The Battle Cats

The Battle Cats
Publisher(s)	PONOS
Platform(s)	iOS Android Nintendo 3ds
Release	Mobile September 17, 2014 Nintendo 3DS June 27, 2016
Genre(s)	Strategy tower defense

The Battle Cats is a free-to-play tower defense game developed by PONOS for iOS and Android mobile devices. The Battle Cats premiered on the Japanese iOS App Store in November 2011 under the name of "Battle Cats" , with Android support following in December of that same year. It has sustained immense popularity in Japan and Korea over the last several years, with an English version briefly appearing on the English-language iTunes/Google Play stores in 2012. But it later was deleted in both the US Google Play Stores and App Store. It was later re-released in September 17, 2014.

Gameplay

The Battle Cats is a stradegy game about cats fighting things across the earth (universe in The Battle Cats Pop!). The gameplay involves sending a wide roster of cats out onto a 2D battlefield in order to defend a base (that has a cannon that can be fired every time it's fully charged) against a wide roster of enemies of varying species and colors.

The cats are the protagonists, and are mostly the troops the player deploys throughout the game (with the exception of Gamatoto and his apprentices, who are instead explorers who go on adventures to supply the player with useful items). The cats are all unique in their own sense (from basic cat to the Greek god Zeus himself). The cats can be upgraded with XP to level up to the level cap of 10 (although you can eventually increase the cap to 20 for normal cats, and 40 for other cats). All the cats (partially including Gamatoto) change appearance and gain abilities after certain levels, similar to Pokémon. The cats are divided into 5 categories: Normal, Special, Rare, Super Rare, and Uber Super Rare (commonly shortened to Uber Rare or just Uber). The normal cats are the first cats you can get, and are mostly the easiest to upgrade. They have a max pay-to-upgrade level of 20, but can be increased with cat capsules. The special cats are the second type of cat you can get. They are, to simply put, cats that don't belong in any other category. They can either be unlocked by certain stages, or be bought by cat food, the special currency of the game. The Rare to Uber cats can only be unlocked with a rare cat capsule, which requires golden or platinum tickets to operate, or to be unlocked in special stages. They are expensive to upgrade (with the Ubers requiring XP in the millions), but are usually more powerful than the normal cats (not to mention "crazed" cats, which are immensly buffed versions of the normal cats in the Super Rare Tier).

Fighting in battle requires energy, which slowly regenerates over time as long as you have an internet connection. You can bring items into the battle that assist you (ranging from a sniper cat that pushes enemies back from the base to a cat CPU that deploys the cats for you). Some of the stages have special rules, like "Special and Rare Cats only. The battle takes place on a 2D plane with your base on the right, and the enemy base on the left. The player gains a steady stream of money, which you can spend to either deploy cats, or to upgrade the money production. Deploying cats requires a cool down, which can be reduced by upgrades. The battle ends when one of the bases are destroyed.

There is a huge roster of enemies all of different stats and types. Certain types of enemies can have advantages over others. For example, while all the non-white enemies have higher stats than their white counterparts, black and angel enemies have higher speeds and knockback counts, while zombie enemies can burrow past cats and can revive themselves a limited amount of times. While it now seems like the enemy has an unfair advantage, everything's fine as certain cats have advantages over certain types of enemy. For example, Weightlifter Cat is a massive damage anti-black enemy, meaning that he does massive damage against black enemies (while the damage is less for non-black enemies).

The Battle Cats POP!

It was later released for Nintendo 3DS under the name of "The Battle cats POP!" (often abbreviated to BCP) on June 27th, 2016.

Critical Reception

The Battle Cats POP! received generally good reviews. CJ Andriessen of Destructoid gave The Battle Cats Pop! a 7 out of 10 and wrote: "The Battle Cats POP! is a game that's as fun as it is weird. When it's not putting you in time out with the energy meter, it can be addictive as hell. Too much of its free-to-play roots are still present, but even with those elements it's still a worthwhile time killer." Matt S. of digitallydownloaded.net gave 3 stars out of 5 and wrote : "Ultimately what sets Battle Cats apart from the many (many) similar games of similar depth and strategy is that hugely creative edge. This game gets to be the distinctive and memorable example of the genre because the artists had the sense to do something that makes no sense, but we end up looking forward to each new level just to see the insanity that it brings. That, right there, is good design principles for mobile gaming, and it translates across to the 3DS perfectly."

External links

• Official website