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One thing that does stick out when playing on these non-conforming levels is the fact that you can not make your ships face left. They always point to the right and therefore most of them will only be able to fire their special weapons to the right (although all regular weapons can target anywhere within range). On one hand this adds to the strategy of positioning your ship and the fact that you do not want to let any enemy ships get behind you. On the other hand this can be annoying on levels that feature parts where your ship is forced to move backwards into oncoming enemies.

I wish Irem would have given the player the option to turn their ship around but at the cost of a turn or two while the ship performs the maneuver. This way you are still penalized if you happen to let an enemy slip behind you, but if you plan ahead you can still utilize your special weapon during instances when the level forces you to advance to the left.

One area that I found R-Type Command to be lacking is the user interface. As I mentioned before the menu system seems a bit overly complex. This can be particularly troublesome on the battlefield when numerous windows cloud the screen and you can’t see which ship is being targeted by whom and you are supposed to makes some sort of informed decision about what is going on. There are also instances when you want to perform a simple action and you are forced to go through several menu items just to get to it. After maneuvering through the menus required for saving or loading a game while in mid-battle, you will quickly grow to love the PSP’s sleep function.

I was pleasantly surprised with R-Type Command. When I first heard about the switch to TBS I was skeptical, but after the first hour or so the game quickly grew on me. Granted it is a slower pace than the original, it is no less challenging than the original. This game has a tendency to spank you good if you try to rush straight into battle with out a plan. Regardless, there is enough depth and variety thrown in to keep you coming back for more.