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Video of new multi-flavoured Mega Man headed to DS

Capcom will offer Mega Man Star Force in three versions, featuring different weapons and powers

Video of new multi-flavoured Mega Man headed to DS

If you think computers and mobile phones are taking over your life, spare a thought for the citizens of the 23rd Century. According to Capcom's upcoming Mega Man Star Force, citizens of the future will use mobile PCs called 'trancers' to create navigational waveforms called Wave Roads that exist in another dimension.

Confused? Not as confused as the game's star, Subaru Hoshikawa, who despite his Japanese name actually hails from the planet FM, and who one day dons his astronaut father's special spectacles only to find himself united with an alien lifeform called Warlock, who transforms him into Mega Man and sends him along the Wave Road to fight various invaders of Earth.

Is that a plot, or is it two six-year old boys jabbering excitedly on the back of a school bus? Whatever, the result is Mega Man Star Force, a cutesy RPG currently undergoing release in Japan and due out here next year.

Many older gamers will have come across Mega Man before the character celebrates his 20th anniversary next year – although it's fair to say he's never achieved iconic status.

Perhaps one reason is the sheer volume of Mega Man branded titles out there.

We particularly like the Mega Man platformers here at Pocket Gamer. We loved Mega Man Maverick Hunter X and have also given positive reviews to Mega Man Powered Up and Mega Man 4 on Game Boy.

But there's a whole slew of other titles – the Mega Man Battle Network series on Game Boy – that offers a very different, RPG style of play. And while it's not directly a part of that series, Mega Man Star Force is very much drawn from the tradition, albeit updated with some pseudo-3D graphical flourishes for DS.

Here's a Japanese video from Capcom that might help you understand what we're dealing with:

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As we're sure you gleaned (right?) you spend half your time as Subaru navigating the real world, and the rest as Mega Man travelling along the Wave Road. Most of the action will come in the guise of the latter, as it's as Mega Man you get involved in a battle mode played out over a grid of three by five squares. Unlike previous Battle Network games, you now view the action from behind Mega Man in a third-person perspective, and there are no boundaries between you and your foes, as you can see in the video. More familiar, however, will be some of the game's older foes, updated for the DS.

So far, so complicated. To make things even more confusing, the game will ship in three versions, each featuring a different elemental power as a key component of Mega Man's attacks. You'll have to choose which one to buy to get you started.

Based on the water element, Ice Pegasus freezes opponents with its special Ice Slash. In contrast, Fire Leo uses a Flame Burner attack to incinerate enemies in its path. Finally, the Green Dragon draws upon the power of wood: its (rather rubbish sounding) Wood Shot move fires a cluster of razor sharp leaves to slash enemies to bits. Each form also has a kind of smart bomb known as the Star Force Big Bang.

Your choice of Mega Man Star Force in the shops has further ramifications due to the game's battle cards, which features a paper-scissor-stones style mechanic with the stellar powers fire, water and wood – just to make sure you regret (or celebrate) your decision at some critical moment in the game.

But, at least if you're popular, there's a way out. The game has a feature called the Dynamic Brother Band system. This enables you to link with up to six friends to power up each other's abilities.

You don't all have to play at once – you simply swap data, and the game draws one of your friend's cards at random during battles. What's more, you can swap to different versions of Mega Man, once you've got a brother who's got that version added to your Brother Band.

Capcom has given us some other details about how combos and linking up works, but to be honest our brains hurt. We're pretty sure Mega Man Star Force will be the kind of game that makes more sense when you play it, and so we hope to get hands on with a copy well before its arrival in Europe in autumn next year.

Click "Track It!" to hear when we do.