Space is the final frontier. Also, a frontier that doesn’t have nearly enough games about it when it comes to being a privateer. Thankfully, Switch owners have been lucky to get No Man’s Sky and Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw to fill that black hole of space trading and swashbuckling they so desire, and this game reviewer has spent hundreds of hours exploring the vast galaxies on handheld. With that said, is there room for another game to try to take your attention to the stars? Coming out of the warp gate is Darkstar One, an open galaxy space trading and combat sim with the DNA of X Gold and Elite Dangerous. What’s it Like? Prime the warp drive, prepare the shields, and hold on tight as we review Darkstar One for Nintendo Switch.
Darkstar One was initially released in 2006 on PC and Xbox 360 and has had somewhat of a cult following. It follows a fledgling space pilot, Kayron, after he inherits a ship from his father who recently passed, called “Darkstar One.” Kayron will meet and fight alongside a range of characters from plucky femme fatales, grizzled alien veterans, and scientists to uncover the mystery of his father’s death and the mystery of Darkstar One. This epic space opera story gripped me within the first hour of the game, and helped Darkstar One stand out by giving me a lead to chase here and there, helping me stay on target instead of getting lost in one of the 300 systems in the game.
While the story is an exciting one with many twists and turns, as well as unexpected set pieces, the double-edged light sword is that the voice acting is wooden at times, and despite having exciting, cinematic, and albeit, dated cutscenes, a lot of key moments are delivered by flat voice acting that takes some of the shine away. Granted, this game is almost 20 years old, and I eventually got used to it.
While the voice acting may be flat at times, the gameplay certainly isn’t and this is where Darkstar One shines. Combat is visceral and exciting, with close-quarters dogfighting and minor systems management to keep your hull integrity in place. combat is genuinely exhilarating, performing sharp turns or hitting the reverse thrusters to protect your rear shields. The game doesn’t pitch and roll like most space fighters, instead, it allows you to strafe and shift to mix up combat. There’s combat chatter and you can open comms to enemies to taunt them. Enemies also react to you taking out their leaders which was a nice touch, and on several occasions I found myself tangling with gangs that were out for retribution, waiting at the warp gate when coming back from a successful mission. The initiative control system will have you targeting, matching speed, and switching between systems in no time, and makes victory feel hard-earned and accomplished.
The game mission structure is broken up into the main story, side quests, which usually allow you to obtain travel keys (more on this later), and terminal quests, which are sabotage, mercenary, or bounty-type missions. The terminal missions did tend to get repetitive early on when grinding for credits, but thankfully due to the progression system, it’s very rare you will have to grind too many missions for upgrades unless you want to be well ahead of the curve. You can also forgo all of that and be a space pirate if you wish. Reputation does shape the galaxy around you, however, so be sure to think about the consequences before you open fire. Travel is handled on a galaxy map, and you need keys to access warp gates. Traveling to new systems will unlock some warp gates that allow you to find side quests like liberating pirate control, or protecting frigates in space battles. There are also plenty of random encounters that don’t outstay their welcome when you jump to a new system, making things exciting. Most of these missions are required to get more keys, including access to systems that have powerful artifacts. There are 300 systems in all, and they are broken up into consumable sectors which are marked with what systems hold artifacts, helping you plan out jumps to upgrade your ship, instead of looking for a needle in a haystack.
This leads to another mechanic that sets Darkstar One aside, these artifacts upgrade not only your ship’s function but its look and feel too as the Darkstar One is an almost “organic” ship that evolves on how you play. You can upgrade your hull, wings, and engines, and each upgrade has to be a calculated one depending on your playstyle. Do you pick to have another set of hard points on your wings? Or do you need better engines to sustain your current loadout? You can upgrade capacitors and power stations at space stations to help compensate should you make a mistake, but ultimately, your choices of upgrades are constantly in the front of your mind when planning out your next upgrade. These upgrades also come with powerful plasma cannon upgrades that allow you to overcharge your weapons of shields, and eventually launch a time-stop force field or overpower ships, which become essential in later game combat in order to turn the tide against overwhelming odds.
While the gameplay and mechanics still hold up to this day, there’s no denying that Darkstar One does look dated in many areas. I did find myself fully immersed when out in space and in the midst of combat, but there’s no denying that the stations and certain elements of the graphics engine may not have stood the test of time. That being said, while I do appreciate some amazing visuals from time to time, it very much felt to me that it was similar to revisiting The Knights of The Old Republic or the Jedi Knight series on Switch recently, while dated, it was still an incredibly fun time. Performance-wise, the game runs at a liquid-smooth framerate around the 60 FPS mark making it a smooth experience. It’s well polished, and I only experienced one bug in my 20+ hours within the game, and that was when I tried warping during a cutscene in the first hour of the game, making my UI disappear.
For my vision-impaired space explorers, there are no accessibility options, so further research will be required to find out if Darkstar One is for you. There is a handy hit indicator noise when hitting shields that pings which might assist in tracking, and for those who don’t like audio queues, these can also be turned off in the options menu. At $45 AUD, there’s a lot of gameplay and an epic adventure to be had with Darkstar One. Even blitzing through the story could take you up to 30 hours while ignoring terminal and optional sidequests, but for me, I was eager to explore every system, and get every artifact to make my ship the most feared in the galaxy.
As we near the end of this journey, Darkstar One is an incredibly fun and exciting game driven by a gripping narrative with many twists and turns. There are a few dated elements like wooden voice acting and a 20-year-old graphics engine, but even time can’t dull the shine of Darkstar One. With its unique mechanics like a living ship that changes each time, intuitive controls, and visceral combat, Darkstar One is a fantastic game at a great price point that will be sure to entertain pilots waiting at the spaceport for their next adventure.
So What’s It Like? Darkstar One is like Elite Dangerous, crossed with Xwing Vs Tie Fighter.
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this does not affect my score.