When I think of great dogfighting games, there’s no doubt that my internal bar has been set high by a combination of excellence and likely a fair amount of rose-colored glasses syndrome. Growing up playing the Wing Commander series on my PC, I was utterly captivated by its mix of high space drama and some pretty intense space battles, whether looking to take down enemy fighters or capital ships when things got crazy. Whether it’s fair that I consider that the standard I’m quietly looking for in games of this type or not, I can’t help thinking that so many decades later I can expect modern games to at least get somewhere in the ballpark. Unfortunately, I can confirm that Dakka Squadron is yet another dogfighter that doesn’t, and honestly it really isn’t even close on nearly any level.

Looking for what does work well, I’d say that it feels like they got some of the wrong things right, or at least focused in the wrong areas. I suppose by taking on the Warhammer license they obligated themselves to pepper in commentary and some attempts at humor with the accompanying voice acting, and to a degree it works and provides some personality. But it also tends to get quite repetitive quickly so it’s a minor win at best. I suppose the ability to customize your craft is novel as well, and allows you to have a little creative fun, but the fact is that the gameplay will need to hook you long enough to take full advantage of that fact, so again it feels like effort in the wrong area.

The game’s issues mostly revolve around the majority of aspects of play, unfortunately. The controls are only so responsive, and the fact that they’ve chosen to have you fighting in what are generally very tight areas full of things to run into absolutely helps point this issue out. The boundaries of what’s typically your closet-sized area of engagement are never clear, and it feels like you’re prone to hitting them often as you attempt to hunt down stragglers in the sky. I’d also point out that aspects of the interface feel like they were very clumsily brought over from the PC space, showing a lack of care in optimizing the experience for playing on a console with a controller, which is also aggravating.

All said, the biggest issue here is that though there aren’t loads of titles populating the Switch eShop in this subgenre, I’d say pretty much every one I’ve played is either better than Dakka Squadron or at least no worse. True, there are far more ambitious and expensive examples out there, and those aren’t very fair as comparisons, but there’s also more budget-minded fare that still clearly delivered more bang for their respective bucks. If you’re a huge Warhammer fan, perhaps another chance to feel a part of that universe would help this feel more worthwhile, but otherwise you can feel free to skip it.