I beat Starforce 1 tonight. 100% completed it too, all the title screen stars, all sidequests complete and defeated Andromeda Infinity. Considering I never went that far in any of the Battle Network games, I think that alone says how much I enjoyed this one.
Star Force is a series I've been curious about for a long time, a lot of my friends are fans of it, and after playing the first one at least I can see why. There's so much I like about this one. I feel like the story is a lot more of a focus compared to other megaman games. I really enjoy the characters, the way they explore Geo's depression and how he needs to open up to others, and in turn, the other characters can open up to him to help with their own issues? It's not exactly subtle with it, but it's neat, I really like it. Combine that with being genuinely funny and a bit unhinged at times, Omega Xis is genuinely one of the most hilarious characters in the series, and you have one of my favourite stories in Megaman.
Gameplay wise it's really fun. It's a really neat reinterpretation of the Battle Network combat system and you can really tell it's working off of six games worth of refining that system. I think I like the way chip selection works here way more than BN. The letter codes have their own benefits, but ditching that system in exchange for their position in the menu and the favourite system, feels way less rigid and gives you way more room to experiment. It also means pretty much every card is just more viable across the board without the need to worry about code synergy.
Even the graphics are genuinely neat. The sprites are as good as later Battle Network, but I actually really like the low poly look of the battles as well. It's an aesthetic that they manage to do a lot with while being visually pleasing.
There's only really a couple of issues I have with the game. One, the transformations. The Battle Network transformations, be it the Styles of 2 and 3, or the double souls of 4, 5 and 6, were all excellent additions that added a huge amount of depth and strategizing to each game's combat, so it's really disappointing that the Star Force forms are just not as good in comparison. They're really cool design wise, I particularly like that Omega Xis also transforms, I really liked his dragon whiskers, and being able to select more chips each turn is neat. The problems come from them just not being that reliable. If they're enabled, it's entirely random if you'll actually get the form cause you need to pull it as a card. Further to that, unlike the Soul forms of BN 4 and 5, they don't provide nearly as much benefit. They don't boost the power of chips with their respective elements, they arguably nerf counters as you can't use the special attack to get more bonus chips, and because you only get the selection benefits the turn after you activate the form, they're almost entirely unviable for speed kills on bosses.
On that note, I'm not a very big fan of countering in this game. While it's no Full Synchro, I don't dislike the idea of Bonus Chips for countering. At the same time though, I rarely found myself actually using the mechanic. I feel like the window for counters is far smaller than BN and a lot of bosses don't have very obvious tells for when they're going to attack, Andromeda in particular is a prime example of that. If I ever did a counter in this game, the vast majority of the time, it's a decently beneficial accident.
The final issue I have is probably the only one I'd say is a genuine flaw with the game, that can't just be chalked up to new systems. Doing sidequests in this game is just really tedious. In order to accept sidequests you have to, find an NPC in the wave world, chech their Transer Profile, accept the sidequest, leave the wave world and talk to them in the real world, then go talk to them to start the quest, which in many cases, has you go back into the wave world to complete the objective. Further to this, for some reason, you're only allowed to do one sidequest at a time, you can't accept multiple at once, so the tedious process of going in and out of the wave world can't be sidestepped. On top of that, since you're only able to accept one sidequest at a time, certain quests can actually lock you out of doing sidequests if you accept them too early. It's really annoying to say the least.
All that being said, I still really enjoyed my time with this game and I'm looking forward to seeing what the other two have in store. Definitely curious about 2 as that one seems to have a very negative reputation, but BN4 also had that and I still enjoyed that one quite a bit, so we'll see.