Part 13: Operate Shooting Star "Content".

It's right about here that the Operate Shooting Star content becomes relevant. Click here for the Wiki link that details things in a less profanity-laden way.

First of all, some background. The sequel series to the MMBN series is called MegaMan Starforce. I had strong negative first impressions of the series, as gameplay seemed to be a watered-down version of the Battle Network mechanics I enjoyed greatly. I get the sense that fans of the original series tend to view MMBN much in the same way that I view Starforce: As an unwanted bastard child.

Operate Shooting Star was intended as a DS combination remake of MMBN1 as well as a crossover with StarForce, which takes place 200 years after the MMBN series.



See that guy on the left? That's ClockMan.EXE, and yes, they went with the time travel route of making the crossover happen.



Before even getting to the crossover content, let me start by saying that Operate Shooting Star was never exported from Japan. The reason is simple: It's lazy shit! As you can see from this screenshot, the horrible, nigh-illegible Internet was left exactly the same, the lower screen merely giving you a map to help you out. Fans were not happy about this, let me tell you.

Not only are the graphics exactly the same, minus uglier mugshots for the characters, the music is worse than on the original GBA! For reference, The fifth MMBN game had a DS rerelease and the music was fantastic, remixed to take advantage of superior hardware. This is what the MMBN5 boss theme sounds like on the GBA. And this is what it sounds like on the DS. Large improvement, wouldn't you agree?

Now compare the MMBN1 boss theme to the OSS boss theme. It sounds fucking worse! Are those original Game Boy tones being used in the song!? What's even funnier about this is that you'll see people complaining in the YouTube comments that OSS was never exported, only to be shut up by people explaining that nobody in Japan bought the game because it was such obvious garbage.

Even YouTube users understand how shitty and lazy this is.

I even asked a buddy of mine who knows composition and musical structure for an opinion. Those who are familiar with the megathread will remember him as the guy who remixed Soul Ablaze from MMZXA. (I don't think he's forgiven me for using the incomplete remix in the update rather than the orchestrated version he was planning, but I digress.)



His reaction says it all, really.



The disgusting amount of laziness and apathy involved in the creation of the game aside, let's move onto the actual unique OSS content. All 20 minutes of it. Actually, OSS was so poorly received that I'm having trouble finding information on what the scenario actually is. The wiki link above and various websites give me a pieced-together story that goes somewhat like this:



ClockMan.EXE is a Navi who can travel through time by opening "warp holes". For reasons unknown, he kidnaps some Mayl/Roll hybrid knockoff from the Starforce series named Harp Note. Honestly, no translation exists of the dialogue or anything, although I've seen people working on an English patch for some ungodly reason, so I'm going to have to take a stab at it myself.



: "I really like pretty pink girlth! They're tho kawaii-dethu~!"

: "Uguuu! MegaMan Starforce, help me, my savior!"

And then right after the ElecMan scenario, he kidnaps Roll.

: "Inductive arguments are measured by how cogent or uncogent they are!"



And then MegaMan shows up to stop Geo or MegaMan Starforce or what the fuck ever his name is, due to a misunderstanding. The protagonist from StarForce went back in time too somehow.

: Friendship is magic! And science! Not having enough Facebook friends doomed the dinosaur tribes!

A chase-the-NPC slog ensues, and then they fight and beat ClockMan. The reward for this is being able to switch between MegaMan and what's-his-name at will on the status screen, which produces negligible in game effects but opens a plot hole I'll address later on.

Don't you just feel so fulfilled?