When I think of combat in strategy games, I’m generally more inclined to think fondly of tactical turn-based affairs in the vein of X-Com and others. There are certainly alternative varieties, including the likes found in Advance Wars and the solid indie WarGroove series, but more often than not I find the turn-based varieties are more satisfying. While Operation: Polygon Storm isn’t the only strategy with a real-time hook that I’ve played on Switch and found to be underwhelming, I’d say that with some of its really poorly-implemented elements it helps make the case that turn-based is simply better.

This adheres to a style that feels like it has been having its moment recently, where you’ll be pitted against an enemy on the other side of the map with a neutral zone between you. Your goal is simply to effectively deploy your units in the hopes of outmaneuvering the opposing troops, overwhelming them, and then destroying their base before they’re able to do the same to you. One thing that I was hoping would help Polygon Storm stand out is that though your units are pretty primitive, they’re still moving around in a more 3-dimensional space, since most games I’ve played of this type have merely been side-scrolling. That, in theory, would open up more potential for outflanking your enemies and catching them by surprise. Unfortunately, in practice the battlefield ends up being a complete mess instead.

The first problem is that your ability to properly take control of your units is limited at best. Selecting your troops tends to be cumbersome, as is trying to properly give them directions on where you’d like them to go, or what tactics you’d like them to use. The bigger underlying issue is that honestly I couldn’t tell whether my units were doing much of anything I was requesting… they just seemed, more often than not, to have a mind of their own. Perhaps if they were at all effective I wouldn’t mind, but too often they just seemed to be comfortable standing in the open under fire, and disinterested in finding cover or doing anything remotely sensible. The point where things truly went off the rails though was when my units that did get into cover then seemed not to be very effective at doing any damage at all. But then, when they suddenly started making more shots when their cover blew up it hit me, they’d been shooting their own cover the whole time. I did not see that coming!

While I applaud the attempt to do something more interesting with the battlefield, to spread things out and make battles feel different, the way this was implemented is pretty horrible. The real problem is that by going to a 3-dimensional warzone the degree of difficulty in doing it justice immediately multiplies many times over, with far more complexities and considerations. Sadly, whether it’s due to a lack of time, resources, or care, the final product simply demonstrates the team behind it wasn’t up to the serious challenge it undertook.