[Review] Space Commander: War and Trade - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Home Net Games
Published By: 7Levels
Categories: Mercenary Sim, Space Shooter
Release Date: 05.13.21

Space Commander might be the most accurate the term Mercenary Simulator has ever been for a game I’ve played. You fly around in space, you shoot stuff, you take jobs, and you trade material for monetary compensation.

There’s a lot to do and space is vast. If you want a game that lasts you a long time, this is it. Lets start with basics though. There’s planets, stations, and empty spaces where you can dock, some close, some far. Upon stopping, you might be intercepted by opposing pilots or pirates. Shoot them make sure not to get yourself shot down, or around since you’re in space. You can just shoot aimlessly, but the game’s lock-on rocks rather well once you get within range. It will not let go of what you’re locked onto unless they get too far. The issue of camera can come up, but it’s usually only for a short period.

Once docked, there’s a bit you can do. Refuel and repair is probably a priority, granted you have money. You can buy materials, supplies, and the like…but it looks like you don’t have the kind of ship for that. You’ll need a transporter, which thankfully you’ll get very soon into the game. This is a great way to get money if you pay attention to what sells for cheap and what can be sold for lots. You’ll only be able to hold four items though, so think hard about what to buy.

You can buy ships too if you want and have the funds to do so. There’s a lot of them all with their own stats and classes, like bombers, transports, fighters, gunboats, but the ones I recommend to buy ASAP are the bigger transporters, if only to get more with trading. All ships can be upgraded if at a big enough docking point, and I’d definitely recommend this, if only to get secondary weapons and better shields. My main fight when playing the Cobra had a secondary weapon that excelled in destroying the enemy shields, which act like a second life bar. Having this weapon and the main weapon led to less cooldown times, which helps A LOT when surrounded by lots of enemies or when tasked to destroy bigger targets.

Time to get a job. There’s lots of offers and the more you to, the more rep you get and the better jobs you’ll get, as well as requests. Something I learned the hard way is that once you start one of these requests, you need to commit to it regardless. I made the mistake of stopping off at a planet to buy some cargo, and it turns out means I ducked out of a request? I ended up losing rep and a potential payday.

Space Commander has a bit of an RPG feel to it with it’s skill points. Critical hits, just plain stronger shots, better trade values or repair costs and so on. Most can seem negligible, but most are substantial boosts with 10% hikes at a time if not more. Everything adds up and can definitely help. The fun of getting a one hit kill on anything, even with the percentage being so tiny can’t be matched.

I had a lot of fun playing Space Commander and there’s LOTS to do, but the biggest issue I kept running into was that the game very quickly gets incredibly repetitive. You’re constantly doing the same things, shooting, docking, shooting, selling, docking, shooting. When the shootouts become longer affairs with dozens of ships to shoot at, it almost makes me really not want to bother. It doesn’t help that I ended up completely forgetting the plot and the actual info on jobs you’d do never was interesting. Perhaps this is more of a “Too Much of a Good Thing” kind of game.