The Misadventures of Tron Bonne
Tron Bonne, the air pirate chick, has to pay off her brother’s loan shark, Lex Loath. It’s chaos: she’s piloting a mech, and she’s got forty tiny robot minions doing her dirty work. They’re all dumb but lovable.
GAMEPLAY: So what do you actually do? Shoot stuff or is it chores? It’s both. Your only goal is making enough money to pay off your idiot brother’s debt, and once you hit the right amount it unlocks the last mission. The game takes place on some random island that exists purely to be robbed. Half the time you’re digging around ruins like in
Mega Man Legends, the other half you’re just stealing from civilians. Tron controls like Mega Man but worse: you’re slower now, you can’t strafe anymore, and her gun still sucks ass, but now she’s got these little Lego guys helping her. Their strength stat matters, so if you send in a weak one he just waddles up and delivers this wuss slap which does absolutely nothing. The stronger ones get bazookas, but they won’t attack unless Tron fires this homing beacon, and when she does that she has to stand completely still while enemies beat the shit out of her. It’s the only way to do damage though, so you just have to stand there like a jackass in a hail storm.
E-containers are key. Early on the game gives you a few freebies, but after that, Tron has to builld her own.
First mission is robbing a bank, optional objective is stealing from nearby houses, which is hilarious because the cops just keep driving their cars directly into you and exploding. Helicopters, too.
There’s also this shipping container level which starts easy and then gets PRETTY HARD. I tried brute forcing the final puzzle but it took hours. It felt like those old NES games where you shove blocks around. Remember those?
Is there a first-person level? Every PS1 game had one. You bet your ass. It's an excuse to wander ruins again. Fewer enemies, no platforming, which is nice.
The final boss is not too tough, much simpler than some of the actual ruin bosses. I never actually completed the desert ruin because the Reaverbot boss had some hidden weak point I couldn't figure out without astrology or something.
8/10
STORY: The Bonne family are supposed to be these terrifying sky pirates, but they’re permanently broke and they can't finance their own airship. Chronology-wise this one feels like it’s set before the first game, because Teisel doesn't want Tron going out into the field alone. Tron is actually weirdly chill. She doesn’t abuse the servbots, she’s basically running a small business. The only evil thing she does is rob the town’s gold supply and constantly embarrass the cop, Denise Marmalade: this bubbly idiot who keeps trying to arrest Tron. There’s this part where she climbs into a power loader like in
Aliens, and her
goofy theme music turns into
boss music.
DENISE MARMALADE HAS ENTERED PHASE 2.
All the townspeople look like they wandered out of
Ace Attorney. They have a lot of personality. Then you’ve got Lex Loath, the mob boss, who is exactly what you think. His henchman Glyde sucks because he comes with these birdbots. Birdbots are dire. Too fast to hit, too low to shoot, they spawn forever and they don’t even drop money. (In the larger Bonne family lore, Teisel ends up broke because Mega Man shoots down his airship, and then he has to go work for Glyde.)
Between missions, you hang out on their airship. You sell stolen junk, build weapons, and train servbots. There’s a speed minigame where you serve 'em lunch in the mess hall. The strength one is a shooting gallery which is RNG dependant. Not good.
Hanging out on the ship is cozy. It makes you feel bad remembering that when you played as Mega Man in the first game, you blew this family’s home into a flaming wreck.
8/10
GRAPHICS: Speaking of
Ace Attorney, most of the cutscenes are static backgrounds and two characters staring at each other like they’re arguing over a property line. But it doesn’t matter because the Bonnes are usually inside their mech suits anyway, they can’t physically touch the environment. They did recycle a few sound effects and assets from
Mega Man Legends 1 and 2, but only when it made sense.
9/10

SOUND: It’s a scaled-down
Mega Man Legends, so there are fewer tracks overall, but it's very good. But then there’s the optional music tracks for the pianist servbot on the airship. You can give him special items and it changes the BGM. Except they’re all terrible remixes of the original theme.
8/10
RANKINGS!

Best: MML1: Tron Bonne should’ve been the main character from the jump, she's carrying all the games' cutscenes.
Mega Man Legends 1 is fun because the town opens up and changes. It’s like a gag anime sandwiched by dungeons.
2nd best:
Misadventures. It’s so short it’s almost cruel. Her crew is hilarious. All the side characters are great.
3rd best: MML2. The sequel started out strong. I liked seeing everyone in new guises. (The Bonnes have to go undercover as reporters.) But then the Bonnes vanish for like half the game, and to what end? Mega Man’s siblings get their minds transferred into new bodies, and they all end up stranded on the moon. Hardly the stuff of great myths.