R-Type Command for PSP coming to North America in May 2008

Here’s a pleasant surprise we missed this past week. Last Wednesday (February 13, 2008) Atlus announced it had picked up R-Type Command (known in Japan as R-Type Tactics) for North American localization. This PSP turn-based strategy game will be released on May 6, 2008, for $39.99.

While it looked as if Irem was done with their classic shoot-em-up (aka “shmups”) series when they launched the (in?)appropriately titled R-Type Final for the Playstation 2 back in 2004, it apparently didn’t rule out the possibility for other types of games in the franchise.

From the looks of it, the game’s plot is similar to any of the previous R-Types, except in this case you command squadrons of the titular starfighters against the series’ classic enemies. Indeed, it makes me wish I had more than one ship on screen for the actual shmups (R-Type Leo obviously notwithstanding) as it may have made those games remotely winnable.

The only visible downside to all of this though is, since it’s Atlus performing the localization, this game will get very rare very quickly. Diehard R-Type fans, take this to heart.

Now all we need is for Konami to rethink their decision to cancel Gradius VI. That’ll be the day.

Read [Joystiq] Official Site [R-Type Command]