R-Type Command is a hexagonal strategy game that uses the popular R-Type universe as its backdrop. This game is a huge change of pace for the series, but strategy fans and even board game fans may find this game quite engaging.

In many ways this game is trying to bring an Advance Wars type of experience to the PSP system and it is difficult to not make a connection between the two. Both games are strategy games, both games have cutscenes showing off the battles between armies, etc. Where this game has an ever so slight advantage that makes it stand out is that it uses the lexicon of stories from the previous games to tell its story as well as an in-game diary of sorts from your point of view.

Given that the games before this were shooters, you might not have a clue as to what’s going on. Why care much about the story when you are busy blowing stuff up, right? This is where the diary comes in since it does a good job of explaining things related to the missions and the history of the battle between Earth and the Bydo Empire.

You play the human commander given the task of taking a fleet straight to the heart of the Bydo Empire in order to destroy their command structure and stop them from invading Earth. At the start of every mission (there are about 30) you choose your lineup of ships and pilots from the series and drop them onto the board to face off against the Bydo.

Each ship has different movement abilities and usually several offensive and defensive attacks they can utilize. Sounds like the standard turn-based strategy game and it pretty much is. The one interesting thing in the gameplay is something that is ported over from the shooters. In the other games you were able to join up with Forces (special weapons) to make your ship even more powerful. Here the Forces are represented on your screen and you can move them to a ship and join them together in order to make the ship more powerful. You are also able to separate the two again and move the Force to a new ship. This makes the strategy a little more interesting since you can exact a killing blow to a straight line of enemies with the extra Force power and end the mission quickly.

The graphics in this game are pretty good, although the ships do have a habit of almost blending in with the background stage graphics. There were several times it was hard to find all the ships in order to move them during a turn.

There are a few problems with the game though. There is a good deal of load time to go into the 3D battle, so if you turn the cutscenes on you will be watching each and every battle and it will make the mission a long one. Thankfully you can either leave it in mixed mode or turn them off. They are cool to see for the first few times, but outside of that it will get quite annoying.