Star Wars Republic Commando was a terrific game in the past and it played very well on the PC. It was a great blend of Star Wars and all of the aspects of a tactical shooter filled with action scenes. Does the game relive its glory days on the Nintendo Switch? Let’s see.
Star Wars Republic Commando is a solid action-packed first-person shooter that takes you back to the war between the Republic and Separatist forces, more specifically between Star Wars: Episode 2 and Star Wars: Episode 3. You take on the role of RC-1138 which is a Clone commando who takes his orders from the Republic. The game takes you straight to the battlefield where Separatist forces try to get ground without the help of tedious villains carrying a lightsaber. The storyline is all about special forces that go face-to-face against the robotic legion. You and your team cleaning up on aisle 6.
“You can be killed in many ways and you aren’t untouchable like the Jedi forces.”
As the commander, you get different members under your jurisdiction. Together, you form Delta Squad, a group of soldiers that use different tactics and high-quality equipment. It’s basically Rainbow Six set in the Star Wars Universe. Within the game, you’re able to destroy the best of the best by placing your teammates in the right spot. This feature allows you to tackle the most challenging enemies you’ll encounter during your playthrough. It’s a great feature that makes the game on another level than those shooters you could compare this game to. The game also makes you feel special in 2 ways… You are a specialized force that could deal with the most difficult robotic enemies in the system but you’re also vulnerable, you don’t have this mental state of “nobody can touch me”. You can be killed in many ways and you aren’t untouchable like the Jedi forces.
The feature of having these squadmates that can follow different orders makes the game a lot more fun than you would expect. By relying on your teammates and your gut feeling of placing them on the right spot on the battlefield, will overcome the most challenging enemies or even situations. If you don’t use this tactical option of giving orders, you won’t make it out alive and you’ll have to retry over and over again. Yes, there are missions where you don’t need to rely on your teammates but most of the time, relying on your teammates is just inevitable.
“In the end, you’ll be glad to have your teammates around you…”
Talking about challenging enemies and situations… the game will confront you with different droids that go from standard Battle Droids to Super Battle Droids. The standard droids are easy to kill but will definitely give you a hard time during your adventure. However, sometimes a Behemoth will come along your way and you’ll have to take it down with the help of your Delta Squad. Ordering your teammates to take the high ground or flank from behind, is the only viable option when you confront these majestic robots. In the end, you’ll be glad to have your teammates around you, supporting where they can.
The game offers a 9hourish campaign that takes you from one planet to another. However, there are only 3 planets but you can tell that the developers made the right call not to overflow the different environments because even though there are only 3 planets available to us, the different planets are filled with interesting esthetics that distinguishes themselves from the other 2 planets. Each planet gives you the main mission that takes you further into the story. Not only do these three planets take you through the whole story, they also offer different combat situations that build-up to the ultimate fight in the end. Each planet offers different objectives like breaching a factory or defend against enemy troops.
“In the end, it’s a matter of personal feeling.”
Let’s talk about the mechanical side of things… The mechanics of the standard Joy-Cons on the Switch makes it hard to love the game to the fullest. I often feel like these Joy-Cons aren’t as responsive as they should be. Fortunately, to make your playthrough a bit more bearable, the game allows you to remap all of your buttons on the switch, you can really fit the Joy-Cons to a playstyle that suits you best. The developers still use the toggle aim system like almost every FPS game in that period and a great addition to this remaster could have been an option to change this setting. You’re almost constantly aiming, so it’s a bit weird that you still have to toggle in 2021. In the end, it’s a matter of personal feeling.
The game looks definitely sharp on the handheld mode on the switch but it just doesn’t run smoothly on the small screen. It would have been amazing to see this game have a constant 60FPS but it doesn’t. There are even stuttering moments that totally break the immersion. The moment the game shows a bit more than 5 enemies on the screen, the game falls down to 15 FPS. However, I do want to mention that it’s great to see that the developers cleaned the game’s interface a bit so that the game wouldn’t be overflown with visual input on the small screen. Cleaning the interface makes the game look a bit better than the PC version. There’s also a quick safe and the game seems optimized to perform a faster load of the game’s data. The game definitely performs better when docked but then you truly realize that the game feels a bit outdated.
Conclusion:
Star Wars Republic Commando is one of the best Star Wars games made and hopefully we’ll see a follow-up in the near future. However, due to the lack of quality of life improvements and performance issues, the game can’t show its full potential that could help draw new players into the scene. The campaign is a great way to get involved within the Star Wars universe and using a tactical approach on the gameplay side of things, is a great way to stand out from today’s shooters. The developers made the visuals cleaner and sharper, players who played the original will definitely see the changes but the moment you play the game docked and on a bigger screen, you’ll start to realize that the game is outdated. However, if you want to play a great Star Wars game on the go, this is the time to jump in.
6.5/10
tested on Switch
