Desert Commander (NES) Playthrough

A playthrough of Kemco's 1989 strategy game for the NES, Desert Commander.

Kemco's Sensha Senryaku: Sabaku no Kitune (「 戦車戦略 砂漠の狐」, lit. "Tank Strategy: Desert Fox"), a 1988 turn-based strategy war game, was a fairly early example of its particular subgenre on the Famicom. It predates even Nintendo's Famicom Wars by nearly four months.

Playing as General Erwin "Desert Fox" Rommel, star strategist of the Nazi's North African campaign in World War II, it's your job to repel the advances of the British forces over the course of five increasingly difficult scenarios.

Desert Fox officially made its way westward the following year under the name Desert Commander, though as you might've already guessed, it underwent a few alterations during the localization process. The Famicom game's box art, which featured a painting of Rommel posing with a fox and a Nazi flag behind some tanks, was changed to something more generic culturally sensitive. Desert Commander pointedly avoids making any direct references to World War II and its participants, but if you're familiar with the history, the parallels are clear.

The gameplay is somewhat less spicy than what the subject matter might suggest, but it's solid. For each scenario, you pick which units to deploy, and you maneuver them around the battlefield - with some sense of strategy, ideally - in order to bring down the enemy's HQ unit.

There are several things to consider as you plan your attack. The distance a unit can travel depends on how well suited it is to the terrain. You're a mobile-but-easy target if you stick to the open roads, and you lose range on rugged ground, but the stat boosts granted by fighting from certain terrain types is often well worth the sacrifice. You also have to be careful about how you group units - boxing units in can leave them sitting ducks, but you don't want to leave the flanks wide open, and you can't afford to ignore managing your resources. AA guns aren't much help if they run out of ammo, and forgetting to refuel your bombers and having them fall into the sea is rarely a sound strategy.

The gameplay is straightforward, and a few annoyances with the interface aside, battles move along smoothly and at a reasonable pace. It's also a good challenge... the first few times you play. Before long you'll realize that the AI always makes a beeline for anyone in range, and this makes it so that every battle can be won the same way. Just throw a few sacrificial pawns out in front to draw the enemies away from their base, and once they're distracted, fly your bombers over to their HQ and blow it to kingdom come. Easy peasy. The versus mode gives the game a ton of replayability, though, as does the ability to customize your units for each scenario.

It looks a bit crunchy and old, but it's still a good console-style strategy game that's easy to learn and fun to get into.