DarkStar One is a 2006 space sim that won’t die. I’m serious, I bought it in 2006 and they keep resurrecting it every couple of years since. You play this guy who his given your father’s experimental ship and you search for the truth about how he died. First you go here, then you go there, then you go to this third place where you get a lead that sends you to the fourth place. I’m serious, you get your copilot in a scene that goes:

Her: I have information you need.

Him: Ok cool, welcome aboard.

Its not Shakespeare, its not even pulp-level storytelling. Its elementary school storytelling. But that’s not why you are playing this. The point is to pimp your ship, the titular Darkstar One to get from point A to point B.

First, to pimp the Darkstar One, you need artifacts. These are sitting around certain systems in asteroids. Just fly up and collect them. Then you choose to upgrade your hull, wings or engines. This will upgrade various stats. Then on Trade Stations you buy new weapons, systems and equipment. This part all revolves around credits of course, which is earned by killing pirates, completing missions and trading/smuggling goods. Early on, you’re mostly upgrading your jump drive to get father, but you’ll need to upgrade everything to survive. This is because danger lurks around every corner, usually in the form of those pirates who show up to die.

Controlling your ship in Darkstar One is pretty good. Its nice to play this on a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard. Everything is intuitive, except landing on trade stations. You see, you’re either going 100% fast, 150% fast or stationary. You can also back up. Become speed is regimented, its often hard to navigate into the little docking bays. This is especially true with cargo in tow, though that is mitigated with ship levels. Combat though, is smooth like butter!

The biggest drawback of Darkstar One, besides the horrible story, is that what you’re doing gets repetitive quickly. The game loop is essentially upgrading your ship to get to the right system to advance the story, which always involves ship combat. The systems are all the same, the trade-station missions are all the same. You start off in Terran(human) territory, then you go to Mortok territory, and everything is still same game play wise. I got bored, quit and went to write this review. Maybe the game throws curve balls later on, but I’m not sitting through hours upon hours of identical game play to get there.

Darkstar One is not a bad game, just extremely generic. There is a meaty game of pimp your ship here, but everything surrounding it is a snore-fest. And trust me, the game did not exactly stand out in 2006 either. So, there is a game here, but its not exciting enough to recommend to anyone but those who are most curious. Darkstar One gets a Your Mileage May Vary verdict, with a six back-end score.

Overall: Darkstar One is a port of a 2006 space sim that should have stayed in 2006. Totally generic, boring and not really worth it.

Verdict: YMMV

eShop Page

Release Date	6/20/24
Cost	$29.99
Publisher	Kalypso
ESRB Rating	T

P.S. For another Switch space-sim try Space Commander!

Game received for free from the Publisher.

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