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Categories: Review
Tags: ds, strategy, turn-based, wwii
Panzer Tactics
Developer: Sproing
Publisher: Conspiracy Entertainment
Platform: Nintendo DS
Released: 11/07/2007
If you’ve ever played a turn-based WWII themed strategy game, then you’ve probably played something similar to Panzer Tactics DS. Enemy units face off over a hex map which recreates historic battles and suggests authentic terrain. Actually, much of the game’s novelty, stems from its release on a platform more notable for Nintendogs than hardcore strategy games. However, Sproing isn’t just throwing armchair generals a bone, Panzer Tactics is a legitimately challenging game which bolsters the DS’s reputation as a platform for everyone.
Panzer Tactics has three core campaigns. The easiest campaign follows the Axis’ march through the Mediterranean to North Africa, the next step up is the Russian campaign set during a harsh winter, and the hardest set is the Allied invasion. Each campaign has ten missions, with bonus missions waiting to be unlocked. However, before you even get that far, Panzer Tactics offers a deep tutorial system which demonstrates the game’s intricacies hands on.
Each mission begins with an overview of the map highlighting points of interest, primary objectives (usually capturing and holding key cities), and secondary objectives (meeting deadlines, destroying officer convoys, etc). Then you are ready to deploy your units and roll out. Units range from infantry forces and armor to air and naval units. There’s no clear cut paper-rock-scissors hierarchy, but each unit has a detailed display showing their effectiveness against and weaknesses to enemy units. Of course Anti-Air units will tear up planes, but some tank types can shrug off artillery while others will bear salvo after salvo.
While you start off each mission with default units, you can also spend fame points to buy new units. Fame points are earned by capturing cities and destroying enemy units and can also be spent on repairing and rearming units on the field. The units you purchase become part of your core army and they follow you through the campaign and increase in skill. It’s important to protect your core units, since losing more than a handful will cause most missions to end.
Combat plays out when units move adjacent to each other or are within firing range. A quick cutscene shows the confrontation, but a pre-battle indicator gives a good indication of how combat will turn out. Actually, you can experiment with your troops–moving them around, seeing how they’d fare against various opponents before finally committing them to action.
Each unit acts separately, except for support fire and ambushes you can set up. Units start with 10 health points and are destroyed when those are depleted. Units also have varying movement, firing, and vision ranges in addition to morale, ammo and fuel. Yes, it’s possible to run out of fuel and ammo, but as long as an enemy unit isn’t adjacent or overhead, you can replenish your units or heal them. The exception are naval units which can’t be healed, but don’t run out of ammo, and air units which must return to a friendly airfield to be resupplied.
Special units include Commandos and Officers. Commandos are elite units which can sabotage enemy units, assassinate enemy officers, and use propaganda to demoralize enemy forces. Officers can be recruited and added to units already in play to up their attributes.
There’s plenty of game play here. Missions are lengthy–fortunately you can save anywhere you want and each campaign has its own save slot. After you’ve played a mission in the campaign, you can play it again in the Scenario section. And, if that’s not enough, you can take the game online, engage in multicard play, or do the old hotseat.
Panzer Tactics does have some weaknesses. Some players have found the online play to be unreliable. With the amount of options available for each unit every turn, the game itself can be a little slow going. Other quibbles I have are terrain advantages and disadvantages not always being apparent, aircraft seemingly hover over the battlefield, and the lack of facing means flanking and rear attacks don’t come into play. At a fundamental level, I wish Panzer Tactics was just a little tighter. Still, it’s hard to find fault with this excellent game.