With the high volume of video games that are released month after month, it is inevitable that one or two will slip through the cracks. This can happen because a game will have the misfortune of being released on the same day as a more highly anticipated game or at a time of the year when sales are slow (like the early January to late February window following the Christmas season), the company releasing it gives it little-to-no advertisement or a very small print run, or any combination of these factors.
One such game is the strategy RPG Drone Tactics for the Nintendo DS. Originally created by Success and released in Japan with the title Konchuu Wars, Atlus snapped up the distribution rights for the US release and gave the game its new title. It arrived in American stores on May 12th of 2008 and with a Metacritic score of 74 it seems doomed to spend the rest of its days in quiet obscurity.
Does it deserve such a fate or will a more in-depth look at what it does reveal that there is more to this game than it was given credit for? Jump on in to find out.
Story:
Drone Tactics tells the story of a young boy named Yamato and his best friend-who-is-a-girl Tsubasa. They both love studying insects and one day, on their favorite hill top, they are surprised to discover that two of the insects they find are talking to them. These are not ordinary insects and the fact that Yamato and Tsubasa can understand what they are saying means they are chosen warriors that must accompany the talking bugs back to their home world of Cimexus to save it from the evil forces of The Black Swarm.
Once on Cimexus, Yamato and Tsubasa discover that their insect companions, along with the other bugs on the planet, have the ability to become giant robots that they must pilot into battle. These battles bring them into contact with other humans, both friend and foe, and will cause your ranks to grow as you battle to protect Cimexus and ultimately even the Earth as well using the friendship they have with each other.
If any of the above plot synopses has made you go “ugh, kid stuff” then Drone Tactics is not a game for you. The story very aggressively sticks to the tropes of its particular sub-genre with little-to-no deviations and the characters are just as aggressively stock, save for the occasional bizarre stand-out like the Justice Happy Ninja Hydel and his rocket-powered Cockroach Battle Car Jet-li.
Graphics:
On that note, it should be noted that Drone Tactics’ visual aesthetic has a simple-but-pleasing quality to it. The map sprites are well-defined and in the heat of a chaotic battle it is easy to keep your units straight from your enemies. The CG used for the attack animations is also well done, particularly for a DS game. While the models for your units start out basic looking some of the later enemy designs (particularly the previously mentioned Jet-li and the heavily armored spider robots) are quite eye-catching and the ability to customize your units both in terms of their basic coloration and to upgrade their abilities can lead to some very unique appearances. For example, my Kabuto Beetle Robot currently has a mace for a horn, a pair of batteries on its sides and a giant Japanese banner sticking out of its back.
Gameplay:
For those familiar with an earlier series of games Atlus grabbed the distribution rights of, the first knee-jerk reaction they will have to seeing the gameplay of Drone Tactics is to think it is a simplified version of Super Robot Wars OG. This is not completely inaccurate but there are variations that make playing them different experiences.
The similarities are that each mission you must clear takes place on an overworld map where you launch units from your carrier and generally must defeat all enemy units before they destroy all of yours or your carrier. Each of your units can carry out this task by moving around the map to combat enemies and, when they are in range, attack with melee, gun or cannon attacks. At the end of each mission you are given ore, the monetary system of the game, for enemies defeated, as well as experience points for your party.
The differences begin once you start engaging in battle tactics. Instead of having a list of attacks to choose from, your units have a much more simplified selection between Melee, Gun, Cannon or Card when on offence and Counter, Defend, Evade or Card when on defense. There are some units more suited to attacking in one fashion than another and part of the strategy is figuring out which tactics work best for which units. This is something to particularly keep in mind when on the defensive, as a Counter will be the same kind of attack as the one the opponent picks to use so if a melee preferring unit attacks a gun-focused one, it would be in the latter’s best interest to block or dodge.
If you are wondering what “Card” means in the offensive and defensive options, know that Drone Tactics implements a Card Battle System for extra special abilities. These abilities can range from Map Card abilities (such as healing your allies or teleporting them to more advantageous locations) to Battle Card abilities (which boost various forms of attack and defense). You acquire cards as rewards for winning battles, getting them from containers that will occasionally be found on the battlefield, combining other cards together to make stronger ones, and by properly drawing crests in a touchscreen mini-game.
Oh and speaking of touchscreen mini-games, when making use of Battle Cards you will be given the chance to boost the effect of the card even further by engaging in a mini-game as well. A twist on this is when you start to encounter enemies that can make use of Battle Cards and the mini-games become about trying to negate their bonus. If both sides activate Battle Cards at the same time then a completely different mini-game to see which effect wins occurs.
While the touchscreen controls for them work well enough and the mini-games don’t last more than a few seconds, they come off as needlessly gimmicky and can interrupt the flow of the tactical gameplay. The “Power Up Your Charge/Gun” one in particular deserves mention as you have to rather frantically pound on the touchscreen and you could easily get wrist cramps depending on how often you make use of them.
Drone Tactics is divided into a single player and two-player experience, with the single player more covering the story as well as a collection of side-missions called “Badlands”. In “Badlands” you can earn extra items, cards, ore and experience (and easily out level the story missions in the process). Two-player mode is sadly bare-bones as Drone Tactics does not support Wi-Fi and can only provide the ability to trade Battle Cards and engage in local battles.
Conclusion:
Drone Tactics will never be a Class-A title and that fact may be what got it overlooked. Yet while the mini-games are fairly needless, there is still a fair amount of fun to be had in the 30+ hours that Drone Tactics provides and if you can still find it in stores, new or used, it may be worth a look that it didn’t get the first time around.
