Rockman.Exe: Operation Shooting Star

This is a port of Mega Man Battle Network 1 to the Nintendo DS with a handful of new features and a new scenario involving Geo Stelar, the protagonist from the Mega Man Star Force series. Essentially expect the same game from the Game Boy Advance, except the addition of Subchips and running which alone greatly improve the game. The scenario involving Geo comes up late in the game, right before the very last part of the game, and from what I've seen, the game is identical otherwise. There hasn't been much improvement in graphics nor have the real tedious levels of Battle Network 1 been changed.

What you do get, is the ability to play as Geo and Omega-Xis, who come with their own assortment of Battle Cards, a shield, and Omega-Xis' lock on ability. The game also features a multiplayer Colosseum game similar to Star Force 2.

There hasn't been anything said about a US release date just yet, but it's likely we'll see this game over here in a few months. I'll hold off my judgment on it until then, but I have to admit I'm disappointed at the missed opportunity Capcom is making by making this game primarily a port.

Imagine if you will if the time traveling aspect of this game was not a side scenario, but actually the main focus of the game. The game starts out exactly like Battle Network 1, but events keep changing from the original game, weird distortions to the whole universe start happening, and eventually we run into Geo early on instead of towards the end. Geo explains the whole distortion of time-line events to Lan, and suddenly the game takes a rapid turn as Lan, MegaMan.exe, Geo and Omega-Xis have to work together to restore the time-line to its original form to save the future. Think Back to the Future here. Time Traveling stories can really fuck up a long running series, but they can be a lot of fun too.

Then imagine beating the game, initially never actually playing as Geo. Suddenly we unlock a new mode, where the player stars as Geo Stelar and the game unravels from his perspective. Let's take it a step further and even have the battle engine from Star Force control how we use Geo, letting us have the best of both worlds of Battle Network and Star Force. This I think would have made the game much more interesting and much more anticipated than it is right now. This would give a genuinely new game and it would borrow a lot of elements and resources from Battle Network 1 which could have even freed up some development time.

As it stands though, it looks like the people who will get the most out of Operation Shooting Star are those that never played Battle Network 1, and that's disappointing to those of us that have already played it.