Although it may look like Dragon Warrior Goes 3D and play a bit like Final Fantasy Tactics, the similarity ends there. The need for strategy can't be understated, and this isn't some casual gaming title you'll pick up, work out in the first few minutes and just get bored with. For starters, both your slimes and enemy units each have an element with which they're associated: Grass, Water or Fire. Grass trumps Water, Water trumps Fire and Fire trumps Grass. Making use of this will grant you an edge to attack that you'll need to succeed, and sometimes desperately so. On top of that height of position confers an advantage to attackers or defenders — whoever's on a higher tile — and the design of each level guarantees you'll have to approach each of them cautiously and with a workable strategy... often several times while you sort out just what that is. Is it better to rush your opponents, or to wait a few turns to let them come to you? If they're too many tiles above you they're unassailable, forcing you to route around to spots that make them accessible again. The AI isn't especially aggressive there, meaning that if you're nowhere near an enemy unit they'll happily just lounge around their invulnerable lofty positions eating cherry bonbons, leafing through magazines and idly healing themselves until you arrive. You'll also notice yellow flags positioned throughout the levels, which will heal you incrementally if you stop on them and don't move. The per-turn heal rate will slowly decrease, meaning you'll even need to strategize your rests!

If all this weren't enough, in addition to a vast array of the usual swordsmen, archers, armored units, knights, artillery, gunmen, riflemen, and ninjas, you'll occasionally be confronted by golems too. Golems are the bane of slime, because you can't take over what doesn't have a mouth. Your special abilities? Nope, those don't work either. You'll be relying solely on units you've already taken over to cope with these guys. There's a heavy emphasis on strategy throughout here, and that's enhanced by the diversity of your slimes and their special abilities that provide a very dynamic system as you refine strategies for using them together. Carrot Slimes have an increased chance of taking units over, while others will teleport another of your units across the field, or dissolve armor. Hermes Slimes will carry over a unit you've converted to another level, while Pervy Slimes gain a huge advantage for converting female units (and an even better one if they're down to their underwear. Just... don't ask.) As you progress you'll get new slimes, randomly chosen from a selection for that level. You can shift the odds for the better slimes in your favor by tackling it at higher difficulties. You'll want to level them up on earlier levels, but your newfound abilities will enable a plethora of strategies to emerge. There's plenty of replay value here and the game features plenty of extra content with five extra difficulty modes for each level. Completing each level in an area on Normal difficulty will unlock those and can also earn you a gem fragment, with each completed gem will granting you a powerful passive effect you'll take with you through the rest of the game. Although free, Ambition of the Slimes is funded using banner ads which disappear if you make any in-app purchase. These all go for under $3 USD and can be used to increase the maximum number of slimes you can own or take into battle, or buy you single-use antifatigue buffs that zero out the timer preventing you from taking a particular slime into battle. Featuring a well-developed system and plenty of complexity Ambition of the Slimes is ideal for diehard tactical and strategy aficionados, or just RPG fans who are ready for something a little different.

Ambition of the Slimes (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch)

Ambition of the Slimes (Android)