Space Commander: War and Trade is a free-to-play mobile game with the inclusion of pay-to-win flavor. Home Net Games decided to convert that model to a more traditional money upfront model for the Nintendo Switch.
Fleet Commander
In Space Commander: War and Trade you start out with a simple fighter ship and a few introductory missions to get a feel for the game. Not long after your first dog fights, you’ll be handed a few extra ships to make a fleet. Being in command of the fleet and keeping everything up to date and in pristine condition will be your main objective during the game. You’ll soon realize the harsh economy implemented in Space Commander: War and Trade. Naturally, everything has its price but prices are steep in space. So steep in fact you’ll have to grind a fair share of your time in order to make any progress in the story.
Luckily space is ruled by three main factions: Delta Merc, Motus, and the Syndicate. These three factions all offer different types of jobs in order to make money. The initial job yield more or less break-even when it comes down to your earnings. The money made from the jobs is largely consumed up when you need to repair your fleet and fill them up with fuel for the next mission. Executing a mission with just one small error made will mean almost no profit was made. Realizing this aspect of the game was probably the part made to incite players into opening their wallets for microtransactions.
Trading and reputation
Making a game frustratingly harsh from the start because you haven’t quite re-balanced your game feels a bit cheap. However, there is a way to overcome this hurdle but you’ll have to be prepared to grind a lot. First up, go for profitable trader between the different stations. Each station has goods to sell and is also willing to buy goods you brought along. So looking for cheap deals in one station and selling it at a station with higher demand can yield faster profit and is fairly low-risk. Building a good reputation with one of the factions will eventually open up bigger earning jobs. All these things feel quite repetitive after a while which was a major downside to an otherwise good idea.
Dogfights on auto-pilot
The idea of implementing a whole economic system in a space-sim is something I truly applaud. Even when the execution is needless harsh I think it offers an original approach to space war games. On the other hand, the “war” aspect of Space Commander: War and Trade isn’t quite what I was expecting. I was hoping for fierce dogfights between my fleet and pirates, alien races, and other space shenanigans but sadly I got something else. I think it all comes down to a bag conversion from a mobile game to a home console. When chasing an enemy and getting close enough, you have to lock on the enemy. Once locked on you only need to shoot because your ship will keep tailing the enemy despite it trying to get away. I get this sort of mechanic was implemented to make the best of mobile controls but on a console, this feels extremely lame.
Using different types of weapons and finding out which weapon is best suited for a certain situation makes the fights a bit less dull but the damage was already done. Commanding your fleet of up to 4 other ships to either just blast at everything or to concentrate on a certain ship adds some additional spice in the mix. Initially, you’ll feel fine with the way they implemented the dogfights but after going through it a few times you’ll surely feel bored. Battling bigger ships is the most exciting thing to actually happen from then on. These have multiple parts to destroy and the order in which you destroy them might make things easier.
Upscaling done right
I was really impressed with the way Space Commander: War and Trade looked on the big screen. Space is mostly black with a few shiny stars on the horizon. Despite the background being what it is, they did a great job in making sure the stations and the ships looked awesome. The fact you can fully customize the way your fleet looks was also a nice addition. The usage of lighting really made everything shine. The way they upscaled everything seamlessly makes it really stand out amongst other mobile game conversions.
Conclusion
Space Commander: War and Trade uses very nice ideas but forget to adjust them properly. The game looks like a console game but still feels like a pay-to-win game without the option of doing so. There is a lot to do but sadly most of it gets repetitive quite fast. A bit more care for the conversion from one model to another could’ve gone a long way.
