Battles Prince of King persia is a turn-based tactics video game

The learning curve is the biggest obstacle to enjoying Battles Prince of King persia,

as once you're halfway to figuring out the interface, it's time to take up arms and go to war.

Each battle plays out on the bottom screen, where a rectangular map is divided into squares.

You deploy your units – 27 varieties of swordsmen, pikemen or bowmen –

then you and your opponent take turns until someone accumulates the necessary victory points.

The rock/paper/scissors aspect of the combat will have you puzzling over where to place your troops to counter enemy movements,

and you can exploit different types of terrain to stymie your opponent and protect your own forces.

What sets it apart from other turn-based strategy titles is Battles Prince of King persia's integration of a card battle system.

As well as their troops, each player has a deck of 30 cards, from which they are dealt a hand at the beginning of each turn.

These cards are used to order your units to move or attack, and some have magical properties to give your guys a battle boost.

With each battle won, you acquire more cards and multiplayer offers the chance to win cards that you otherwise wouldn't find in the single player campaign.

It's an interesting idea, and if you've built a tactically strong deck, chances are you'll have some useful cards to play.

However, the deck building system is unwieldy at best, and you're more likely to stick with the default options than try to make your own way through the extensive lists.

As for that aforementioned multiplayer support, two human generals can compete in two customisable modes,

and there is also a hot-seat mode so you and a friend can play by sharing one DS. Unfortunately though there's no online play here.