Rebelstar Tactical Command – GBA – Review

Your family
is gone, taken at the age of 30 by the Zorn, the strong arm of the Arelian
Empire. In a strange Logan’s Run-esque way, when people hit the age of 30, the
lizard-like Zorn take them away, never to be heard from again.

A chip is
put into all humans. You can’t run, and you can’t hide. Occasionally, though,
there is that human whose body rejects the chip’s programming, and who can
escape outside the control of the Arelians and their Zorn henchmen. Those few
usually wind up in the rebel force, dedicated to overthrowing the Arelians and
reclaiming Earth.

That is the
backdrop for Rebelstar Tactical Command, a third-person shooter viewed from the
isometric vantage point, and released on the Game Boy Advance by Namco and Codo
Technologies.

Players take
on the role of Jorel, a new recruit who will rise in the ranks of the rebel
force to lead the fight against the Arelians. The game is a hybrid of sorts,
spanning the turn-based tactical shooting elements and the role-playing genre
through leveling, and skill and equipment upgrades. There are four basic modes
of play, and they are pretty much self explanatory – campaign, skirmish,
multiplayer hotseat and multiplayer link.

The levels
are charted out in terms of maps, which players advance through with small
squads, battling the enemy. But where this game takes a bit of a departure from
the norm is that everything plays out like a chess game. Line of site comes into
play and players expend action points during a turn – if you have points left
after you execute primary moves, you can duck behind cover and force the enemy
to hunt you and maybe expose themselves to attack. However, as stated, this is
line of sight and you may not actually see the enemy until you are in position
to do so. That means the enemy could be behind a wall, or other environmental
set piece.

In many ways
the game sticks to some of the standard turn-based elements, like gridded maps,
but rather than just throw players out there, the grids are color coded to allow
players to know – at a glance – how much they can accomplish in a given move.
Range too far and you won’t have action points to do anything else but move, but
stay within certain color schemes and you will have enough action points for an
attack. The different types of attacks carry different action point costs as
well.

Some of the
environmental elements are destructible, if you have the right weapons, so an
enemy hiding behind a wall may not remain out of attack range for long, if you
plan right.

The sound
and graphics of the game are merely serviceable, so do not expect to be blown
away from these elements. But what they do offer is a nice support vehicle for
the gameplay mechanics.

The game
does not concern itself so much with micro-managing but rather concentrates on
squad-based tactical combat, and as such, Rebelstar Tactical Command is one of
the finest titles to appear on the GBA in that regard.

Review Scoring Details for Rebelstar Tactical Command

Gameplay:
8.3
The tactical
elements, line-of-sight aspect and role-playing elements make this a deeper game
that one is usually treated to on the platform. The controls have a small
learning curve and the load times are kept down.

Graphics:
7.5
Serviceable and
colorful, but nothing to get overly excited about.

Sound:
7.0
Standard fare
here, but still supports the graphics.

Difficulty: Medium
This is not so
much a reflexive game as a cerebral one.

Concept:
8.0
While the
graphics and sound are not much, and the control scheme is almost stock, the
idea behind the tactical turn-based combat makes this game shine.

Multiplayer: N/A
The game does
support multiplayer through the Link mode, but at the time of this review, no
other players with the game were available to test it.

Overall:
8.0
The game has many
typical elements and several that have been seen before in other titles.
However, where Rebelstar Tactical Command really shines is in the wonderful way
it supplies gamers with information in a lucid, logical and thought-provoking
combat system. The word ‘tactical’ in the title is not merely an adjective with
little meaning – it is meant here and players had best be ready to think their
way through the maps, not run and gun.