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Battle Network (Operate Star Force) – Pre-Let’s Play Notes
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Voice Actors
Lan Hikari
- OSS: Kumiko Higa
- Anime: Kumiko Higa (JP), Alex Doduk (EN, 1 - 14), Brad Swaile (EN, 15+)
MegaMan.EXE
- OSS: Akiko Kimura
- Anime: Akiko Kimura (JP), Andrew Francis (EN)
- Onimusha: Blade Warriors: Akiko Kimura (JP), Gwendoline Yeo (EN)
Geo Stelar
- OSS: Fuyuka Oura
- Star Force: Fuyuka Oura (JP; 2/3), Uncredited/Jason Spisak(?) (EN; 3)
- Anime: Fuyuka Oura (JP), Uncredited/Jason Spisak (EN)
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Preface
- Operate Star Force (Operation Shooting Star in Japanese) was a Japan-only title, failing to make it overseas despite apparently being the ninth best-selling game in Japan in its opening week. This was likely the result of it purportedly winding up in the bargain bin near immediately after that initial week.
- Navis without Counterparts: NumberMan, ColorMan, ClockMan (Clock Genius)
- Links: Unused Dialogue, OSS Demo
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Prologue
- The game starts off after Star Force 3's ending. The game doesn’t feature Kelvin, Ace, Tia, or Jack, though, likely due to a combination of the game primarily taking place in the past and a desire to avoid spoilers. Pity.
- I'm not really sure what the replacement for the Internet is in the Star Force era. Sure, technology has become more advanced, but wouldn't they still be using something similar as a database for information? I guess it wouldn't be called the Internet anymore, given the full meaning of that name, but the concept shouldn't be too foreign even if it was 200 years ago, right?
- I'm not sure why the script is playing coy with Sonia being the kidnapping victim. There are only a handful of important female characters in Star Force, and, even then, it wouldn't be hard to figure out the very obvious missing party in the friend herd here unless you had no idea who any of these characters are. And in that case, the build-up to Sonia's name means nothing.
- Omega-Xis is treated poorly by this game. He doesn't have a sprite model at all, despite being able to show up next to Geo at will, and his VA doesn’t return from Star Force 3 to voice any lines. The other Wizards do not speak, nor are they even mentioned.
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FireMan
Personal Notes
- The first five chips of your folder are apparently likelier to show up in battle after shuffling. This seemingly holds true for the rest of the series. Attempt to test this.
Commentary
- The term PET is referred to as "pet" in Japanese. In English, the anime changed that to be pronounced like P.E.T.
- Lan, MegaMan, and their friends all have new mugshots. Despite that, everyone else maintains the old ugly mugshots of the original game, which look even worse juxtaposed against the new ones.
- MegaMan's new mugshot has blue eyes, but his portrait on the bottom screen has green eyes. They're also brown in-battle, and later games have them black in the overworld. Green is apparently the canon eye color, though. MegaMan also has brown eyes during his Cross Fusion with Lan in the anime, but that might be the result of Lan having brown eyes.
- There was apparently no save confirmation in the Japanese release of the original Battle Network 1.
- One of Lan's classmates mentions that her oven caught fire previously. Despite this, Mr. Match doesn't go out of his way to personally attempt to kill her and her family like he later does with Lan.
- There are changes to the battle system from the original game.
- The Null element icon was different in the original Japanese version of BN1, though the American release changed it to what would be used in BN2 onward.
- There is a book in Lan's classroom noted to be written by a Doctor Yasu. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be the same Yasu that shows up as an announcer during the N1, but Battle Network doesn't tend to have multiple characters with the same name.
- The L button dialogue with MegaMan after the tutorial seems to be a nod to Hub.
- Drop rates are more generous than in the original BN1, with S-Rank prizes being able to be obtained from as low as an 8 rank.
- There is some kind of issue where MegaMan can't pick up Mystery Data in BN1, with the message "However, he couldn't decode the data." popping up if he already has a chip that is inside.
- Presumably people would catch on to Mr. Match after a while considering he seemingly doesn't go out of his way to kill everyone whose oven he infects and the issues only start after his "maintenance", but this is Battle Network and everyone lacks basic observation skills.
- This is the only time in the series I can recall Lan having viruses on his home page.
- The first boss of the first game is a fire boss, much like in Star Force's Taurus Fire.
- After FireMan is defeated, the rooms of Lan's friends open up. Mayl's house in particular has an HPMemory and @Mayl, while Dex's has @Dex.
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NumberMan
Personal Notes
- Test to see if V3 bosses be fled from in this game.
Commentary
- I never noticed it before, but the top of Dr. Wily's head looks like a potato.
- Why don't Lan's classmates jack in with him and help with the dungeon? For that matter, the other classes and teachers could as well!
- Class is continuing after everyone was just subjected to brainwashing. I feel like school should realistically be canceled for at least a week to make sure there's no residual effects on the students and faculty or security holes in the school network.
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StoneMan
- This scenario starts the trend of annoying plot triggers on NPCs that are easy to miss. Later games seem to tighten up on this particular issue, but it still winds up cropping up now and then.
- Ghost Navis will appear immediately, regardless of whether or not you jack out after beating the V2.
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IceMan
Personal Notes
- Don't use the word "Eskimo" to refer to IceMan. While it is apparently not a slur, people online tend to get offended easily on the behalf of others, so it's worthwhile to avoid that landmine entirely. Additionally, IceMan is not presented as being innuit and is only wearing a parka.
Commentary
- Haruka has a pot of water on the stove, yet is complaining about the lack of water in the house. Then again, maybe they're using that for bathing?
- Why would Lan need to skip breakfast because there's no water? He could still eat something like meat, bread, or fruit. And surely other beverages are still around?
- While not in OSS, Armors were a feature in BN1 that would reduce all damage you take by half, except from the armor's weakness. Wood Armor (Internet 3 Netdealer), Heat Armor (Internet 4 Netdealer), and Aqua Armor (Internet 10 Netdealer). I'd joke that Geo or ClockMan bought them this go around, but neither has any particular elemental resistance.
- The sheer mechanics of this water deprivation plan are implausibly staggering. How has Wily managed to acquire all bottled water in the city? What about the water in people's houses? Or water from nearby cities? Can people not import? What about liquid based foods or ice?
- Why are the Waterworks closed? You can't pull an all-nighter when the town is devoid of literally all liquid?
- I presume MegaMan assumes there's a clown in the Waterworks computer because this job gets very stressful.
- Is ProtoMan's sword arm supposed to be his left arm or his right? Because it keeps switching between the two in official art. The anime and manga have had him with two normal arms, but I don't believe the games ever make that concession. Maybe he is just ambidextrous and switches it up now and then?
- Why does Lan go back to ACDC to check the water supply instead of the water at the government building? Didn't he jack into a water fountain? Is there not a public bathroom he could check out?
- How long has Lan been awake in this scenario? It seems like he's been active for two whole days without water or sleep. And are his parents unconcerned about him disappearing for the full length of this chapter?
- ProtoMan leaving IceMan alive on the ground seems really out of character for how he's portrayed throughout the rest of the series. He would have unquestionably deleted him before the mail arrived.
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ColorMan
- Roll and MegaMan have to hand deliver mail to each other. Yet, when ProtoMan was fighting IceMan, mail came in for Chaud without any program showing up to physically hand it to ProtoMan! I can't tell if this is an oversight or just the Officials having access to better technology, but it feels like the former.
- Yuri seems to have a symbol that looks somewhat like NeedleMan's symbol on the board. Maybe that's why he's her Navi in the anime?
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ElecMan
Personal Notes
- Test what happens if Lan's PET battery runs out multiple times.
Commentary
- There's eerie foreshadowing for the Power Plant charging gimmick in a food conversation between Lan and MegaMan.
- What if the reason that you can't buy armors in this game is because Geo bought them all while you were going through the BN1 plot?
- Where is this supposed fake data that was supposedly used to lure the WWW? Was the Elec Program a fake? If so, why does it not hinder Wily at all? Did they replace the real one with a functionally identical program?!
- ProtoMan forgets to refer to Chaud with an honorific here.
- If ProtoMan fights on his own, why does he hold Chaud in such high esteem? Just for creating him? Was he just programmed to be a sycophant?
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ClockMan
Personal Notes
- Talk about the demo after the scenario resolves before segueing into your discussion of the game's deceptive advertising.
Commentary
- Dr. Goodall said that regular conversation was fine, so why doesn't Geo just explain that he's not up to anything weird so Hub will leave him alone? It's clear that just firing at him isn't working as a deterrent.
- Geo's conversation about Navis with Lan highlights the Star Force series' identity confusion issues. Initially, you have the Transers attached to the AM satellites, which are the foundation of society. These are then abandoned in Star Force 2 for Star Carriers and Matter Waves, which are also super important and based on technology from ancient civilization that managed to out-perform Battle Network era technology. These are then abandoned in Star Force 3 for HunterVGs and Wizards in order to try and replicate the Navi/Operator dynamic from Battle Network. And now Navis are back AGAIN in order to try and sync up more with Battle Network. While this would all likely be fine with time skips, the Star Force series purportedly takes place over the span of a year or two, making such revolutionary technological changes to the foundation of society feel like the setting is always trying to backspace on rules it set up just one game prior. The setting never feels as clearly defined as Battle Network being AU!Classic MegaMan, only made worse by having a timeline that doesn't stem very far back compared to Battle Network establishing how Net Society was established.
- Lan has a special voice clip for jacking in as Geo, and Geo is also playable in the field. Bizarrely, after ClockMan is defeated, both of these features are removed in favor of the default Battle Network voice lines and sprites, even if using the SFProgram.
- Geo outpaces Hub in every conceivable regard aside from buster damage, which was nerfed from Battle Network 1 so as to make the Life Virus appear more threatening in the final battle. As a result, it feels like there's no reason to use Hub in his own game, which is a very odd choice. I have to wonder if that's why Geo is bumped to the end of the game and also if that's out of a desire to have Battle Network players want to play as Geo more in order to try and sell a potential Star Force 4 down the line.
- MegaMan SF's sprite is based on EXE's from Battle Network 6. He also lacks a frozen sprite. So when he gets frozen, he becomes MegaMan.EXE's frozen sprite instead.
- If ClockMan has the power to travel through time at will, freeze people indefinitely, summon final bosses (and presumably Noise as well), and more, how does he conceivably even lose this battle?
- Curiously enough, Geo has his Star Force 3 design, but Rogue has his sword from Star Force 2 which he should have replaced with Laplace. I'm inclined to believe it's because the developers were too lazy to make new chip art and just decided to recycle Rogue Sword's art (and, consequently, his sword) from Star Force 2.
- Continuing the trend of EM beings being treated poorly, Lyra has nothing to say at any point during this scenario. I assume it's partially because Geo and Sonia are about to head back home immediately, but I can't help but feel that the EM Beings are very "un-personed" in this game.
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BombMan
- This scenario isn't quite as bad as FreezeMan, but it's pretty close. There is an obscene amount of backtracking, enforced grinding, and vague hints. Not to mention having to explore Dentown, one of the worst maps in the game, again.
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Endgame
Personal Notes
- Dr. Goodall told Geo not to involve anyone from the past in this incident or else the Star Force cast might be wiped from existence. After Lan and Hub get involved, the in-progress Star Force 4 was canceled sometime afterwards. Coincidence? I think not! (Maybe make a joke about Goodall worrying too much, followed by a screenshot of the canceled Star Force news?)
- Much like in Battle Network 2, the original Battle Network 1 has the ability to duplicate Mystery Data by fighting the final boss without saving. Check if this works in OSS.
Commentary
- Wily announces that he's going to launch a rocket as part of his plan. Couldn't the military reasonably just shoot this out of the sky once it gets a high enough elevation?
- If the WWW has been getting here via Metroline, why was Higsby outside the school gate in his first appearance? For that matter, if Higsby got here via the Metroline, why not hand over his pass to the Officials at the start of the game when he was supposed to be making an effort to reform. The WWW could've been stopped well before creating the Life Virus or causing any of the other problems that take up the rest of the game.
- This particular instance of "Lan's friends show up at the final dungeon to help him proceed" is likely the best iteration of it, Battle Network 5's raid on Nebula HQ aside.
- Yai will not give you Roll3 if it's already in your library.
- I like Mayl's more tomboy-ish demeanor from the first game as opposed to the girly girl, damsel-in-distress role she takes in the other entries.
- In Battle Chip Challenge, Yahoot mentions that he is a servant of Indala. What that means is never explained, though it's possible that this is meant to be Battle Network's version of India.
- "I'm Yahoot. My brothers AOL and MSN Messenger are waiting ahead for you."
- Here's ProtoMan, showing up late to the exact same dungeon for the second time.
- "Ethics are just the coping mechanisms of people who failed to become scientists." - Yuichiro Hikari
- The situation with Hub makes me think of the fiction trope where a person clones their consciousness only to remain in the same body, like Sean in ZTD or Robot in Invincible. I wonder if Hub actually died, but he managed to still live through MegaMan.
- On that note, I wonder if MegaMan has always been the same age. Later games show that Navis can age, though it's typically shown through older commercial models. The only custom Navi that is old is TopMan, and Tensuke only seemed to have made him recently.
- Yuri mentioned that Wily wanted to make her a high ranking operative because she was a twin. Did he know about Hub and want to make his own synchro Navi? That would explain things in BN3 a bit better, though I don't recall him ever talking about the matter at any point in the games. I doubt Wily is out of the loop, though it's probably likelier that Ms. Mari was intended to take the fall for some criminal activity Yuri would have committed, much like Yuri tries to pull in the anime.
- Chaud has new combat dialogue after Hub Batch is activated and is available to be battled for some reason.
- Is there any good reason ProtoMan doesn't help MegaMan fight the Life Virus aside from it needing to be a boss fight? Maybe Lan canonically thrashed ProtoMan with Hub.bat after using it?
- "Well, you see, Lan, your grandfather invented the internet. This led to the creation of Twitter and Reddit. Now do you understand why I need to do this?" "N...no?" "...Lousy millennials."
- Why are there random battles in the final dungeon if there's no carrying over anything from this point and MegaMan heals to full at the end of every battle?
- Why is DiveMan in MegaMan's doghouse?
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Final Thoughts
- Operate Star Force (called Operation Shooting Star in Japanese) is a hastily made quality of life update to Battle Network 1 that marketed itself as a crossover between Battle Network and Star Force.
- While it’s nice to have a definitive version of Battle Network 1, so to speak, I have no idea why Operate Star Force couldn't have been a rerelease of a different title like 3 or 6. Those games are polished enough to stand on their own merits even with a disappointing crossover aspect, though I wonder if perhaps the lethargic enemy movement patterns of BN1 were chosen to make bosses and enemies easier to target with Geo's Mega Attack. That and it is much easier for Star Force MegaMan to outperform a MegaMan who can't transform or use the Navi Customizer.
- OSS does nothing to improve searching for enemies. Worse, some enemies only appear in one specific area at a low encounter rate, which is frustrating to deal with.
- With a more ambitious plot, the title could have been a love letter to the entire series. ClockMan having the ability to open time portals could've had amazing effects on gameplay, like handwaving excuses for later game features to be here or making later series Battle Network and Star Force bosses available to fight. The GBA slot on the DS could've even tied into this. The plot could've been based around restoring the timeline to normal.
- Poor sales for SF3 and OSS apparently killed Capcom’s desire to make a Star Force 4. OSS did more harm than SF3, frontloading the crossover aspect, only to heavily backload the payoff in a short, unfulfilling scenario. The game feels as though it was designed to cash in on Battle Network's already preexisting goodwill to pursue a path to Star Force 4 rather than actually make a game for the fans and Star Force wound up suffering for it as a result. At least Star Force 3 got a satisfying conclusion.