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Panzer Tactics DS: Reviews

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Game Score: 10/10

For those of you who don’t know, Panzer Tactics was a PC game released in the early 90s. It was a hex-based military tactics game which was really well-liked, and spawned many sequels. From what I understand, this is NOT a remake of that game (I’m not sure though), but it still has a lot of the same excellent tactics combat. The units are based on the real stuff from World War 2, which is interesting in its own right.

The game is fairly easy at the beginning for people who’ve played similar games (like Advance Wars), but by the end, it is very challenging. It is also worth mentioning that this game can take forever to beat; I’ve played at least fifteen hours and I’m only done with one of the three campaigns. I will be comparing it to Advance Wars a lot, but I’ll try to keep that to a minimum; if you haven’t played Advance Wars yet, though, you should.

Graphics
The only crappy part of this game is the graphics. The graphics have this gritty, rugged look (which is good), but the actual sprites are really small and take some getting used to. The game has “side” battle sequences like Advance Wars (where you see both sides actually firing at each other), which look pretty nice, but these usually happen too fast to really appreciate them. These side animations have a pseudo-3D look, but make no mistake; the only 3D in this game is in the opening FMV. Graphics never really matter in tactics/strategy games anyway.

Music/Sound
The sound effects in battle are good, as are the ones on the map. Treaded units creak when they move, and explode with a satisfying crunch when they're destroyed. The music has a lot of the sweeping orchestral soundtracks of most World War 2 games. The only real problem is that it's very repetitive; there are really maybe 5 (long) tracks in total, and they just keep looping, regardless of mission/campaign. I've found no trouble with that, because I liked them, but it may get annoying. Again, music is secondary in a tactics game.

Gameplay
This game has to be one of the most complex tactics games I’ve played. Lots of different concepts from quite a few turn-based tactics games really come together well in Panzer Tactics DS.

First, let’s look at unit management. To picture the unit management, think of Advance Wars meets the DS version of Age of Empires – you have military units (land/air/sea) which you buy at pre-constructed cities and airfields (after you capture them, of course), but each of these units gets experience after destroying an enemy unit. Each unit can get up to 5 levels, and each level increases its firepower and resell value (in case you don’t want that unit anymore, which happens). There are certain units that stay with you throughout the campaign (“core” units), which are the ones you buy; these are the units you want to focus on leveling, because while you do get some auxiliary units at the beginning of a mission, they “leave” after that mission anyway. The core units you have get special abilities after reaching level 3 (+200% firepower but -50% defense, for example), but these can only be used once a mission.

There are also many different kinds of units in the game; antitank, tank, infantry, artillery, etc. You can buy land units and air units, which can only be placed on towns that you control and airfields that you control, respectively. Sea units are only auxiliary, meaning you can’t buy them, but you’ll start certain missions with them.

An interesting aspect of this game is its officers system. This is similar to Der Langrisser; when you have an officer, he has an “area of influence,” and any friendly unit within that area gets better firepower, along with the special ability of the officer. Each officer specializes in one field, which influences the ability they grant; for example, recon officers give higher movement and sight range to units in their influence, while artillery officers give a bonus to range. Officers are assigned to core units, and travel the map through them. If that unit is destroyed, the officer is “sent back to base” and can be reassigned to another core unit. Officers can only be killed when assassinated by a commando, a special infantry unit. You can also only have three different officers at a time.

In this game, you only have one resource: fame points. These go up when you capture cities, destroy enemy units, finish a mission early, complete secondary objectives, and at the start of each turn (a bit like how, in Advance Wars, you get funds from each city you own). You use them to buy core units, buy officers, and repair and resupply units. To diverge a bit, repairing and resupplying can actually be done by any ground unit anywhere, and any air unit that’s over an airfield. The only thing is that you can’t move or attack the turn that you resupply/repair, and you also can’t be near any enemy units when you do so.

Game Modes
With Advance Wars: Dual Strike having about five different, enjoyable game modes, tactics games need something similar to compare. While Panzer Tactics DS has a really great campaign mode, it lacks any real “war room” mode (while you can replay any campaign mission, it’s really not the same). Multiplayer is actually pretty good, with wireless, single cart download-play or hotseat, and multicart play, but because so few people actually have this game, the wireless is relatively useless. I once sat online for a good 5 minutes looking for ANY opponent, and couldn’t find one. To date, I have not been able to play Panzer Tactics DS wirelessly, because I couldn’t find an opponent. Nonetheless, it’s there.

Replay Value
This game will take forever for you to beat; if you don’t get sick of it by then, you would probably be able to come back to it. There are ALWAYS multiple fronts in each mission (meaning you separate your units so they can cover two sides of the map at once), so you can mix and match with your units.

Bottom Line
It’s a complex tactics game, and I found it well worth the $30 I spent on it. If you liked any of the Advance Wars games, the Age of Empires DS game, or any tactics games in general, you will like Panzer Tactics DS.

Panzer Tactics DS is a perfect example of how good, complex games can simply sidestep the general public. The gameplay uses a lot of innovations from previous tactics games, but combines them well. Get this game if you have any interest in this genre.