Review: The Battle Cats Unite Entertains (When You Have Energy)

It’s always sort of weird when a game take a long time to be localized, but a welcome addition when it finally shows up worldwide. This is the situation The Battle Cats Unite faced, as the Switch game launched in Japan in 2018 and Asia in 2021 before a 2024 worldwide debut. It’s a shame it took so long too, because the RTS remains as entertaining as always. The only downside is, it keeps some of the free-to-play elements such as a stamina system.

The goal in each case is that you command the heroic Battle Cats as they attempt to go around the world, through time, or across the stars to fight enemies. There’s a staggering number of stages, as you get the Empire of Cats, Into the Future, and Cats of the Cosmos campaigns, as well as some special stages. Minigame access can also be unlocked.

Regardless of which campaign you’re going through, The Battle Cats Unite plays the same on the Switch. Your goal in each stage is to eliminate the enemy base while protecting your own. You can equip up to 10 different kinds of cats to deploy. Each one has its own monetary cost, with a cooldown tied to them after purchasing one. You can spend money to increase your production level and rate of earning more money. Also, an energy cannon gradually builds in power, allowing you to unleash it when full. Units, rate of work production, how much money you can have, and associated stats for the base and cannon are all available to be upgraded with XP, as are the cats. Said cats can also evolve, sometimes more than once, depending on if you max out levels or have certain items. Each stage also only lasts a few minutes, making it a prompt RTS affair.

There are some elements in theSwitch version of The Battle Cats Unite that feel designed to mitigate the obvious leftovers from the free-to-play mobile version of the game. The Cat Food currency is doled out sparingly, and you’ll need that for extra unit gacha pulls or if you want to have the option of buying XP or other bonuses. The energy system remains in-place, so you can only go through so many battles before you need to stop playing or pay in Cat Food to keep going. As you imagine, the further along you get in the campaign, the more energy each stage costs to complete. It’s frustrating!

Especially since most of the most fun and flashy characters are locked behind the golden gacha machines. These require you to earn Gold Tickets or Cat Food for a spin. (Completing in-game missions is typically the best way to earn both.) That means you also have to hope luck is on your side for some of the most ludicrous units in the game. However, the cost to deploy them is also often incredibly high, so odds are you wouldn’t get to send them out until the end of a stage anyway. 

I will say that there are some elements that can feel designed to mitigate the need for stamina to keep going through fights and other issues. You’ll randomly get a chance to play through minigames. These can give you a burst of stamina, power-ups for stages, or gacha tickets, so they’re always appreciated. The co-op and VS elements also make me feel like they’re ways to deal with energy demands, since a multiplayer session would likely be shorter than a solo one. 

Speaking of which, multiplayer is totally fine and serviceable here. I enjoyed the co-op option more than the VS. Specifically because it does help further campaign progress and work toward those goals as well. However, I did note that playing with another person almost makes the stages too easy, so it’s not something I’d probably do outside of rare situations. Even though each person is limited to five types of units, it doesn’t feel like it is too restrictive as well. Multiplayer is fine and fun, and I appreciated that the minigames also took into account if a second person was around to allow someone else to assist in co-op.

The Battle Cats Unite is absolutely entertaining and the formula for the tower defense RTS remains strong, but the remaining mobile roots get annoying. The absurdity of the various cats (or in some cases “cats”) you deploy are as entertaining as ever. Even the cooperative and versus stages are fun. I just wish more had been done to remove the obnoxious free-to-play elements such as the energy restrictions or limited Cat Food currency. If you don’t mind the grind and taking your time, it’s a fun diversion to keep on your system.

The Battle Cats Unite is available on the Nintendo Switch worldwide.