Reviews VideoGame / LEGO Battles

Entertaining RTS, not without flaws

This is probably my favorite RTS game available on the Nintendo DS. Of course, this doesn't say much because, aside from the sequel, LEGO Battles: Ninjago, this is the only RTS game available on the Nintendo DS (and 3DS, for that matter) as far as I am aware. If there is another, I haven't heard of it.

I liked to describe the gameplay as a combination of StarCraft and Command & Conquer, however, I think it might be a bit more accurate to describe it as a combination of Command & Conquer and Age of Empires, with maybe a pinch of Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander. For what it's worth, it's not a proper clone of any of these games, unlike the RTS Flash game associated with the LEGO Mars Mission line, CrystAlien Conflict, which was a clone, specifically of the Command & Conquer games.

Balance is kind of a joke in this game. Aside from the hero units and the vehicles, the latter referred to as "special" units, everything plays exactly the same with some differences in unit stats. In "Free Play" and multiplayer, you can customize your army to optimize a certain way if you want to. Personally, I just stick to a single theme with my army; I play as the Aliens with Alien Commander. My brother plays as the Astronauts, but with Agent Chase. I honestly think these factions have the best "special" units; the others don't have a lot of firepower and/or can't fly, limiting their movement on the map one way or another – or in the case of Pirate/Imperial specials, not being able to be deployed full-stop on land-only maps due to being boats and ships.

The AI is kinda dumb, both the one that issues commands in Free Play and Story Mode, and the one that controls the pathing for units. Dragoons from the original StarCraft have better pathing than these units. I've had to issue orders to make them go around terrain that they obviously needed to go around, because the units have often stopped dead at these areas and gave up trying to move past them. The enemy AI commander doesn't seem to handle this situation very well.

All that said, the game is a lot of fun as long as you have another player to play it with. It will get old pretty quick if you're playing alone, though, especially since there's a conspicuous lack of online multiplayer. I would have loved to play this online, because otherwise the only human player I can play against is my brother, and he seems to rarely want to play this with me. Nobody else in my area seems to have the game.