R-Type Command aka R-Type Tactics (PSP, turn-based strategy) Arrives May 6
AirRaid
By Alex Kierkegaard
Note that, thanks to the tireless efforts of the localizers, the
trailer posted with this review contains a massive spoiler. You've
been warned.
If someone had tracked me down while playing R-Type in an Athenian
arcade in the late '80s, and told me that twenty years later I'd be
playing an R-Type-themed strategy game on a handheld device a hundred
times more powerful than all the machines around me put together, I'd
have undoubtedly asked him two questions. First, "What are the specs
of the device?", and second, "Why strategy?"
Why strategy indeed. The idea of slapping the title of a popular game
onto a completely different one, and then dressing it up in the
original's theme in an attempt to "pass on" its popularity, was not
one we were accustomed to back then you see. Another idea we were even
less accustomed to is that of a company losing its know-how. Kazuma
Kujo, the director of R-Type Final, has stated that one of the reasons
he worked himself in a frenzy to get that game done was because the
know-how of making shoot 'em ups was fast disappearing from Irem, and
he wanted to make another R-Type before it was completely gone. Alas,
he was too late for that, but at least his revelation would have
answered young Alex's question. It would have saddened him.
But this is the reality of things, companies lose their know-how but
not the desire to exploit the popularity of the IPs they create, and
this is why I now find myself, two decades later, trying to make sense
of this strategy game that's masquerading as one of the most iconic
shoot 'em ups of my youth. What am I to make of it?
It's not a bad game. In a market flooded with piss-poor, piss-easy
"Tactics" titles -- games that require practically no use of tactics
whatsoever -- I found its complete lack of handholding and relatively
steep learning curve (for a modern game, that is) refreshing. As with
Fun Unit's Itsuwari no Rondo (another recent Tactics game worthy of
your attention), once I failed three times in a row to clear the first
mission I was hooked. This misled me to an extent; at first I was
ecstatic to have found another Japanese strategy game with actual
challenge, but it turns out this challenge was mostly due to the
unfamiliar units. You see there are no warriors or archers or
spellcasters here, each with strengths and weaknesses by now hard-
wired into our brains, so until you figure out exactly what the
various units do, you'll be in serious trouble (and, naturally,
enjoying yourself all the more because of it).
I was, at least, glad to see that in one respect the use of the R-Type
theme was beneficial to the game, and I soon discovered many others. I
loved how an additional layer of strategy was introduced by limiting
the fuel and ammunition in each ship, requiring you to constantly
resupply them. I loved how, instead of dreaming up some sci-fi
equivalent to potions or spellcasters, the designers force you to dock
your ships into a capital ship in order to repair them. I loved how
all of R-Type's signature elements -- the side-on view, the Force, the
charge shot, the different weapon types, the giant bosses -- were
intertwined with the mechanics of the game in meaningful, and
sometimes even brilliant ways. I loved the brisk, serious tone of the
campaign, free from anime clips of emo transsexuals blabbing endlessly
about the fate of their nonsensical and boring universe. I did hate
the ugly and insufferably slow battle animations (whoever was
responsible for those needs to play either a Fire Emblem or a Wars
game asap), but I turned them off and promptly forgot about them. And
I absolutely loved the hex-covered little maps, with swirling dust
clouds or slowly drifting space junk in the background, and with
excellent music setting the mood for atmospheric confrontations.
screenshot2_small
And yet despite all that my enjoyment lasted barely a third of the way
through the campaign. Part of it was that the second third is so cheap
it's simply unacceptable, while the last third merely recycles ideas
from the first, completely failing to build up the scope and challenge
of the missions to some sort of appropriate climax. Not to mention
*MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT* the unlockable Bydo campaign I didn't even
bother with. They should have put the extra effort into designing
more, and much better, human-side missions.
But the poorly designed campaign is not the main issue here. I guess,
in a way, this game was bound to disappoint me from the start, and the
better it turned out the greater the disappointment was bound to be.
See, the Japanese can make two kinds of good strategy games: the
fairly complex kind that only Koei and a couple of lesser-known
companies still make on occasion (and God bless their souls for it),
and the simplistic, fast-paced, high-on-charm kind that Intelligent
Systems has been practically monopolizing since the release of Famicom
Wars in '88. Irem doesn't quite have the know-how to make the latter,
and the R-Type theme doesn't lend itself to that type of game anyway;
nor is the PSP a very suitable platform for the former; so R-Type
Tactics was bound to end up stuck somewhere in the unsatisfying
middle: not complex enough to attract the serious strategy fan in me,
nor polished enough to serve as a quick, pleasant distraction between
more serious games. To be more specific, there are two elements that
should have been different in order to turn this into the must-play
masterpiece it easily could have been. Once past the initial
difficulty barrier, I spent the rest of the game absent-mindedly
tapping buttons and thinking about them.
R-Type Tactics needed, above all, a system with which the player could
acquire new units during a battle. Due to the fog of war it is very
easy to lose some of your best units early on in an engagement (even
if you fully exploit your stealth-capable and decoy-planting ships),
without which wiping out the enemy becomes practically impossible. You
are therefore forced to resort to quicksaving and reloading, and once
you start down that path there's simply no return. You then get into
the habit of saving at the start of every turn, and what little
challenge was left in the game goes immediately out the space bay,
with enjoyment following soon after. The fog of war missions in the
Wars games also introduce this problem to an extent -- i.e. you
usually have to first find out exactly where enemies are placed on a
map, and then replay the mission taking advantage of that knowledge --
but at least in those games if you screw up you still stand a chance,
because with a bit of luck you can keep rebuilding whatever forces you
lose during any cock-ups. Not so in R-Type Tactics.
The second thing this game needed was greater, much greater scope.
This game should have been made for the PC, with huge 1080p maps
filled with hundreds of ships (just like in the opening cinematic!),
and a mouse-based interface to simplify the issuing of orders. I can
only imagine how awesome such a game would be, and how unforgettable
the experience of sitting in a dark room in the center of a 5.1 sound
setup while directing opera-worthy space battles on a gigantic screen
in front of me. Of course someone will now jump up and tell me that
this is the kind of game a Western company would make, and right he
would be. But the point is that Western developers may deliver the
scope that strategy fans like me crave, but they rarely if ever
deliver the charm, while the opposite is true of Japanese developers.
My point is that a fusion of the two approaches would be awesome, and
I can't think of a more appropriate game to accomplish it than this.
It's half-way there already anyway, with more nuanced mechanics than
any small-scale Japanese strategy game bar Nectaris, not to mention
the fantastic concept of slowly building up a fleet of ships as the
campaign progresses. If only you were allowed to use the whole damn
fleet at the same time, instead of being limited to a handful of units
per mission, even as far into the game as a couple of missions before
the end...
screenshot5_small
But enough with dreaming of what might have been. The current game has
several other problems worth pointing out, including half-assed mining
of resources (which is simply gratuitous, adding nothing to such a
small-scale game), and pointless turn limits for every mission (what
is the justification for those anyway? Does God intervene in the
middle of a space battle, putting an end to it if someone hasn't won
within 35 turns?) Most annoying of all is the "immortality syndrome"
which many Japanese strategy games suffer from. Having your pilots
gain experience and being able to assign the veterans to fly the
newer, fancier ships was a brilliant touch, but making the pilots
immortal while at the same time miraculously repairing destroyed ships
after every mission was lame, lame, lame. As for the local wireless
versus mode, it's true that the game's most serious problems (i.e. the
poor campaign, the quicksaving/reloading shenanigans and the
immortality syndrome) vanish when you play against a human, but if
your versus mode in a strategy game in 2007 is not online with solid
matchmaking and leaderboards, I am sorry, but I don't want to hear
about it.
I'll close this review with a thought that struck me once I switched
off my PSP after my last session with the game, and shelved it for
good. R-Type Tactics will make you feel as if the previous R-Types had
never existed, as if the R-Type theme had been created with strategy
in mind instead of 2D shooting. That's how expertly the old theme has
been draped over the new mechanics, and that is Irem's greatest
achievement with this game. I'd like to see a sequel, and hope its
designers will read this review and heed my advice... Fat chance, I
know, on both counts, but hey. One can still hope.
R-Type Tactics will be released in North America on May 6 as R-Type
Command. No word yet of an EU release.
http://insomnia.ac/reviews/playstationportable/r-typetactics/
AirRaid
Command is nice change in direction from the traditional R-Type space
shoot-em-up series, into a turn-based, hexagonal grid movement,
tactical strategy game.
I don't regret the $40 I spent.
AirRaid
R-Type Command Multiplayer Impressions
Going head-to-head in the depths of space.
by Ryan Clements
May 5, 2008 - R-Type Command takes the universe of the legendary
shooter franchise and sets it on a hex-based grid. Fans of the series
may recognize the various R Fighters and Forces flying across the
screen, but Command is definitely a different game than its
predecessors. We sat down and sunk some time into the game's
multiplayer mode, where you and a friend can duel in the hex-filled
vastness of space. Let's chat about what this battle really looks
like.
In case you missed our previous coverage of the game, R-Type Command
is a rather complex, turn-based strategy game that puts you in command
of a fleet of ships against an opposing fleet. Each stage is a 2D grid
where all your units are represented by stylish sprites and are
generally oriented in one direction. During your turn, you can move
each unit in your command a set number of spaces and execute a variety
of attacks, depending on the ship type. A ship can only move and
attack once per turn, or "phase," and then your opponent can issues
commands accordingly.
We've been told that the multiplayer elements of R-Type Command play a
big role in the overall experience, and that certainly seems to be the
case. Although there are an abundant amount of missions in the single-
player campaign (a surprising amount, actually), you can fight a
friend on a number of different arenas. As you progress through the
levels of the single-player game, you unlock those very stages to use
in the VS. Mode. Furthermore, battles will be made more interesting
because you're bringing your personal fleet into combat. As you build
up your armada, research new technologies and increase the skill level
of your pilots, you can bring those advancements to the multiplayer
arena and show off your accomplishments to a buddy. Neat.
As far as we can tell, you'll have two different armadas for your
Human and Bydo campaigns, so in order to effectively play as the Bydo
(a malicious alien entity) you'll need to plow through the single-
player mode and build up your respective Bydo fleet. But you and a
friend can opt to both play as Human armadas, which is good. The icing
on the cake comes in the form of wagers. Before a match begins, you're
presented with the option to wager resources on the upcoming match. If
you both agree to place bets, you're taken to a contract screen where
you can decide just how many resources you expect from your opponent
if you win. When you both agree, the battle begins.
This wagering element definitely adds to the fun, because resources
are extremely important in the single-player campaign. They're hard to
come by when playing on your own and thus snagging some from a friend
is a huge incentive. We definitely appreciated this option.
The battles themselves ran quite nicely -- for the most part. We did
have some trouble hosting a match on an old PSP, but after a few
disconnects, the game ran without a problem. You can set the number of
turns and other various options like fog of war, battle animations,
etc. Each player is placed (usually) on opposite ends of the map and
is given a limited area in which to deploy their units. Once
deployment is complete, you take turns commanding your fleets exactly
as you would in the single-player game. We were really impressed that
the flow and feeling of the game is preserved so perfectly in the
multiplayer experience.
I took on IGN fan-favorite Sam Bishop in a few matches and, besides
the aforementioned disconnects in the beginning, our play experience
was fantastic. There is little to no delay in unit movement and
loading and the battle played out smoothly. It became painfully
evident that gamers with a suped-up fleet will be able to roll right
over standard armadas. Even though Sam was more than familiar with the
game, he only had the "default" fleet available to him and was
promptly defeated. Luckily, you can modify the strength of your forces
to balance the scales in the options menu.
Ultimately, our time with R-Type Command's multiplayer was a solid
experience. You'll obviously need a friend with a copy of the game to
play because there's only ad-hoc support, but the complexity and depth
of the core mechanics will give you a wealth of options for head-to-
head duels. Customizing your fleet and finding your own play style are
just a few of the many things that make R-Type Command promising.
Check back here very soon for our full review.
Rich Hutnik
Not jump in and play at all though. There is some good amount of
depth to it. I know I was playing the first scenario where R-Type
faction vs R-Type faction, and out come the R-Type weapon attacks.
Large weapon's blast that fried my ships that were in a line with one
another. Didn't expect that at all.
- Rich