It might look like a cute brawler, but Battleheart is one hard core real time strategy game which demands both your full attention and your time.

If ever you needed a mobile game to test your multitasking abilities then Battleheart is more than up to the challenge, what might look like a simple beat ‘em up is actually a deep and complex real time strategy game. You take control of up to four heroes and though a series of missions you’ll defeat waves of oncoming creatures in single screen arenas by combining different character classes and making the most of their abilities. As you complete these missions you’ll earn money and unlock items which can either be sold in the store or equipped onto your characters, you’ll also level up and acquire new abilities based on your class. There’s plenty of layers of complexity but on the battlefield everything is controlled by a simple context sensitive touch and drag interface. You select a character by taping on them, then drag a line to an enemy and they’ll begin the attack, either at long range or up close with a melee weapon, if however you have a support character selected, such as a healer, then dragging a line to a teammate will task the healer with aiding the target. The interface is quick and simple and you’ll be grateful of this when your rushing to heal an injured hero while ordering other characters to try to draw fire as more creatures fill the screen.

There’s plenty of variety in Battleheart, although the 30+ missions have structurally little difference between them besides the boss encounters, variety comes from the selection of creatures to fight and items to find. Some monsters heal others on the screen while others sit at range and randomly attack targets making them unpredictable. You’ll enter most missions with the same basic strategy, use a hero with high defense to draw the attack away from the other characters, especially the healer. Things get tricky when some foes are introduced that can’t be lured away so easily and you’ll constantly be trying to juggle your tactics to make sure everyone is safe and healed, it’s a constant and challenging balancing act, but it’s one, that when masted, is very satisfying to maintain.

We’ve seen a lot of challenging games on Android but they either have difficulty that varies like an unstable roller coaster or they’ll be overly masochistic and expect you to keep  retrying. Battleheart is a rare game that rides the difficulty on such a well balanced curve that you have to work for every victory and even a short drop in concentration can leave you in a situation that’s near impossible to recover from. When the action heats up and you’re performing well everything comes together as you are flying around the screen issuing orders and coming up with last minute plans to deal with the new enemies on the screen. Those who are looking for an easier path can take the long way by grinding out old missions to earn some more items money and experience so they’re better equipped for later levels, but often all that’s needed is a different combination or a different strategy. Should one tactic not work well then you can hire new heroes in the tavern and spend money upgrading their gear, or purchase new items in the store.  The abilities that classes unlock can also be switched when out of battle at no cost and even a small change such as this can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Rather than putting together a poorly realized story that’s just an excuse for a lot of fighting, Battleheart presents no story whatsoever and it’s all the better for it, you pick a level, start a fight and collect the rewards and besides the occasional 5-10 second load time there’s nothing between you and the next mission. The graphics look like a clean flash game but there are graphical effects when you throw down some of your special abilities that spice things up and this clean art makes it easier to keep track of what’s going on when things get hectic. One issue with the graphics is that it’s all too easy for one character to stand in front of another and make it hard to target accurately and this issue is further compounded when the fight moves to the top left of the screen behind the ability buttons. You can prevent the heroes from stacking up on top of each other by moving them to the other side of a creature that’s being fought but with everything else going on it can be quite frustrating if you weren’t able to get your last second heal on target because one character obscured your view.

At at least six hours long Battleheart is a great value at $3 whether you have a tablet or a phone. Don’t let the difficulty that I’ve mentioned put you off, it’s the perfect challenge and a great game to really get your teeth into.

Game: Battleheart

Developer: Mika Mobile

Cost:  $2.99

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