Battle Cats [iOS]

Battle Cats is normally the type of game that I would hate, it is just a simple tower versus tower, produce as many units as you can and send them marching in a straight line kind of game. Yet it's cute style, addicting upgrade system and even to same degree the push pull game mechanic have got me hooked.

If you have ever played flash games on a site like Armor Games you have probably played a game like this. It has got be one of the easiest game types to program and they are ubiquitous. I am not sure exactly what the genre is but it is a cross between tower defence and perhaps RTS. The gameplay is fairly simple, you churn out units and try to upgrade your economy at the right time, plus you get to use your tower Cat Cannon to blast enemies from time to time. The thing I like about this particular take on the genre is that your timing of certain things such as buying a unit or upgrading your economy seem to make a difference. Having said that though I think it is a genre that is, at least currently, quite limited and you can't expect the latest and greatest gameplay features from it.

Where it really hooks you is the upgrade system. You get experience for beating stages that lets you upgrade all kinds of things. You can buy new units and upgrade your old ones. You can upgrade just about everything including but not limited to your cat cannon, your economy and unlocking the powerful abilities of God Cat. God Cat's abilities require cat food and although you do unlock some cat food for free, it is the main currency that you need to purchase with real world dollars if you want a lot of it. You don't need to buy any cat food to complete the game so you can play entirely for free.

The game features a lot of Engrish and this can be both a good thing, because it's hilarious and a bad thing, because it is distracting and often outright terrible. Mostly it adds a bit of charm and the game is otherwise quite bug free and runs smoothly.

I won't little kitten, I won't.

Considering that the game is free and any in-game purchases are more or less unnecessary I think it is well worth a play. It is still limited by it's genre though so I think a well deserved 7.7/10 is the highest score possible for such a game.