The Blue Bomber’s DS RPGs hit the air once again.
Almost twenty years after the first Mega Man Star Force launched on DS, the trilogy is coming to Switch and other consoles March 27th, 2026. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection contains every version of each game, plus bonus features and a gallery to truly immerse yourself in the town of Echo Ridge.
Building on the Mega Man Battle Network series (and a wild departure from Mega Man’s platforming roots), Star Force follows new protagonist Geo Stelar, a depressed pre-teen possessed by Omega-Xis, an invisible alien who may have known Geo’s missing astronaut father. Together, the two become Mega Man, the only person who can protect the planet from computer viruses raining down from space. With the help of his dead dad’s research goggles, Geo can see the Wave World, essentially Wi-Fi pathways overlaying the physical world. Mega Man can traverse these paths to sneak into electronics or even pop out someplace else.
The real-time battles take place on a grid with a behind-the-back camera. Mega Man comes with an upgradable buster, but his real attacks come from Battle Cards. Every few seconds, Mega Man can pull up a menu of six cards to choose from in specific combinations: a column of two, identical matches, or random white wild cards. Time unfreezes, and Mega Man dodges left and right to line up his attacks, ranging from flaming yoyos to area-of-effect bombs. Pressing down lets Mega Man lock onto an enemy and jump forward to attack.
For our preview, we played through the first few story arcs of Star Force: Leo. Scenarios may feel familiar to fans of Battle Network or other grade-school adventure series. Geo, a homeschooled recluse, tries to dodge his would-be classmates and uncover the details of his dad’s final mission when something goes awry. Mega Man sneaks into the labyrinthian dungeon within whatever malfunctioning electronic to solve puzzles before battling the alien that possessed the most recently introduced NPC-with-a-tragic-backstory. While Mega Man may be powerful, the friendship speech in the cutscene after the battle is what really saves the day. Geo learns a bit about friendship, too. The increasingly outrageous situations pair with a perfectly al dente translation to recapture a comforting mid-aughts magic long thought lost.
The trilogy’s new Legacy Collection wrapper greets you with a fully voiced 3D Mega Man, all seven games in the trilogy, a gallery with jukebox, and a deep settings menu. Players can toggle the new art, music, and high-res filter, and choose how the DS’s two screen display on the Switch. I must apologize to our YouTube audience for how much time I spent in vertical mode. Built-in cheats are much more granular than a win button with sliders for the random encounter rate and damage done or taken. My favorite cheats are the increased overworld speed and sprites for the previously invisible secret boss rematches. They also threw in achievements and a list of passwords to unlock rare items.
Star Force is technically the most recent Mega Man series, and aside from Legends, these were the most notable entries missing from modern consoles. Yes, they are important to Mega Man’s legacy, but they also represent a genre that has almost disappeared: handheld RPGs. The episodic story of daily growth, the cards to collect, the secret bosses to uncover. Mega Man RPGs dare to ask to stay in your handheld all summer, and they justify that request with depth.
