In the twenty years since Mega Man debuted on the NES the series has become increasingly convoluted, fragmented, and watered-down. You can't blame Capcom for milking their mascot with endless manga, anime, and video game spin-offs. He's a genuinely cool character. But is anyone besides the uber-fan really all that invested in his story? Mega Man Star Force 2 is so far removed from the original games that it may as well be an altogether different series. All that really remains is the lead characters helmeted aesthetic.

The action here place in universe parallel to that of the original game. All you really need to know is that a kid named Geo Stelar finds himself possessed by some kind of cybernetic ghost dog who imbues him with radical powers and lets him cosplay as Mega Man. The game plays like an action RPG, with players collecting cards that they'll use in battle. All of these divergences from Mega Man's origins would be fine if the game were fun, compelling, or stimulating. Sadly, Mega Man Star Force 2 is none of the above.

Mega Man vs Chris Hansen Man

Mega Man Star Force 2 starts off with an accidental laugh. Quickly glossing over the events of Mega Man Star Force, we learn how protagonist Geo Stelar becomes Mega Man. Turns out he's possessed by a creature named Omega-Xis. It's how Omega-Xis and Geo formed their partnership that elicits chuckles. Like one of the marks on To Catch a Predator he asks Geo, "Hey, kid, can I use your body?" Stelar happily complies. What follows is a fairly dull riff on the action RPG. Geo has a nifty pair of glasses that he can use to view the world of electrical waves that overlaps the everyday futuristic metropolis that he and his friends call home. When he becomes Mega Man he warps into that plane, where he can collect battle cards, explore new areas and get into lots of tedious random battles. The story follows Stelar and their friends as they enjoy their summer break. Wherever they go Geo finds a villain poised to ruin their vacation. Of course, only a kid who dresses like Mega Man can save the day.

Minor Tweaks, Simple Brawls

To call Mega Man Star Force 2 an RPG is a bit of an exaggeration. Players customize a card deck and grow their stats as the game progresses, but there's no serious character tweaking. And the game's combat, the whole purpose for this customization, is simplistic in the extreme. Fights go down in real-time – sorta. Mega Man finds himself on a battlefield with three rows of foes before him. Players can move to the left or right to dodge and make attacks. Every so often the player pauses the action to select a couple more attacks or powers drawn randomly from the card deck they customized. These moments are, really, the heart of Mega Man Star Force 2's game play – and they're hardly more complex or compelling than your average Flash game. Luckily, there's an additional layer of personalization here that dovetails nicely with the game's online matches. Geo and his friends live in hyper-connected world where online social networking drives human interactions. Players create and customize a profile for Geo, which extends to real-world online matches played via the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection. It ain't Pokemon, but it's the most interesting thing about the game and a possible way for players to find fun outside of the game's fairly tedious single-player story.

Lowering the Bar

Mega Man Star Force 2 is one of those games that makes you wander around and talk to characters until you've found the one that will push the story forward. It's the kind of game that pads itself out with random fights. And, worst of all, it's type of game that tries to pass tired techno-babble off as story. This crime is all the more heinous considering the fact that Mega Man Star Force 2 is aimed squarely at young gamers. The last thing we need in games is more TV anime plots to help conditioning our youngest into accepting this kind of blather as de rigueur for video games narrative. Random battles and simplistic combat mechanics can be overlooked, but superior action RPG games like Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime or Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga setting the story-telling bar so high, it's hard to forgive Mega Man Star Force 2 its sins.

Review by: Gus Mastrapa