce game, but at the same time it is one of the greatest improvements to the Battle Chip/Card system since Megaman Battle Network 3 introduced the three-tier categorization system.

One of my favorite aspects of the new Star Card system is that it helps keep older Battle Cards from becoming totally obsolete. In previous versions of the system, a lot of cards can become obsolete and almost useless incredibly quickly. For example, basic PlasmaGun 1 cards are the kind of card that you begin the game with, and have such low attack power that they become a poor choice very quickly, even though their paralysis effect is very useful. However, in Megaman Starforce 2 it is possible to acquire a 3-star PlasmaGun 1 that has more than twice the attack power of a normal PlasmaGun 1 card (which is more power than a PlasmaGun 2 has, in fact), which transforms an attack that is obsolete by the time you get the Star Card into an attack that will remain useful for some time to come. There are many other examples where older cards manage to surpass newer versions of the same card through the use of Star Cards, which creates an interesting choice for the player between giving up a precious Star Card slot to get a stronger effect or using the slightly weaker new version instead and leaving the Star Card slot open to be used by something else. Overall, Star Cards add a lot of flexibility and strategy into the system without adding a bothersome level of complexity.

Another thing I like about Star Cards is that they make it easier to use the cards you like to use. You can only equip 3 Star Cards, which means you can only improve 3 card types in your folder (usually 9 out of the 30 primary cards, 12 out of 33 if you count the Star Cards themselves). The added power and increased chance of drawing one of these cards in battle automatically increases the relative importance and visibility of those three card types. Because of this, it means that if you want to use a particular card type as the center of some kind of strategy, or you just want to use a particular card type more often because you like using it, then all you have to do is equip the equivalent Star Card.

Despite the strength of the system, though, I do think it has a few flaws. One problem is that the effectiveness of Star Cards is perhaps a bit too uneven. Some cards, particularly high attack power, single hit cards, get very minimal effect from Star Cards (a mere +15 or so to damage), while some cards, such as those with low attack power and a large number of attacks, can double or triple their effectiveness with a Star Card. In some problematic extremes, it leads to situations where one card may be very weak if used on its own but excessively powerful when used with a Star Card, while another card may be good on its own but a very poor choice for wasting a Star Card slot on, which may be a game balance problem and is certainly a problem that offsets some of the advantages I laid out above. Since the investment is the same regardless of the card type, it seems the benefits should be more even as well.

My other criticism of the system is that the current system for acquiring Star Cards is imperfect. In order to acquire a Star Card, you need to find and defeat a giant version of the virus that drops that card, and in order to get a good Star Card you need to defeat such a virus with a very high Busting Rank, which is often only possible under the most favorable conditions. Since most of these giant viruses only show up with a very small random chance, and since it requires even more luck than that to get the conditions set up to get a high Busting rank against them, acquiring good Star Cards is more a matter of luck than skill. The fact that you are guaranteed to at least get some kind of Star Card when you defeat a giant virus, as well as the fact that some of these viruses can be found reliably, makes this a lot more bearable, but it doesn't do enough to make up for the flaws. I don't even know how I am supposed to get Star Cards for the card types that are not dropped by viruses, other than rely on the unreliable Card Trader or find them as treasure or in a shop. Not to mention there is the problem that this role for giant viruses prevents them from being used as regular opponents like they were in Starforce 1. Maybe, in addition to making such cards available through these means, they should have done something to link in Star Cards to the Brother Band/Link Power system, in order to better tie it in to the original On Air system.

Still, despite the flaws I do consider Star Cards to be a remarkable improvement to the series. I am looking forward to how this particular system will continue to be improved upon in future iterations of the series.

Megaman Starforce: Geo and Omega-Xis

My brother and I have been putting a lot of time into Megaman Starforce 2 (both versions) for the Nintendo DS over the last week. I have been a big fan of the Starforce series and the original Megaman Battle Network series for years now. However the two main characters of Megaman Starforce, Geo Stellar and Omega-Xis, have become my favorite characters out of the entire combined series. As a pair of characters, they regularly produce fun scenes and hilarious dialogue. Without their interactions, the two Megaman Starforce games would not be anywhere near as fun.

In the original Megaman Battle Network series, the equivalent characters to Geo and Omega-Xis were Lan Hikari and Megaman.exe (otherwise known as Hub, Lan's twin brother). Like most Net-Navis in the Battle Network series, Megaman.exe was in many ways an exaggerated or slightly distorted mirror-image of his operator. In general, Lan was the slightly more aggressive and confident of the two characters, while Megaman.exe tried to act as Lan's conscience. However, the two were both pretty straight-forward heroic characters, and thus were generally in sync with each other. Unfortunately, this meant that the character interactions between the two were often somewhat bland. While there were some truly touching scenes built around the fact that they were two brothers (found mainly during endgame sequences), many of their regular interactions often boiled down to Megaman.exe nagging Lan to do his homework.

In comparison, the conversations Geo Stellar and Omega-Xis have even during routine gameplay range from mildly entertaining to downright hilarious, thanks to the strongly contrasting personalities of the two characters. On one hand, Geo Stellar fits perfectly into the reluctant hero archetype: he is a rather timid boy who lacks drive and confidence who is dragged into dangerous situations against his will. However, Geo possesses strong morals and dreams about becoming someone like his father. In comparison, the alien warrior Omega-Xis is an incredibly aggressive character. Omega-Xis thrives on combat and excitement, is always eager for a fight, and has no qualms about doing things like poking around people's secret data files. It is difficult to imagine two characters more different than these two.

These contrasting personalities fuel a huge range of funny and entertaining interactions and conversations. One of the most distinct is the hilarious scenes where Omega-Xis (who dwells in the computer Geo wears on his left arm) literally dragging Geo around by the arm because Omega-Xis got bored and wanted to go somewhere more exciting. We see Geo protesting when Omega-Xis wants to invade someone's computer to take a peek at people's diaries, before Omega-Xis ignores him and does so anyways. And we see Omega-Xis constantly teasing Geo about the various girls who have crushes on him. Because both characters have such contradicting perspectives on everything, it is easy to write a wide variety of interesting material for them.

Perhaps the most useful outcome of Geo and Omega-Xis's personalities is that it gives a very good justification for why a reluctant hero like Geo would actually become a game's main character. In Megaman Starforce 1, Omega-Xis makes it clear to Geo from the get-go that he knows something about what happened to Geo's father, who mysteriously disappeared some time prior. So, Geo has a very good reason to put up with Omega-Xis. From that point, Omega-Xis simply drags Geo from one dangerous situation into another until Geo has slowly become accustomed to being a hero. So there was no point in the game where I asked myself "So why is this guy the main hero?".

In the end, I think the direction the developers took with the personalities of Geo and Omega-Xis was the right one. It has produced really entertaining results so far. While the risk that the writing for the game will get stuck in a rut still exists, I hope that these two characters will be able to avoid that fate.

Megaman Starforce 2: Battle Cards

I have probably mentioned this before, but both my brother and I are big fans of Capcom's Megaman series, and that includes the Battle Network and Starforce sub-series. As such, we have been playing Megaman Starforce 2 quite a bit over the last days, and I have really been enjoying it so far. I already have quite a bit to say about the game, however, since Battle Cards are so important to the game, they will be the first aspect of Megaman Starforce 2 I will discuss.

I really think that the Battle Card system of the Megaman Starforce games is a significant improvement over its predecessor, the Battle Chip system from the Megaman Battle Network games, mostly because it abandons the alphabetical code system. In the original Battle Chip system, every individual Battle Chip has a letter code in addition to the chip type, so you could have things like an "Cannon B" chip that is similar to, but slightly different from a "Cannon C" chip. All "Cannon" chips are used in the same way and have the same strength, but chips with different codes can be combined with different other chips. Because of that system, you can use a "Cannon B" chip the same turn as a "Protoman" chip (Protoman is always B), or you can use a "Cannon B" and a "Cannon C" at the same time, but you can't use a "Cannon C" chip and a "Protoman" chip at the same time. This means that there is an incredibly strong incentive to build Chip Folders using as few codes as possible, in order to maximize the number of Battle Chips you can use in one turn. This incentive is so strong that it practically overrides any other consideration, and often makes Folder creation an overly complicated endeavor. Also, because chips of particular codes may be more rare than others, it occasionally made gathering a good set of Battle Chips a lengthy process. This system worked well enough in the early Battle Network games, when building the Chip Folder was the player's only concern, but what advantages it had began to break down in later Battle Network games.

The big problem for the Battle Chip system came with the introduction of Style forms, Double Soul forms, and other such systems in later Battle Network games, as well as with the continued improvements to the Battle Chip list that came with each game. More and more, considerations like needing a large number of powerful Fire Chips to fuel the abilities of the FireSoul form or needing to include a mix of good Normal Chips and Electric Chips for ElecCross form began to create an incentive that contradicted the code-based incentive. More importantly, the code system made it difficult or impossible to freely use multiple forms with a single Folder. As a whole, the entire system ultimately promoted a limited set of "good" Folders based entirely on what was pre-determined by the game designers, rather than what the player desired.

Megaman Starforce 1 changed all of that when it completely abandoned the idea of letter codes and replaced it with the column rule. Now, in the Starforce series, Battle Cards are laid out as a grid of three columns of two cards rather than merely a list of available options, and cards that have been randomly assigned to be in the same column can be used together in the exact same manner as cards of the same code could be used together in the old system. As such, the player no longer has the option of gaining an advantage through careful Folder construction, which actually means the player is free to chose whether to use a Battle Card or not on the Card's merits alone. Unusual Card combinations are possible in a way they never were before, and Cards no longer have artificial synergy just because they share a letter code. What is more, these restrictions are eased while still preserving the original reason the code system was introduced: adding some strategic complexity by preventing the player from being able to use every card given to him in battle at once. In fact, it pulls it off more successfully because there is no way to work around that restriction in the Starforce system. It also preserves the "wild card" value of the old asterisk-code with the "White Card" designation. A lot of negative side-effects of the system were removed and almost all of the advantages were preserved.

One new feature of the Battle Card system that I find to be particularly good is the change made to the "favorite chip/card" system. Previously, the Favorite Chip was a Battle Chip that was guaranteed to be available at the start of battle, and it was often restricted by a numerical "memory" value that made it hard to make proper use of. In the Starforce games, this is replaced by the Favorite Card system in which you choose a set of four or six cards that become "White Cards", letting them be used more freely, with no over-complicated memory restriction. This change simply lets you use cards you like more easily, and it is a lot easier to manage than the old system, so I prefer it.

There is a lot more I can write about, such as the new Star Card system, but that will have to wait for another day.

Megaman ZX Advent Part 2

Game Completion: Completed, with only a few optional things remaining.

Overall, this game is a solid entry in the Megaman series. It won't change the mind of someone who doesn't like the series, but it is very satisfying for a fan of the series.

The plot of this game is adequate. It is not a great piece of literature, but it has a few good characters and the plot suffices to explain the events of the game and maintain the player's interest. Certainly, focusing a lot of the game on the interesting characters of Prometheus and Pandora helped it a lot, since those two are very different from the typical enemies of the Megaman series. I guess here is a list of a few good things and a few bad things.

1) Legion and the Sage Trinity are a nice addition to the series, though it would have been better for consistency's sake if they were at least mentioned in the last game.

2) The main villain is interesting, though he probably could have had more presence in his role as a supposed ally before his big revelation that he was the evil mastermind.

3) The portrayal of Model W in ZX Advent is very different than in the last game in many ways, and this is not adequately explained. Of all the things that seem like plot holes, this is the only one that is problematic for me.

4) The idea behind the four Megamen fighting in the Game of Destiny is a good one, but it wasn't executed perfectly. Their motivations and goals were not presented clearly, and more importantly they did not have enough presence in the game. It would have helped a lot if they simply appeared in more scenes, and had clear objectives whenever they appeared. As it is, they seem more like common minions than a group of idealists fighting some Highlander-style battle for ultimate power.

5) The power of Model A is clearly based on Axl's abilities from Megaman X7 and X8, but the connection between Axl and Model A is obscured by a lot of unusual stuff, and it seems that a few potential plot threads tracing back to Megaman X8 are still unresolved. I suppose more might be explained later, but it just doesn't make a lot of clear sense. Oh well, I guess this is fairly typical for the Megaman series, actually.

6) Prometheus and Pandora are great characters, so much so that the one fight against them is not enough. Fighting them each at least once more would have been nice. I fact, it would have been better if there were battles against all of the other Megamen.

Finally, there is one last issue with the game's plot: Ashe's story does not make sense. It was a good idea to differentiate the two possible main characters, but in this case the plot, particularly concerning the character's main motivations, just make so much more sense with Grey than they do with Ashe that it significantly changes the enjoyability of the story. Even the villains have better dialog when talking with Grey.

On one final note, I really like the system of collecting different medals for defeating the Pseudoroids in specific ways. It is a fun challenge that makes me want to fight the bosses several times. I vastly prefer it to the system in Megaman ZX, which punished you for fighting intelligently against an opponent and did not really reward fighting a boss any time other than the first.

Memorable Characters in Megaman games

Just half an hour ago, I managed to beat Megaman ZX Advent, after sixteen hours of play. I am very impressed so far with how ZX and ZX Advent continue to build on the cast of memorable recurring characters in the series. Prometheus and Pandora in particular are very interesting characters that I have looked forward to fighting in both games in the ZX series so far. Between both ZX and ZX Advent, the Megaman ZX series has a pretty sizable cast of memorable recurring characters. This certainly has not always been the case in the Megaman series.

In both the original Megaman series and particularly for most of the Megaman X series there has been an unfortunate lack of good characters. In the original Megaman series, the good guy cast was actually very fleshed out. There was Megaman, the main hero, Protoman, his friendly rival, Roll, the female supporting character, Dr. Light, all round good scientist/father figure, and a large assortment of minor helper characters with varying degrees of traction. On the other hand, for most of the series, the only character on the villain's side is Dr. Wily, the mad scientist and recurring Final Boss. It took until Megaman 7 for another villain character, Bass, to be introduced. Yet, Bass's role is an important one. As soon as he was introduced, he became a wildly popular character. So much so that he shared main character status with Megaman in the final entry in the Megaman series, Megaman & Bass.

The Megaman X series was a lot worse off in terms of characters. For the first three games, the only characters of note were X, Zero, and Sigma. For most of the X series, the only other characters aside from these three were various villains that challenged X outside of the regular stage progression who were all killed off by the end of the game they were introduced in (usually as Fortress stage bosses). This list includes Vile, the X Hunters, Bit & Byte, Dr. Doppler, Colonel, Iris, Double, Dynamo, Gate, High Max, and Lumine.  And yet, the characters in this list are not equal, even though they generally played the same role in their individual games. Vile, the first of these characters is still popular even today, while Dynamo is a joke to fans. When Vile was introduced, he defeats X in the intro stage of the game and forces Zero to sacrifice his own life to save X in the first fortress stage. Vile also has a unique schtick: he rides around in a big mech. On the other hand, Dynamo never did anything more than than throw out a couple taunts before you fight him, and never did anything more than be a nuisance. Dynamo also fought in an unoriginal manner, using only beam sword attacks and energy blasts, the same as numerous other characters in the series. Colonel and Iris also deserve special mention. While their role was similar to other one-game characters from the X series, Colonel and especially Iris were able to win a lot of fans thanks to their tragic plot in Zero's side of X4. Good character designs and good story won them fans and appearances in the Megaman Battle Network series, while Double, the more typical opponent from X's side of the plot in the same game, was forgotten.

The X series also had a spotty history with good-guy supporting characters. Amidst the limited number the first four games was Dr. Cain, who was only mentioned in the manual of the first game, appeared in two scenes of the second, only appeared in one optional scene in the third, and was once again only mentioned in the manual of the fourth. The only other supporting character early on was Zero, who twice saved X's life in the first game, was brought back in the second game with a cool optional boss battle and hints at his mysterious past, was a limited use character in the third, and hit main character status that rivaled X's in the fourth game and onwards. Megaman X5 was where some decent supporting characters were finally introduced. Chief among them were Alia and Sygnas. Alia became a major support character for the rest of the X series, handing out hints and advice in the middle of stages, giving out information during cut-scenes, and doing mission de-briefings. Alia (and a few other characters based on her) even became an unlockable character at one point. Sygnas filled out the missing role of commanding officer and gave context to game missions in cut scenes. He was eventually used to give the player mission rankings in X8. Other characters introduced in X5, such as Lifesaver and Douglas, did not do so well because their role was more minor and less clear-cut. However, Alia has had to deal with the stigma of being an annoying character because of some poor game mechanics from the first game she was introduced in.

The creators of the Zero series payed attention to the lessons learned from the original and X series. From the get go, the Megaman Zero games have had a memorable cast of supporting characters in the form of Ciel and her resistance fighters. Ciel was very important to the plot of the Zero games and was always around to talk to, while the recurring cast of resistance fighters was colorful and entertaining. On the other side of things, the Zero games also introduced the Four Guardians, a  group of recurring opponents for Zero who all had interesting personalities, distinctive fighting styles, and grew ever more developed and interesting as the series continued until they eventually became Zero's allies. Even in the ZX series they are still important characters.

So in summation, here are some tendencies from across the Megaman series about what qualities tend to make for memorable and popular characters:

Supporting good-guys:

*Has plot significance

*Appears in cut-scenes in a prominent role

*Fills out a niche or role such as commander

*Is involved in some kind of relationship with a main character

*Has a likable or quirky personality

*Doesn't annoy the heck out of the player

Villains:

*Has plot significance

*Appears in cut scenes on a recurring basis

*Has a distinctive look and fighting style unlike any other character

*Is fun to fight

*Does more than just fight the hero

*Has more motivation than just fighting the hero

*Has an interesting or fun personality

Of course, good character design, theme music, and writing are also important, but those traits are somewhat harder to quantify past "I know it when I see it."