The Misadventures of Tron Bonne uses the exact same gameplay and graphics engine as the original, Mega Man Legends, with a few slight enhancements. Sure, the visuals within aren't anything to die for, but they definitely fit the quirky Japanese animation style that seems to permeate from this game. And if you're grumbling over the "bad graphics" in the screenshots below, you'll soon find that whatever The Misadventures of Tron Bonne lacks in the graphics department, it really makes up for it in its style and presentation. Personality is exactly where The Misadventures of Tron Bonne truly shines. The goal of the game says it all; you are Tron Bonne, the only girl in a small family of sky pirates, who must pay off her family's enormous debt in order to ransom her brothers, Teisel and Bon Bonne, from a ruthless loan shark named Lex Loath. In order to accomplish this, Tron Bonne uses her Servbots, a family of little yellow robots that bear a striking resemblance to life-size Lego men, to complete a variety of missions, each with their own styles, which include role-playing, action and puzzle levels.

  These squeaky-voiced Servbots act as Tron's army of personal bodyguards, servants, builders and partners-in-crime, among other things. There are forty different Servbots, each with unique skills and personalities, and your options of what to do with each are vast, as almost every Servbot has a useful or unique talent. You might send some of your smarter Servbots scouting, which allows you to acquire some rare items, while bringing a couple of your stronger and/or faster Servbots with to help you rob the local bank, steal some livestock or go drudge through the friendly neighborhood ancient ruins. And since you play as Tron herself, the decisions are all up to you. This is where control factors into the equation. During most missions, you can hold down the R2 button to bring up an aiming sight for the Beacon Bomb. When fired with the Square button, the Beacon Bomb acts as a direct order to the Servbots to hop to it and, to make things interesting, you can Beacon Bomb anything in most environments.

  I quickly found myself Beacon Bombing everything in sight, just to see how the Servbots would react! For example, Beacon Bomb a tree and the Servbots all run to it and shake it down, sometimes shaking loose apples from the branches. These can be sold to raise money. Beacon Bomb a police car and the Servbots will strip it of its tires and sirens. Again, you can sell just about everything they nab. Of course, you aren't unhindered, as the local Ryship Island police don't like it when you steal from the local towns and residents. The hilarious thing is that the Servbots truly don't know that this kind of behavior is unlawful. They just pillage, plunder and generally rob the island's inhabitants blind, while saying "Yay!" along the way. This is yet another factor that adds to the charming nature of the game. Whether oinking at the "piggies" on the Sart Farm or accidentally attacking an enemy by falling into its nostrils, the adorable Servbots are 40 truly lovable little guys. Another interesting part of The Misadventures of Tron Bonne is the amount of options given to you. You can go on any mission at any time.

  You can bring whichever Servbots you like best, upgrade what you want, steal as much as you want and generally progress at your own pace. This is a unique trait in most classic games; just about anyone can play it and have tons of fun, while the more experienced gamers can try to do everything, in order to beat the game. Though it seems to be nothing but a simplistic niche title at heart, The Misadventures of Tron Bonne is deceptively challenging. Case in point, the fast-paced mini-games are strangely addictive and add untold depth and challenge to the already complex game modes. There are many other things to do besides going on one of the game's many missions. For instance, once you've played a few of the missions, you'll no doubt have some items that you don't know what to do with. However, using the fairly simple menus to navigate the Gesellschaft, you can go to either the Laboratory (to upgrade the "Gustaff", the Bonne family mechanical suit), the Storage Room (to appraise and sell items) the Café (to feed the Servbots), the Meeting Room (to strategize and lay out your plans for the next mission) or the Gym (to whip a few of those lazy Servbots into shape.)

  The Gym's Training Rooms are actually cleverly designed mini-games that are seemingly simple, yet deceptively challenging. For example, in Training Room 1, you must catch bombs thrown by another Servbot and hit numerous targets by throwing them back. This is an oversimplification of a very complex mini-game, but to tell you all the rules would be like evaluating another game. The cool part is that as the game's plot progresses, the Servbots build more rooms onto the Gesellschaft, such as the truly weird Torture Room, which allows Tron to punish lazy Servbots. The animation and sprites inside the Gesellschaft are amazing. Tron Bonne looks truly amazing, in her full two-dimensional hand-drawn glory. Of course, every other character has a huge, high-quality, hand-drawn portrait as well. The dialog that passes between Tron and her Servbots soon becomes an absolute riot, as Tron trains her Servbots and their real traits, personalities and talents, be they good, bad or just plain weird, begin to come into the open.

  However, The Misadventures of Tron Bonne doesn't go without its share of problems. If I had to name one, it would be the action mission control scheme; while it's not difficult to learn, it definitely isn't the best control scheme for the job, giving the ability to strafe, but requiring the player to turn around slowly. The ability to lock-on to the nearest enemy somewhat remedies this, but even that is not perfect. On the contrary, keeping multiple enemies in your line of sight can be a real pain. In closing, each level, mini-game, character, puzzle and bit of dialog is truly well thought out. The Misadventures of Tron Bonne is, in no small way, made with a striking attention to detail that you would expect from multiple games, yet all of these ingredients are, in fact, essential parts of a single great game. Length is pretty decent, as The Misadventures of Tron Bonne eventually expands into a total of roughly fifteen hours worth of plundering mishaps and pure zaniness. If you were one of the many who liked the Mega Man Legends series or even if you didn't, then you must give Capcom's The Misadventures of Tron Bonne a try, at least once, just so that you can see what makes it so fun. Don't think that it's just for kids, because it could just be one of Capcom's finest games yet and it's definitely one of the most unique, charming and addictive titles I have ever played. The Misadventures of Tron Bonne is probably summed up best with the phrase that the Servbots use when they've found something that they consider to be extra special: "Yay!"
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