Battles of Prince of Persia (which I'm going to now refer to as BPOP) is a 2005 DS exclusive game that's a spinoff of the Sands of Time Prince of Persia games. Instead of a traditional platformer like other POP games, this one is a tactics game in the same vein as something like Fire Emblem. This is a bit of an odd choice for a spinoff given that the prior POP games have mostly been solo affairs for the Prince with very little to manage (my vote for a POP spinoff would have been a puzzle game but regardless). So BPOP relies more on POP's lore for the context of its battles. This does mean if you're not that into POP lore, you're not going to get much out of the story and characters since they rely on you really being somewhat familiar and interested in it beforehand.
Let's talk about the gameplay. Like other tactics games, there are 2 sides on a map, each with their own units and have objectives to complete in order to win. The objectives can be asymmetric. One side may be tasked with defending a point while the other capturing it. One side may have to play normally and just kill all enemy units to succeed while the other side has to either kill all enemy units or one specific unit. Each battle also has a point system that tracks how close each side is to victory and points are earned by completing objectives in battle. For example, in one battle, the first side to reach 20 points wins. Killing an enemy regular unit may earn 2 points. Killing a general may earn 7 points. Defending a location for a certain amount of turns may earn 2-3 points etc. How a player gets to 20 points in this case is up to them. Some missions may change how points are awarded, for example, not award any points for killing regular units so the only way to win is to complete specific objectives. All this means is that how a mission is approached may be different. On missions where units don't count for points, you're free to be more aggressive or have to work around them to get to a goal. Whereas if they do, you may have to be more defensive and pick off enemy units to rack up points.
The big new gimmick of BPOP compared to other tactics games is the card system. Now, in most other tactics games, both sides have a handful of units and make their moves in turns. Every unit can make a move in every turn. Not so for BPOP. Prior to every battle, both sides have to bring in a deck of cards. At the start of the match, both sides draw around 4-5 cards. There are 2 kinds of cards, movement and effect cards. Movement cards let you issue orders to units like a traditional tactics game. However, movement cards generally range from 2-4 moves. So if you play a 3 movement card, you can only make 3 moves that turn regardless of how many units you have. Effect Cards can be played on units to cause an effect to happen like healing them or having them move again or buffing their attack or nerfing an enemy unit, or being able to make 2 moves but be unable to do damage, or make just ranged units get 2 moves plus an attack while making 2 melee units unable to attack for the rest of the hour, or have every unit next to particular unit take 3 damage every turn, or sacrificing a unit to deal 12 damage etc. There are a lot of effects to play around with. You can only play 1 kind of card per turn. Any unit that moves or has an effect card used on them is considered "used" and cannot be moved or given orders until an in-game hour passes (though certain effect cards can still affect them). Once a player has completed their turn, the other side gets their turn and this repeats. When every unit on both sides is used or when there are 3 passes in a row with no cards played, an in-game hour passes, every healthy unit becomes active again and players can discard any cards in their hands to draw more. You unlock more cards for every level you complete in the main campaign or you can trade with your friends through the DS wireless play but I never had any use for the latter.
For the battlefield, like other tactics games, you can have your unit fight an enemy unit if they get in range (which is right next to each other for melee units and somewhat close for ranged ones) which can deal damage. There is something of a "matchup system" when you prepare a unit to fight another. The game tells you how good your unit matches up against an enemy unit based on a variety of factors like weapon, terrain, facing/orientation, size, health, stats, morale etc. The better a unit matches against an enemy unit, the more damage they'll do and the less they are likely to take in return. So sending in armoured foot soldiers against a group of archers from behind to melee in a forest is more beneficial than sending in a group of archers to melee against armoured foot soldiers from upfront. The game summarizes matchups with "awful, poor, fair, good, great, excellent and overwhelming". An Awful or Poor matchup means your unit will take more damage from the fight while the enemy may take no damage at all. You should avoid using this unless there is no other option. Good and Great Matchups ensure you'll come out better than the opponent and Overwhelming guarantees the enemy unit will be destroyed. Fair means the fight could go either way. I'd recommend avoid relying on Fair matchups if you can because it's possible you could come out worse for wear.
The mechanics as a consequence of battles are interesting. If a unit takes a decent amount of damage, their stats may get lowered allowing once Poor or Fair matched units to now have Good Matchups against them. A unit that takes a lot of damage may get pushed back a tile. If their way is blocked they will take extra damage. If they take more damage, they may prematurely end up being "used" and thus unavailable for that hour. If they take a ton of damage instantly, they will become "broken" and the defending player loses control of that unit. That unit will then move away from the fight on their own and may attempt to permanently flee the battle, counting as a kill for the attacker or "rally" and return in control of the defending player. A broken unit is almost always an instant kill for the next unit to attack.
So with the combination of different unit types, cards, terrain, objectives and the mechanics and consequences of battles, BPOP is a solid tactics game. The card system allows each side to have massive 20+ unit armies without having either side completely squash another with 20+ units at once. This also encourages players to have to prioritize. Suppose you have battles going on in 3 different fronts and you play a 3 card. Simply having 1 action per front is unwise since you'd do a moderate amount of damage and the enemy will then counter so you have to choose which front to prioritize. The card system allows for more variation and options per fight beyond rushing down an opponent as well as planning and saving cards. You don't want to use a 4 move card when you only have 3 or less active units left. And since cards are independent of units, you can replay older levels without completely overpowering or breaking the enemy (a criticism I have of Lord of the Rings Tactics).
However, there are some negatives.
Firstly, the card system often makes opening parts of battles (and also many early battles) drag as you have to play a lot of movement cards just to get your units in position so the fighting can start for real. There are also no tutorials or many demonstrations for the effects cards so I never ended up using them much as a kid and just stuck with movement cards and brute-forced my way through them as a kid. Looking at them now, many cards are quite good and I wish I had gotten more into them earlier as they can make all the difference as an opponent could disable or weaken my units safely from afar, heal their own and then stomp me.
Secondly, the control scheme is unintuitive and annoying. This is a Prince of Persia game on the DS so sadly it's going to make you use the touch screen regardless of how much better buttons would be. Now, you can't use the D-Pad or Face buttons to select units or cards. You have to use the touch screen for everything here. To Scroll across maps (including the level select and card menus), you need to hold the Up button (or X if you're left handed) on the D-Pad and then hold on the touch screen the direction you wish to travel. The only other buttons that work in some capacity are L and R. Holding either when tapping a unit or terrain gives you info on them. Left and Right or Y and B just cycle through your objectives and state of both players.
If I had my way, I'd make the following changes. Firstly, you can move and select stuff with the D-Pad. A and B are accept and back respectively. To scroll around the map, Hold L and use the D-pad. To cycle through your units, use Y and X. To see additional info, hold R and select an item of interest. You can still use L+ Touchscreen to scroll and use the options menu or even the select button to toggle between control schemes. This Touchscreen only approach I find, is annoying, unintuitive and uncomfortable.
Presentation:
The game looks good. It's easy to distinguish between different kinds of terrain. The 2 sides have different colour schemes for their units and UI (I imagine colour blind folk are going to have a much harder time given how much red and green the Daeva and Indian sides use). Individual Units have symbols on them to distinguish them. Their status can be quickly determined by seeing the square that makes up a unit (the more little squares in the big square, the healthier the unit. Additional effects like being used or broken can be shown by the units losing colour or having the little squares jiggle around followed by smoke effects). I did find it a little hard to read card text and descriptions.
Units who get into fights have a battle animation showing the units fighting. It can be quite satisfying seeing your overwhelming units crush another unit or be heartbreaking seeing an enemy cleave through yours. The detail of the sprites and animation is great. However, I did find it started to drag after a while and I did turn off battle animations eventually.
The game has a story. Here's the Wiki to summarize it in full:
Here's a quick review of the story, it's fine. I'm not going to fault it too much or dock marks for quality.
It takes place between the events of Forgotten Sands (which funnily wouldn't be released for another 5 years) and Warriour Within and covers the Prince looking for a way to deal with the Dhahaka who has recently started hunting him down. His target is the "Box of a Thousand Restraints", an artifact which can trap anything and in his attempt to acquire it, he releases the Deava (an ancient supernatural race of warriors that were imprisoned in the Box). The story is split between multiple characters including, the Prince himself, Sharaman, The Vizir, and even Deava Generals as we see different sides of the various battles and plans.
The story itself, like I said is fine. It's told through these simple cutscenes in between battles. There's not really much to sink into. There are some neat moments I found engaging, like the Prince trying to tell the events of Sands of Time to Sharaman who doesn't believe him. Or the Prince, in his haste to open the box, gets the Indian Army a chance to get near Babylon to kill the Prince's mother and how horrified the Prince was at this. Or how the Vizir deals and manipulates the Deava for his own bidding. The stuff outside of that isn't that interesting, like the Indian Campaign missions since Kelim isn't very interesting. Though, there is some interesting drama to explore there since he is Farah's Brother and despite a few clashes with the Prince, that's never mentioned or elaborated upon.
But seeing as the story is mostly told through quick stills in between battles, it's too brief to really be engaging on its own. There are those handful of moments I mentioned prior that were engaging, but they were mostly engaging because of their context rather than them being amazing pieces of storytelling on their own merits. Like, the Prince telling Sharaman about Sands of Time is neat because I played Sands of Time and am familiar with the Prince and Sharaman's characters. But if this is your first POP game or you don't really care for the lore, you won't get much out of the story. For example, the game quickly brushes over the Dhahaka's presence as the motive for why the Prince is so irrational and paranoid. To fans of Warriour Within, they are already on board with this. But I can imagine a new player being a little confused about the characters' motivations and actions.
Regardless, if you aren't a POP Lore fan, you can skip the story and have a neat tactics game. And if you are, you get a bit of a bonus. I do wonder if this concept could have been taken further though? Perhaps with Fire Emblem style dialogue during battles depending on specific criteria?
In conclusion, BPOP is a good little Tactics game with a neat gimmick with the cards system. It's held back by the somewhat awkward controls. Its story only really appeals to POP lore fans. I can't say if it's an underrated gem or great in the pantheon of tactics titles since it's a genre I'm unfamiliar with (based on reviews I've read, BPOP seems to be more of a solid but otherwise unremarkable title). But I can say I enjoyed my time with the game and would recommend it on its own merits. This may be an unfamiliar genre for the POP series but I believe this is a well done attempt for it. I wouldn't be opposed to a modern remake as I don't believe the cards approach is used much in many tactics games.
Next up for me is either Shadow Fight 2 or Assassin's Creed 3 Liberation. See you then.
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