Beat. I found this game easier than its sequel while also being more engaging. It would not run on my main emulator so I had to play on the secondary, which does not have turbo mode. It was painfully slow. The initial defense against the enemy waves was good, with an impressive amount of tactical depth around unit movement, position and attack, but mopping up stragglers and capturing the enemy bases was tedious because of how long it took to move things across the map. The game really needs a command to move units any distance, faster moves, and much faster scroll speed. The concept of 4 different factions was cool, but they all have exactly the same units and the 3 enemy factions never fight each other. Might as well just have a single enemy faction then. The game really should have explored that concept more with an actual plot to differentiate the factions, and put in some 3 or 4 way battles. The enemy AI was just as dumb as in 3410 by usually just sending units on the attack without waiting for the slower ones. They did make decent use of defensive terrain, even occasionally holding there for allies to catch up, and would focus down your units sometimes. Other times they would fail to attack a weak unit that could be killed, in favor of something closer or on less defensive terrain. They would even decide not to attack sometimes and it was an interesting puzzle to figure out how to manipulate the AI into doing stupid things, like chasing after a fast decoy that they would never catch, baiting them to move towards an empty base while I had a nearby fast unit that could garrison it in a single turn, and otherwise keeping my units alive. A couple levels mixed things up a bit; 1 disabled the map and prevented you from scrolling until one of your units moved close enough, while another had the enemy forces underneath the bases so you could not seem them during the 1st turn.

The strategy was to consolidate forces around the 9 tile bases and weather the enemy assault. All 9 tiles give good defense boost but only the middle heals, and only when a unit moves into it. So you can't just camp there, you have to rotate the units around and balance healing with defending the good tiles and vulnerable units. It was kinda like a sliding tile puzzle at times, figuring out the best way to get that center unit out so another can heal, while allowing your units to attack and preventing the enemy from doing something bad. Often the best thing for most units to do was simply occupy good tiles to deny them to the enemy and protect good units while artillery and air do most of the damage. Balance out how many enemies were in range to attack a specific unit and how many other units were waiting for healing, to decide whether to attack and suffer the retaliation damage. Air superiority was key and the most important decision of a level early on was where to send the air power. Ideally, you would want to lure their fighters close enough for your SAM, mechs and infantry to attack, then finish them off with your own fighters. Calculate movement ranges to ensure you always get the 1st attack and your fighters will beat an even number of enemy fighters. Then fighters should shoot down bombers, but depending on the circumstances it may be better to shoot down the bombers 1st and risk leaving the enemy fighters alive; especially if it is severely damaged and will flee, or if there is only 1. Takes 2 fighter attacks to kill a bomber, and 2 and a bit to kill a fighter (ususlly). Then stay out of range of enemy SAM while your air units wreck enemy ground forces. Fighters are good for stealing undefended bases, blocking, and finishing off fleeing units. Bombers are best to kill artillery, then armor. It may be better to weaken a unit enough that it flees and then move to another rather than kill immediately. Armor cannot counterattack air, and air units do not suffer retaliation damage if they kill the target. Unlike ground units, where you have to weigh whether it is worth taking the damage to finish off a unit. Heavy tank artillery is the only unit (other than SAM) with long range attacks, so they put much needed safe damage on enemies. I had them target mechs because of their overall power and anti air, then light tanks for their very high attack vs only medium defense, then commandos for their similar higher offense than defense, then medium tanks because they have both high attack and defense. I used all of those units to mainly block, sometimes attack, and to go for artillery and SAM. Mechs and medium tanks are the best defenders, and the meds are also fast. The light assault vehicle has the best ground move and I thus found it very useful for plugging defense holes during base rotation. The transport was good for that too while also being able to carry an infantry unit. I found it more useful as an aid for rotation, to make a gap by putting a blocker infantry inside, or putting a weak infantry inside to prevent the enemy from killing it. Less often was the transport useful for moving infantry longer range. Good for consolidating at the base and maybe for going after vulnerable units, but by the time you could afford to send infantry out you have already won and don't need them. Unlike in 3410, the transport and infantry moves are entirely separate, so you don't have to worry about not being able to enter or exit if the transport already moved. The basic infantry is too weak to be useful. Many of mine were not even used.

This game has both better and worse features than the sequel, to the point that I found them about equal. Particularly, I liked the better tactics, unit design, defensive terrain, base mechanics, and unit icons, while 3410 has better setting, story and building new units.

6.5/10