Battleship

Genre: Turn-Based Strategy / Board Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local, Online)

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Review:

(Note: Included in Classic Board Game Bundle – Ticket to Ride, Clue, Mouse Trap, Battleship and The Game of Life 2, along with Clue, Mouse Trap – The Board Game, The Game of Life 2, and Ticket to Ride.)

Battleship is the digital version of the classic family-friendly board game that has players attacking spots in each others’ grids, each hoping to find where the other has hidden their ships and blast them out of the water.

In this version of the game, the traditional classic mode is supplemented by new optional features and modes, including battle grids with unusual shapes, and the ability to play as different commanders with various abilities and odd-shaped ships. These additions are much-appreciated, as vanilla Battleship feels a bit lacking, to be honest – it feels like much of the strategy is lost by the somewhat random nature of the game’s ship placement. In these new modes, having various abilities and knowing that one captain favors bombarding lines on the grid while another prefers to take out 3×3 sections gives players a bit more to work with as far as strategy is involved.

This game’s multiplayer features are pretty ideal as far as a digital version of the game goes. Not only can players play with each other online, but they can also download a free phone app that syncs up with a room created by the game to play locally as well, in a way that’s somewhat similar to how the Jackbox games work.

I should note that from the looks of other reviews of the app, some players seem to have had trouble getting the thing to work. I never had any problems with this – I played multiple games using the app and they all worked without a hitch, though changing modes seemed to necessitate restarting the app, which was slightly annoying.

As far as the presentation goes, this game looks good, albeit nothing impressive. You get static representations of the locations in the background, and art of the different commanders, along with some basic animations for attacks. The game’s music is pretty good though, with a fittingly military cadence that suits the game well.

I have two major complaints about this game. Firstly, it is a snooze-fest in single-player. This is clearly a game meant to be played with human players facing off, and replacing one of those players with a machine removes any semblance of psychology from the strategy of this game. What’s more, the game has numerous features that need to be unlocked, and rather than any sort of campaign, this game just has you playing match after match and meeting certain conditions to do so, which can get monotonous really quickly. Thankfully at least unlocking things can also be done in multiplayer.

The other complaint I have here is that seeing all of the interesting changes being made to the classic Battleship formula, and seeing how they breathe new life into the game, it really makes me wish that they went even crazier with the changes on offer. Why not allow for bigger grids and a 4-player mode? How about customizable loadouts for characters? Perhaps a stage builder? Seeing this game tiptoe into interesting new territory just makes it feel like there’s so much more that could have been done here.

Still, credit where it is due, this is a solid version of a classic family-friendly board game. It’s a board game that is a bit shallow, and this game thankfully takes baby steps to bring that game into some more interesting areas, though it’s disappointing that the game doesn’t do more in that regard. This version also has good options for multiplayer play, although that’s counter-balanced by a dull single-player game. Overall, fans of the board game will find this to be a very good version of that.

tl;dr – Battleship is a digital version of the classic family-friendly 2-player board game, and it does a very good job of bringing that classic gameplay to the Nintendo Switch, with a good selection of multiplayer modes. It also has a Commanders mode that livens things up some. I wish this game was even more inventive with its departure from the classic formula, and in particular I wish the game’s single-player mode wasn’t a slog, but overall this is a solid version of the classic board game.

Grade: B

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