Battle Worlds: Kronos ($14.99) is the iOS debut release for developer KING Art. As a big departure from their previous work, it’s surprising how ambitious this game is. The game is a turn based hex grid futuristic war game that focuses primarily on tactical maneuvers, focused fire, and ammo/armor management. With 2 very large campaigns and online play there is a boat load of replay value in this title.

Just like many other turn based hex grid games, you are the commander of a mobilized army. You lead ground, sea, and air units into battle against the enemy in an attempt to out-maneuver and out-wit them. The game is all about understanding how each of your units functions best within your force and how best to neutralize enemy threats. It will take a number of campaign missions before you get to a full scale fight with all the available units which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. With the complexity of the game, the gradual learning curve the campaign offers is just about right. After learning the basics of ground combat, you are introduced to naval and air units as well as the means in which to create more units.

The pacing of the campaign AI is pretty slow even on maps that spawn enemies that are constantly pursuing you. Each area you need to gain access to has reserves just sitting waiting for you to come close enough for their AI routines to activate. What this promotes is a 3 step process for each of these areas. Step 1: queue up your forces on the edge of their attack perimeter. Step 2: roll your forces in and pop multiple enemies in one round of combat. Step 3: clean up the leftovers, refuel/reload, acquire new target. Each mission has a set of primary and secondary objectives that are pretty easy to attain provided you follow the 3 step process and plod along towards your objectives.

I have to say I think a lot of the graphic value was left on the cutting room floor when the time to port came around. Looking at the Steam version, I kind of wish we could see something closer in quality ported over. The graphics we have are functional, but there is nothing remarkable about them especially in light of how much better the original version is. Now it sounds like the Steam client is having some issues of its own from early reports, but I am more concerned about the iOS client. It’s currently buggy enough that on my iPad 3 I experience major graphical lag in a few remote sections of the game and the music begins to stutter pretty badly. There have been some reports of crashes, and I even had one during a particularly laggy chat sequence. Luckily this does not happen for about 85-90% of the gameplay. Load times are pretty hefty but aren’t too big of a deal once you get into a game.

The story line of the campaign mode is not bad. You are introduced to the game as a commander in a faction plagued by corruption and subterfuge. Between the long rounds of combat, you are fed enough story progress to keep things from getting too monotonous. One thing I found annoying is that, like the other graphics, there are cut scenes that look like old Command & Conquer cut scenes. Sure they are classics, but the weird graphics glitches and overall low quality is a little bit of a surprise for a game that looks so good on the Steam platform.

The gameplay is basically a watered down version of one of my favorite tactical games of all time, Advance Wars. There are no obvious rock/paper/scissors match ups that you can exploit and there are no ‘commander powers’ that provide temporary effects either. Maybe it’s not a fair comparison, but I really think that the comparative lack of tactical depth hurts Kronos more than any graphical issues. Other than lack of depth, the gameplay is solid and I really enjoy wiping out enemy units. I just wish I wasn’t approaching each enemy squad with the same exact strategy, it gets a little stale especially against a very predictable AI.

What I would love to see is some updates to improve performance. I would also say a graphical update, but really as long as the game flowed more smoothly I think it would probably be the biggest improvement. After learning the basics in the campaign mode, multiplayer is where I think you will find the most challenging encounters in this game. With so much content, story, replayability and generally fun gameplay this game would benefit massively from just a little bit of love from the developer to tighten up a few weak spots.