There was a lot to see at Capcom’s Tokyo Game Show 2025 booth. From the mysterious Pragmata to the terrifying new Resident Evil Requiem and lots of Monster Hunter, the publisher is taking care to keep its fans happy. This also includes Mega Man fans, as shortly before TGS began, it announced Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection and revealed that it would be playable at the show. One doesn’t just pass up a Mega Man Collection, so Hardcore Gamer made sure to spend hands-on time with it.
Three of the collection’s seven games were playable at Tokyo Game Show, but our demo session was spent primarily with Mega Man Star Force: Dragon. It played about as well as one would hope a remastered port would, but there was something of an issue with the visuals in this version. Nothing that would dissuade a fan from checking the collection out, but still distracting all the same.
A classic collection that plays well, but is hampered by one of its new features.
From what was observed in Mega Man Star Force: Dragon, the games included in the collection have been largely untouched aside from the inclusion of bonus content like previously event-only cards and features such as an optional resolution filter, new difficulties and an assist mode. There’s also new online functionality, which includes ranked matches, casual matches and a real version of the Brother Band system. Online features weren’t included in the demo, so as of now it can only be said that they will be present in the full release.
As is pretty much standard with remaster collections, there will also be image and music galleries in the full release for players to peruse at their leisure.
One of these new features, the resolution filter, was available in the Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection demo and was turned on throughout. The game looked fine for the most part with it on, but its smoothing technique did the character portraits no favors. It was as if the pixels that comprised the pictures before had melted in such a way that the faces looked runny.
The smoothing technique it used did the character portraits no favors.
Does it ruin the experience? No, but it was distracting nonetheless. So, unless it gets tweaked in the months before launch, it might be better to just turn the resolution filter off. Keep in mind that this isn’t just a Capcom issue; pixel smoothing generally just doesn’t work very well. Just look at the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasterseries for proof. Again, though, this is likely more of a blemish than it is a deal-breaker.
As for Mega Man Star Force: Dragon itself, it played just like the original did. All the same features, characters and atmosphere -- it’s the same game, just updated with a fresh coat of paint and handy new features to make it more relevant in the modern landscape. One wouldn’t even guess it was originally a Nintendo DS game if it weren’t for the visuals.
Everything worked as though it naturally belonged on a single screen, and the 3D elements (and generally anything that wasn’t originally pixel graphics) were noticeably crisp and clean. The card illustrations stood out in particular, leading this writer to assume that they were redone from scratch. Seriously, everything about the game looked and sounded great except for the pixel-smoothed character portraits. So, if one can put that last point aside, then they probably have something to look forward to next year in Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection.
Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is scheduled to release sometime in 2026 for PlayStation 4, PS5, PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch and Switch 2. This demo was played on the Nintendo Switch,