Mega Man Star Force is Capcom’s attempt to expand the franchise into new territory. You play as Geo Stelar, a 5th grader who has stopped going to school for three years because his Dad disappeared into space. Along the way you chat with people, collect cards, battle monsters in 3D with those cards, and make special friends (brothers). It’s not a revolutionary step for the franchise, doesn’t make use of the DS at all, and wastes a pretty neat collectible card mechanic.

The storyline is more than a bit confusing. You start off in adventure mode, a 3rd person perspective in a small neighborhood. While running around town talking to the few people around you, Omega-Xis, an energy being who knows your missing father, transplants himself into your “Transer”. Transer is your subconscious energy field or EM Wave. When EM Wave and a human fuse, it’s called FM-ian fuse and they can wander around in an energy field or Wave World. Got that?

Wave World is the energy plane that exists around all people, and creatures there can influence a person’s actions. This gets fleshed out somewhat in the storyline, and though targeted towards kids it’s still a bit over-the-top. (Though maybe children don’t try and rationalize as much as a 38-year old.)

The story mode is the shell for the main game which is battling creatures with cards you’ve collected in action-based combat. You make a deck of 30+ cards (150+ cards available in the game), and during battle six cards at a time are displayed at random. Depending on the random cards drawn - you can choose to select one to six cards in the first phase of conflict. The number of cards you select is based on the type of card and their location.

You’re then taken to a 3D combat arena which is a 3x9 grid. You can strafe back and forth in the first row of squares while the AI monsters have the rest of the field to work with. The cards selected can attack, defend, heal or be used in special combinations to destroy the enemies. Since there’s a pseudo-RPG element (gaining levels) the player doesn’t necessarily have to use cards, but it’d be pretty difficult without them. In addition to the combat cards, there is a simple block and attack button.

This game comes in three iterations with the Dragon version only being sold at Gamestop. Little “extras” based on the store you purchase a game at is nothing new. However, this reviewer disagrees with the idea of having a different version sold exclusively at just one chain. Especially one that’s notorious for poor customer service and dubious pre-order and stocking conventions. Each version of the game (Leo, Pegasus, and Dragon) has “exclusive” content, and by linking up with your friends you can share that exclusive content. This content can be shared over WiFi through their BrotherBand mode (confusing term for using friend’s codes), and locally as well. WiFi can’t do everything in the game as battles can only be done locally.

In many games going wireless can be daunting for the younger player. Thankfullyyou are introduced to BrotherBand early on through the single player campaign. Taking the time to go through it shows the sharing mode has many nice features. E-mail can be sent to friends (aka brothers). It also has a nice little paint shop utility to customize the player’s face (avatar). Best of all, you can add notes about your favorite card combinations, special secrets, plus your overall favorite cards. Sharing with friends is fun and rewarding unless you have the same versions.

Collecting and playing cards in 3D is great fun. You have the ability to create special combos of cards that get supercharged, plus they get to morph into different super characters. Combine this with sharing all this stuff with friends, and you could easily play this game for a hundred hours.

Sadly, every other aspect of the game is a disaster.

The adventure and RPG mode could have been creative and fun. Instead it is very tedious. As you run around the “energy wave plane”, you are constantly interrupted by critters that attack. The ability to retreat from an unwanted battle is there, however the chances are only about 40%, and the result of trying to retreat (and failing) is starting the battle with no cards.