Developed By and Published By: Capcom
Category: RPG
Release Date: 03.27.26
Price: $39.99
*Game Download Code graciously provided for the purpose of preview
I have a confession to make. I never played the original mainline Mega Man games. I just don’t care much for 2D sidescrollers and it didn’t really interest me when I was growing up. But when I was in middle school, I fell in love with the Battle Network games because of the combat system and the somewhat open world. I have some great memories playing the originals and even more from the ports, but I somehow skipped the Star Force games that came after.
But now I can play them thanks to the new collection that’s coming out later this month. The collection includes all three Star Force games and their different versions along with a bunch of improvements and enhancements. Capcom always does a great job with their collections, and the Star Force collection is no exception. It’s a behemoth, but how does it hold up to the original DS titles?
Before I talk about the games themselves, there are two huge improvements that I want to talk about first. The first is the screen layout. The original games utilized multiple screens since they were on the DS but the devs compacted the screens into one quite well. But I still thought the secondary screen was too small at times. But I later learned that you can adjust the screen sizes, location, and backgrounds in the settings, which was huge.
You’re also freely able to move the camera around the map without moving your character. Early on, I was having trouble with getting lost. I’d go down the wrong path and then have to backtrack, sometimes multiple times until I got it right. Moving just the camera is really quick, and being able to see all of the map before you move is big. I don’t know what the originals were like to compare, but these quality of life improvements are huge.
But that’s not all. The collection comes with a bunch of supplementary goodies in addition to the games. There’s a gallery that includes more than 1,000 images across characters, cards, and other artwork. There’s also a music player with more than 100 tracks. Both of these are available in the main menu right at the start. I’ve only gone through a bit of the first game so far, but being able to have access to everything at the start is huge. Most games make you unlock all the goodies as you play.
Performance-wise, there weren’t any noticeable issues with the game with the parts that I checked out It’s a port of nearly 20-year-old DS games and the upgrades weren’t that demanding to begin with. My only concerns were with the screen sizes and adjusting them fixed that. However, I greatly preferred playing in handheld mode because the adjustments didn’t do much when I was far from the TV. Overall, the game looks and runs very well on the larger Switch screen.
Overall, the games will be very exciting to play towards the end of the month.