Tagged: IREM

Ok, now I’m really done playing. After about six more tries I’ve finally finished off the Dobkeratops seen above, and believe me it wasn’t easy. That’s actually why I’m writing about this game again; I’m concerned. Instead of developing a strategy as the game played out I found the only successful plan was to memorize what enemies appear where and what they’re capable of. You’ve got an AWACS-type ship that extends your visible range but even it didn’t prove to be enough help. Since a unit’s turn is interrupted when an enemy is revealed my radar guys usually get cut off and destroyed by the first wave of enemies they find. Then it’s a game of leapfrogging one unit at a time to slowly reveal the enemies again after they’ve disappeared back into the ‘fog of war’ while trying to reach the end without running out of turns.

Since there aren’t any “magic points” involved in using your Charge attacks the game limits how many turns you can take to finish a mission.  If they didn’t you could endlessly charge up, attack, fall back and repeat. I agree with the limit but until I had the enemy positions down pat I kept running out of time to take down ol’ Dobkeratops up there. Hopefully being able to save will eliminate this prolonged play time, I only hope that saving is unlimited and loading is fast.

I suppose a prolonged experience isn’t necessarily a bad thing but if half a dozen missions take as many retries and memorization as the one in the demo, well, my time with R-Type Command may be cut short. Having finally finished the demo, though, I’m even more excited to get the full game in May. Any demo that lasts for a week and holds my interest, even with pattern memorization, is definitely worth picking up. I just wish it weren’t a $40 release.

When IREM said they were going to stop the R-Type franchise I was disheartened. When they announced they were going to adapt the storied shooter into a turn-based strategy game I was worried. Having played the demo, however, I can’t imagine any series outside of an RPG that would make for a better fit. I’ve played several R-Type games but never finished a single one and didn’t realized how epic the series has become over the years. Hundreds of ships, support craft, and enemies have crawled across the screen through the series’ eight titles, each capable of being expanded with attacks and stats to fit perfectly into a strategy game.

For starters, it’s refreshing to see a strategy game that doesn’t revolve around cute fantasy characters with big eyes decked out in neon outfits shooting magic at one another. The gameplay is hex-based all the way and the majority of the visuals are 2D. Tiny explosions and trademark weapons fire (who else could come up with a ring laser?) are the highlights, although like many strategy games nowadays there are fancy attack cutscenes. These can thankfully be turned off because while they look slick and flashy (all units and attacks are rendered in 3D) they take forever to load and just slow things down even more.

And believe me, you do not wanna drag this game out any more. I have yet to complete the third demo mission even after devoting my entire hour-long lunch break to it. Where the original shooters are fast and frantic R-Type Command is slow, methodical, and crushing. It also doesn’t help that the Save feature is disabled in the demo. Harrowing play times aside I’m really enthralled with the game. All the famous ships, enemies, and weapons bring a smile to my face in much the same way that seeing R.O.B. the Video Robot appear in Super Smash Bros. Brawl does. The big difference here is that I’m actually enjoying R-Type Command’s gameplay and its approach to the strategy genre. Come May 6th this may be the first PSP game I buy that isn’t on clearance.