A fun and challenging space warfare experience in a compact format | Review - Space Wanted
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✨Overview
Space Wanted is a brand new mobile space shooter and warfare game featuring rogue-lite elements and a time survival aspect. As a single-player roguelike experience set in space, players are tasked with commanding a fleet of ships to take down space pirates in intense battles. The game is exclusively available here on TapTap for Android (Mobile) and has just been released.
Space-themed games are probably my favorite setting in video games and media in general, and I've also developed a newfound love for rogue-lite games in recent years, thanks to a surge of really great titles. So finding out that Space Wanted is a rogue-lite game set in space, where you command a flagship to take down space pirates, makes it a perfect fit for me to try out. It's been fun to play, with multiple game modes, great visuals, and a free-to-play friendly experience.
🟩Pros
+Challenging rogue-lite/time survival gameplay
+Multiple game modes
+Impressive graphics and visuals
+Free-to-play friendly
+Smooth flawless performance
🟥Cons
-Aggressive and tempting ad implementation
-Limited variety in weapon and skill types
-Some issues with targeting and damage feedback
⭐️Score: 7/10
📖Premise
There is no story in this game; it just takes you right into the gameplay. The premise is pretty clear, though: you command a flagship and a small fleet, trying to take on hundreds of pirates across three distinct game modes. Swarm Uprising offers a series of linear missions to complete, Pirates Revenge is a timed survival game mode, and Plunder War is a turn-based-like fleet warfare mode where you control fleet logistics instead of directly controlling your ships.
🎨Visuals and Art, and 📊Technical Performance
Even though the game uses a 2D layout for movement, the 3D graphics are impressive, with detailed ship designs, vibrant special effects, and immersive space environments. Despite being on mobile, the graphics hold up well. The ship designs are what you'd expect from a space-themed game: metallic, greyish, with color highlights to differentiate friend from foe. There's some upbeat background music, but it's not as strong as the visuals. There may be no graphical settings to tweak but it didn’t matter. Despite how decent the game looks, it ran without any issues and I think I was basically on a locked 60fps experience on my Snapdragon 888 device.
🎮Gameplay
Two first two game modes; Swarm Uprising and Pirate Revenge are similar enough; the only big difference is that one is a finishable series of missions, and the other is a never-ending time survival mode that records your high score. Advancing in Swarm Uprising will give you plenty of resources to upgrade your ships and unlock new ones, while Pirate Revenge will provide resources and the opportunity to reach a new high score.
If you're familiar with Vampire Survivors, then the gameplay of Space Wanted is very similar. You have a ship at the center of the screen firing automatically, waves of pirates come at you, and you have to blast them to survive. Destroying them lets you accumulate coins that will level you up, giving you a choice of three temporary upgrades in typical rogue-lite fashion: like a faster movement speed, better damage, or perhaps an additional skill to use. All weapons are activated automatically, except for the main cannon, which must be aimed and fired manually.
One major difference with traditional time survival games is that in Space Wanted, targeting is still a big part of the gameplay instead of just focusing on movement. Most of the ship's weapons only shoot from the front, so you have to orient your ship properly to hit enemies. There are two control modes: auto-fire and manual-fire. Auto-fire does what it says, while also auto-aiming at enemies when not moving. Manual fire gives you more control over your ship but requires playing with both hands. The game offers three camera modes: isometric, isometric with a steeper angle, and complete top-down view.
However, there are some gripes. I would have liked not having to target in these types of games, and the activation of the main cannon is a bit buggy, sometimes causing me to move while targeting, which can be critical as the game is unforgiving when it comes to taking damage. There's not much feedback to indicate that you're taking damage, and there's not much variety in weapon and skill types, limiting the choices to experiment with different setups. The game is ultimately fun, but I wish there was a bit more depth and experimentation involved in it.
The last mode, Plunder War, is a much different format. It almost feels like turn-based or tick-based, similar to Eve Online, where you wait for commands instead of directly controlling the ships. Players have a set amount of resources that they can use to deploy ships to destroy and counter the opposing fleet. Yet again, there's not much depth here, and it exists mainly to add variety to the game and provide another way to gain resources.
💵Monetization
Space Wanted is entirely free-to-play but includes microtransactions and optional ads to boost progress. The rewards you get from watching ads are so overpowered that you’d be tempted to watch them, such as doubling the amount of rewards or giving you free revives. Microtransactions also range from completely removing ads to unlocking all ships or providing additional resources. Honestly, I prefer this approach over the usual gacha or grindy approach, but I still found the ads a little bit aggressive.
⚖️Conclusion
If you love space shooter games and rogue-lites, then Space Wanted — with its engaging time survival/rogue-lite gameplay, three game modes, and decent graphics — is definitely worth checking out. Despite some minor issues with targeting, damage feedback, aggresive ads, and the game being somewhat shallow, the game runs smoothly and delivers a fun and challenging experience in a compact bite sized format.
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