Game Review #306: Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut (Nintendo Switch)
Reviewer: FrankieW
Developer: Born Ready Games
Publisher: Born Ready Games
Category: Dog Fighting, Action
Release Date: 5.2.2019
Price (at time of review): $19.99
Buy Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
High-Flying Space Action
Dog fighting? Check! High-flying space jets? Check! Loads of different weapons to pick from? Check again! And the most important part: transforming mechs chock full of crazy armaments, lasers, and missiles? Yessir, that is here! I swear, sometimes the powers that be get the games for review and just go, “Oh, well, of COURSE this is going to Frank!” and I think this is one of those moments; and boy howdy, they did the right thing in doing that!
Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut is a high-flying space action game in which you play as the titular Strike Suit Zero for most of it—but there are 4 options for ships in the game—which is a prototype combat vehicle capable of manipulating the McGuffin space energy (called the fold) and transforming from a space jet capable of quick movement, into a crazy powerful mech suit capable of filling the screen full of missiles or auto-tracking close targets with powerful auto-cannons. As you get comfortable and familiar with the controls and nuances of this game, you will find yourself becoming a terror on the battlefield, quickly changing forms when it is appropriate, weaving destruction across space. Let's talk a little more about what makes Strike Suit Zero an awesome game!
The Good gets Better
Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut is a better version of the earlier Steam version of Strike Suit Zero, as they added another whole campaign to play—in addition to the 13 missions the game originally included! Your missions span from fighting in empty space, defending space frigates and destroyed remains from battles in the past, along with a few other surprises! Your mission objectives can be as simple as destroy all the enemies, or maybe defend a point, or even to defeat a boss! There were some super cool missions where you had to destroy incoming missiles so they couldn’t destroy your defense objectives.
It seems they really make good use of your mobility in this game, and it is huge! You have full control over your ship, able to execute all kinds of cool maneuvers in space to out-dogfight your opponents. Your load out includes some seriously power armaments, including pulse rifles with different modes of fire—either sequential or linked, depending on how much of your ships energy you want to dole out—auto-tracking machine guns that are perfect for getting up close and personal with a fast opponent that you may be having problems hitting with your pulse rifle due to how much you have to lead targets, which this game graciously shows you where to aim in that case, but the dogfighting can be so fast, it might not be the most efficient way to dole out damage.
My favorite are the missiles; you have dummy-fire missiles that are great for destroying space frigates or turrets, but that GOOD GOOD is those homing missiles. There's something so satisfying about the sound of the missile locking on. I love keeping the lock held while I’m taking their shields down so I can drop that homing missile and watch it careen into the other ship, blowing them away!
You can customize your loadouts as well, and there are a TON of options! Your strike suit has even more destructive weapons, but it is limited by the fold energy it uses to operate, so your best bet is to know when to transform to dish out the pain, and then zip back away through space in jet mode to build up more energy! Remember when I said I love missiles? You should have seen my face the first time I used the strike suit’s missile lock-on and let loose 100 missiles that absolutely decimated the enemy fleet in front of me! It feels FANTASTIC!
Audio & Video
I would have loved to see some crazy awesome graphics out of this, but sadly they are pretty basic. Entirely passable, but you will notice a couple graphical glitches or things that just don’t look right—I’m looking at you, emission streams. The sounds of space combat are great—they did a good job there—and the music is your pretty basic sci-fi fare. No tracks really stood out to me, but nothing was driving me up a wall with annoyance.
Wrapping Up
I had a serious blast with this game, and can’t wait to keep playing it! For any fans of mechs, dogfighting, or space combat, you can’t go wrong with Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut! I give it a solid 8/10, a few rough edges but overall a great game with awesome gameplay!
Score: 8/10
Buy Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
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*Review Code Provided by Ico Partners