Tribes: The Legacy of Mu

The very next week after the season finale of Star Force aired, the new series gets off the ground. Shooting Star Rockman Tribes (or Mega Man Star Force Tribes), focuses on the events of Star Force 2. The series is sadly only half as long as the original Star Force run, but that also keeps the pace moving for this show.

Star Force 2 has some good elements in its story, but was really bloated with its dialog, and moved too slow in a lot of areas. There are a lot of cringe worthy bad puns, and a lot of the interaction between Geo and his friends are really terrible. Tribes didn't work with a full schedule, and thus, they really trimmed the fat, leaving the meat of the story in tact mostly. It is a shame that the character development is toned down a bit, with the supporting cast particularly suffering here, but the story it does put together flows pretty well.

On top of this, there aren't any real abject stupid moments like in Star Force 2. The town of Whazzap, and that whole scenario, are so much fucking better done this time around, and the ending doesn't delve into the supernatural out of nowhere either. The villains come off a lot better this time around too, especially Dr. Vega, who receives a proper villains treatment in the story.

Solo's role was altered quite a bit however, and his Bass like qualities never got to come through in his character, and the relationship with MegaMan is very different. It doesn't hurt the story the show is telling at all, but I wonder where they would have went with Solo's character if the show had continued. If anything is really missing from the game, it's this right here. In the show's self contained world though, it all works out pretty well. And now for the first episode of Tribes: Legacy of Mu.

Plot Synopsis
A bunch of EM-Viruses attack a museum, which is strange, because the FM-King should have wiped out all of them, but Aaron Boreal suspects these new viruses are from Earth. Meanwhile, Tom Dubius is having Geo's friends test out the Wave Matter functions on the Star Carrier, but they all seem disappointed that it doesn't make food. Weirdly enough in this scene, all of Geo's friends have apparently gotten used to Omega-Xis, although Luna still refuses to believe that Geo is MegaMan.

Anyway, they head down to the museum to check out what the hell those viruses were doing, when they see on display, a relic from the lost continent of Mu, The Sword of Berserk, a sword made out of stone. The sword is emitting EM-Waves, which shouldn't be possible for an ancient artifact, and it attracts more EM-Viruses! Geo wave changes to MegaMan to fight them off, when suddenly a Wave-Changed human, who appears like a frozen gorilla, steals the artifact from the museum. Geo chases after him, and witnesses the Wave-Being fighting another Wave-Being over the artifact. In the fight, they drop it, and MegaMan races past them to retrieve it. In the midst of doing so, Omega-Xis accidentally swallows the damn thing. Nobody really knows what to do, so the EM-Beings take off, while Geo worriedly looks at Omega-Xis.

Critique
I said this show moves fast, and the first episode is already halfway through the game, which I guess shows how much fluff the game really has. There's a lot of setup going on for Geo's new adventure, but they don't slouch on letting some of the characters personalities shine through for a bit. There is a really great bit where Luna tries to use the Matter Wave to summon her beloved MegaMan. She gets real excited when she hears his voice, but then disappointed when she sees it's just Geo. She acts like she is in denial, but she is really just masking her embarrassment.

Dubius also gets some decent characterization, and if anyone benefited from the show, it was certainly him. His zeal to invent something to help the world is pretty fun to watch, especially with his added absentmindedness. Geo has also come a long way into his heroicness, just straight up jumping at the chance to help. The first show opens up pretty well, giving some mystery and foreshadowing, making the viewer excited for whats to come. Also, the new opening sequence is superbly animated as well.

Rating: Thumbs up!