War on the Moon

Begun, this cheese war has...

Nectaris (also known as Military Madness) is a long-running series of turn-based strategy games set on Earth's moon, Luna.  As you can probably guess it's sci-fi and also hex-based.  Gameplay is similar to Advanced Wars, but less cartoonish.  Nectaris first released on the TubroGrafx-16 way back in 1989.  Ten additional entries in the franchise eventually followed on platforms such as DOS, Windows, Game Boy, PSX, XBLA, PSN and smart phones.  It's interesting to note that the game never got a proper sequel, but rather revised ports that made small incremental improvements and iterations on the basic concept.  

The idea of fighting a conventional war on the moon presents some unique factors that could make for an intriguing strategy game.  For one thing, Luna's gravity is only 16.6 percent that of Earth's.  This means a M1 Abrams tank only weights about as much as a fully-loaded F-16 fighter jet.  Additionally, the diameter of the moon is only about a quarter that of Earth so the horizon is roughly twice as near assuming you are standing on a flat plain.  The lack of an atmosphere means providing adequate cooling/heating for vehicles is tricky and would almost certainly involve highly vulnerable radiators (A.K.A. glowing weak points).  Guided munitions would require some alterations to implement effectively as well though, oddly enough, more conventional weaponry like guns and rockets would work mostly the same.  Perhaps because of that last factor, Nectaris (despite being a game about Lunar warfare) has a fairly bog-standard lineup of combat units.  There are two types of armed moon buggy, two anti-aircraft vehicle configurations (flak and missile), three types of infantry (light, heavy, and motorbike), seven kinds of tank (running the gamut from light to heavy with the biggest able to engage flying targets), two types of unarmed transport (one flying and the other ground-based), three dedicated aircraft (fighter, bomber, and a hybrid of both) and two types of mobile artillery (rocket and gun).  Other than that the only other units are mines and fixed gun emplacements.  Mines are a bit out-of-the-ordinary in that they only serve to block enemy movement until cleared away by concentrated weapons fire. Tanks lack scoops on their treads which seems strange considering how silty Lunar soil is.  That's a minor quibble though compared to the aircraft which (aerodynamic appearance and all) look out of place to me.  Considering the aforementioned battlefield conditions, the line between moving on the ground and through the sky should be much blurrier.  There's no reason why infantry or even certain vehicles couldn't be outfitted with jump jets to hop or skip across the surface, though using them too liberally could entail certain risks such as being out of cover and more easily detected by radar.  On the plus side, popping up could provide units with better line-of-sight given the short horizon...not to mention a temporary height advantage. 

"Robbie" infantry in the foreground
engage "Bison" tanks in the background 

All the versions of the game have a main campaign that is divided up into 23 combat scenarios in the original, but expanded to 32 in the PSX update.  Newer versions also come with a editor that lets players make their own scenarios.  Objectives usually consist of wiping out all enemy units while capturing factories.  Like Advanced Wars, these buildings can only be taken over by infantry units, but (in a twist on convention) can only repair and provide storage for existing units rather than produce entirely new ones.  There are also sometimes prison camps which act like home bases in that they must be defended or captured.  Units can only engage foes in adjacent hexes, the exception being the missile-equipped anti-air unit and the two types of artillery which can hit farther out.  These long-range units come with the familiar caveat of they can only move or shoot, but not both in a single turn.  Unit experience along with terrain, flanking and supporting bonuses all apply to combat resolution whenever two units engage each other.  In particular, the PSX port of the game has the option to switch from the universal top-down tactical view to dynamic combat cutscenes rather than being limited to a fixed-camera split-screen isometric view found in other versions.  The moon, with it's high-contrast landscapes, has the potential to produce some impressive visuals under these sorts of circumstances.  Sadly, the explosions don't seem to account for low gravity conditions and for some reason every battle is oddly similar in terms of flat lighting.  There's also a surprising scarcity of craters...oh and there's sound on the moon which isn't right.  I wouldn't mind if they fudged it a bit though (watch the Lunar combat scene from the 2019 film "Ad Astra" for an example of how it could be done well). 

I know it seems like I'm being unfairly down on Nectaris, but it's because there are a lot of squandered opportunities that could have helped make it standout.  I think the lack of creativity and unwillingness to apply real science kept this IP from achieving much in the form of distinction from mechanically similar Japanese strategy games out at the time like Hybrid Front and the Daisenryaku series.  Hopefully, someone will come along and tackle the premise with a bit more gusto in the future.  As for the Nectaris IP, it's held by Konami so don't expect them to do much with it anytime soon.  

"Nectaris" is Latin for "Nectar", but the name comes from the
"Mare Nectaris" region of the moon in which the game takes place