Mega Man Star Force 3 Black Ace / Red Joker Review
Continuing the long running Mega Man series, Capcom has brought their latest action role-playing entry in the franchise to North America on the Nintendo DS, Mega Man Star Force 3. Once again players suit up as lead Geo Stelar with partner Omega-Xis in tow, together transforming into Mega Man to defend the world from new evils and protect their close friends when they find themselves sandwiched in the middle.
As opposed to using real world phenomenon, mythology, or history, like most other video games, Capcom has created a unique, well-thought-out world for the Star Force series that continues in Star Force 3, which takes a fair bit of explaining to grasp. In essence, the futuristic setting of the game revolves around a highly-networked society where all technology is based on Electromagnetic Waves, or EM Waves, for short. To understand EM Waves, think of a hybrid between computers in a digital form, radio, energy, the internet, and holograms. Machinery is hardly present, as EM Waves are often projected to form solid objects. These waves are seemingly the cornerstone of the world.
Radio waves in real life are used for everything from Xbox 360 gamepads to Wifi to FM and AM Radio. There are just an unimaginable amount of radio waves flying around our own heads at any given millisecond. In Star Force 3, EM Waves are just as prevalent, so prevalent in-fact that they form what is known in the game as the "Wave Road". This Wave Road is essentially a virtual world of paths in the air over every single part of the world that people cannot see or get to, due to it being digital. To further complicate things, there are also EM Beings, which are basically robots with artificial intelligence made from EM Waves instead of mechanics.
How does a story fit into all this? Enter Geo Stelar, 5th grader and saviour of the world on two previous occasions (those being the events of the previous two Star Force games). Many, but not all, people in Geo's world have companion/helper EM Beings, called Wizards. These wizards are linked to a handheld device called a Hunter-VG, which Geo carries at all times. Geo's wizard isn't actually a human-made EM Being like everyone else's wizard, but is actually an alien named Omega-Xis (nicknamed "Mega") that came to be Geo's wizard earlier in the Star Force series. Together Geo and Mega can combine, or as the game calls it, Transcode, to become Mega Man. Mega Man is a world renowned hero, but it is a secret that his true identity is Geo Stelar. As such only Geo's close friends, and incidentally the Police, know Geo is in fact, Mega Man.
Once players have grasped all that, and indeed it is a lot to grasp off the beginning of any game, the simple premise is that some new shifty figures are causing other powerful EM Beings to go berserk, thus getting Mega Man to step into the fray once again to beat them, but for other reasons than just inconveniencing Mega Man. The game is geared at a younger crowd, but surprisingly the game delivers a great message about bonds, friendship, and hardship, with a superbly written script. Thanks to the writing quality the game is certainly a title open to all ages.
