This is gonna sound super lame, but this game is really important to me. The Starforce series had a really troubled time and was absolutely full of flaws until the 3rd game, but there was something special here that deserved to be refined.
This game really helped shape my identity around the time I played it when I was younger. The multiplayer aspect and the story, while shallow at times, especially for an older audience, really resonated with a depressed 12 year old me trying to grow into a concrete personality with hobbies I no longer wanted to be ashamed of. I thought it was so cool how (while never explicitly stated) Geo clearly had similar issues; his journey to accept and learn how to rely on others and healthily cope with his mental struggles really connected with me. I also find the continuity impressive in that his personality genuinely grows throughout each entry.
Gameplay-wise, I like that it switched up the MMBN style. There were a lot of missteps, but there was a decent amount of innovation to make the transition to 1 row feel fresh and not limiting. The net felt much more alive than some of the BN games but ultimately wasn't as strong of a world due to being an overlay of the real world.
The second game went on to hurt the series rather than improve it in the writing department especially, and then the third was almost perfection. The series was unfortunately cancelled right after. I would kill to see a revival after the team really hit it home with the third game.
This game really helped shape my identity around the time I played it when I was younger. The multiplayer aspect and the story, while shallow at times, especially for an older audience, really resonated with a depressed 12 year old me trying to grow into a concrete personality with hobbies I no longer wanted to be ashamed of. I thought it was so cool how (while never explicitly stated) Geo clearly had similar issues; his journey to accept and learn how to rely on others and healthily cope with his mental struggles really connected with me. I also find the continuity impressive in that his personality genuinely grows throughout each entry.
Gameplay-wise, I like that it switched up the MMBN style. There were a lot of missteps, but there was a decent amount of innovation to make the transition to 1 row feel fresh and not limiting. The net felt much more alive than some of the BN games but ultimately wasn't as strong of a world due to being an overlay of the real world.
The second game went on to hurt the series rather than improve it in the writing department especially, and then the third was almost perfection. The series was unfortunately cancelled right after. I would kill to see a revival after the team really hit it home with the third game.