If you are a mobile games enthusiast, you should have heard of the name Gameloft. One of the largest mobile games maker on the market. Since they are one of the largest and also the most popular developer, their games are always on standard in terms of graphics and gameplay wise. They released a lot of casual and action games, but hardly any true strategy games can be found. Actually I should say it’s hard to even find one in mobile games. Thank goodness, Gameloft realized there’s demand out there and released Panzer General as their first true turned-based strategy game.

You might be familiar with the name Panzer General as it bear the same title as in PC games. The game set in the world of World War II, you will get a chance to visit all major countries and famous battlefields in 3 different campaigns. Before the start of each mission, your commander will give you a short briefing of your mission as well as showing you some important points. Although Panzer General is a turn-based strategy game, it plays a little different as you don’t get all the time you want to plan a move. You only got 45 seconds for each turn, if you want to scratch your butt or have a cup of coffee, pause the game before you turn your head or your opponent will be on turn. A time limitation seems like an awkward system, but it’s actually more than enough to plan your move with the available action points. And with a time twickling behind sure makes you nervous and think faster. No matter how many points you have, remember you can only shoot once per turn with your tank, only rocket soldiers can shoot twice per turn. Panzer General is quick turn-based action oriented games rather than the usual strategy games and it plays almost like a real time strategy. Therefore you won’t be able to control more than 3 units in each level which was a little disappointing for me. If you like huge battles in turn-based strategy mobile games, I highly recommend you to try out Panzer Tactics. Also there isn’t much unit choice either beside tanks and rocket soldiers. So it’s a little disappointed on the variety of unit’s choice.

One of the main selling point of Panzer General is the graphics of the game, after playing it you would have just hope every mobile games are this beautiful. The graphics in game is sharp and colorful. Levels are also nicely design with variety of buildings, walls which you can use it as your cover or destroy it to make a new path. I think the sacrifice of variety of units goes to the detiled designs of each units. There’s health bar on top of your units, but by seeing how badly your vehicle is you can easily guess how damaged it is. Sounds are also very good in Panzer General, there are both music and sound which can be turned off in  the menu. Sounds of the game are also details made, you can hear tanks movement, building collapsing, bomb dropping and cannons shooting. It’s a pleasure to play this game with the sounds on and I highly recommend you to do that.

Panzer General isn’t just strategy, the ability of your aiming skill plays big part in the game. The shooting distance can be very long well over the screen, so you might hit something without seeing them. To make it to your advantage, you can change the view and check where the enemies are.

Panzer General is quite on the short side, you should be able to finish the campaign mode in less than 2 hours. But it offers Bluetooth multiplayer mode which you can play with some friends. It’s a great addition and value to the game which weirdly didn’t seen in many mobile games. It’s not a pure strategy, but a great mix and action and strategy. It’s unique and fun to play nonetheless. But one thing to remember before buying Gameloft game is that they like to release hell lots of different version for different phone. And some phone model of this game doesn’t have Bluetooth multiplayer. So if you are aiming for the multiplayer mode of the game, check carefully before you buy.

Score: 8.0/10