Genre: Strategy
Publisher: Xseed Games
Developer: Electronic Arts
Release Date: November 11, 2008

I'm a sucker for nostalgia. As a teenager I spent countless hours daydreaming of a future in which I, as an adult, held the reins to my own life. Having finally reached that dizzying plateau, though, I've found that I waste just as much time now pining for a return to the simpler and less frightening days gone by. To that end, I nurture a voracious appetite for the pastimes of my youth. This hunger has been curbed somewhat recently by the advent of the DS, a platform on which the paragons of reminiscence at Nintendo have re-released a slew of my old favorites.

Populous DS is one such favorite. The gameplay, which has remained remarkably faithful to its original incarnation, is deceptively simple. Taking on the role of a fantastic deity, the player is tasked with the care and command of a legion of faithful servants. It is the player's duty to flatten inhospitable terrain, remove obstructions such as rocks or rivers, and protect the growing population of his followers. The tiny congregation, for its part, will use level terrain to build houses, temples and cities which will in turn allow the worshipers to live longer and multiply more quickly. This is essential because each devotee contributes Faith, which is the currency that fuels the powerful miracles the player must use to defeat the rival deity.

These opponents, known as Demons, possess the same powers and goals as the player. Early in each game, the Demon and player alike focus most of their available faith and much of their attention on flattening terrain and encouraging their followers to expand as quickly and as far as possible. As Faith grows, so too does the power of each deity until eventually, miracles that range from minor annoyances to devastating catastrophes are being fired back and forth between opponents in a frantic tug-of-war aimed at protecting one population while decimating the other. To add an even further complication, most challenges include a countdown timer which will, when exhausted, trigger the final and most dramatic miracle known as Armageddon. Once Armageddon begins, the player is relegated to the role of spectator as the worshipers fight a pitched battle that, depending on population, crowns the victor of the match.

The mechanics of Populous DS has aged relatively well. As in most of the early strategy games, simplicity is the title's strongest draw, but unfortunately, it can also be somewhat of a detractor at times. Raising and lowering tiles of land can really only hold a player's attention for so long, ultimately becoming a chore that requires more focus than it should. This is especially true since most of the opponent's miracles disrupt terrain and force the player to revisit tiles again and again. On top of it all, the player will often find that worshipers prefer to sit inside of their huts, foregoing the opportunity to expand the civilization. This requires the player to repeatedly visit towns, tapping madly until his subjects have been ejected from their homes to roam the countryside again. Luckily, these complaints are partially mitigated by the Armageddon timer, which limits each game to a manageable and overall pleasant chunk of time.

To supplement the Challenge mode (which fills the role of single-player campaign), Populous DS offers three other play options. The Populous mode has similar a mechanic to Challenge but allows the player to tweak the rule settings to a custom fit. If you feel too pressured by the time limit, for instance, simply remove it. If the game isn't intense enough for you, add two or three more AI opponents. Multiplayer is likewise similar, allowing up to four players to participate in a challenge. This can be incredibly fun, as human players command far more insidious cruelty than the limited AI opponents could ever muster. During one particularly disastrous game, the player to my east attacked me so viciously that I barely registered the efforts of the northern foe. I was so focused on trading blows with my war-like neighbor that the seemingly peaceful one was able to interweave several of his settlements within my own, whereupon he simply landscaped me out of existence.

The final game mode is Warrior Hunt, a timed challenge that assigns the player the duty of locating a number of specific worshipers in a sprawling, cluttered area. While the early hunts are relatively easy (find the 10 blue guys with mushroom hats), later games can be punitively difficult (find the single blue woman with a green parasol and a viral infection). Warrior Hunt is addictive in its simplicity, capable of whittling away vast stretches of time before the player realizes what has transpired.

Graphically, Populous DS invokes the spirit and style of its SNES predecessor. The touch-screen portion functions primarily as a tool that allows the player to navigate and edit the world with as little clutter as possible. Worshipers are represented as blue pegs, and cities are simple blue tiles. Stones, which impede building, are white tiles, and any lingering negative miracle is represented by a specific symbol. The top screen is meant to show a more attractive vision of the world. Tiny faceless sprites wander randomly in a well-drawn, if minimalistic, 256-color landscape before settling down to build familiar 16-bit villages.

In this version of the game, however, each set of challenges comes complete with its own unique set of sprites, architectural designs and background tiles. The gods themselves stand on their respective sides of the map, glowering at each other across the divide. They are nicely drawn, but their limited animations cause them to stutter a bit. Each miracle is accompanied by a very well-modeled short 3-D animation. Though these upgrades are all well realized, they are also largely utilitarian and simplistic. Even so, there is little, if any, negative impact on the game and the primitive charm offered by the graphics provides a heaping dose of the nostalgia that most older players so desperately crave.

The sound design of Populous DS hovers between enjoyable and atmospheric to strange and annoying. In the grass plains stages, the howling winds and strange discordant music conspire to create a fantastic foreboding ambiance. Each set of tiles has its own background music, and in each case, the music is excellently matched with its surroundings. The same is true of miracles, which are coupled with sound effects that engender their deadly nature. On the other hand, certain sounds are intensely irritating. Battles between worshipers are married to an effect that is, in short bursts, barely tolerable. Since these fights can continue for several seconds (and indeed minutes during Armageddon), the effect rapidly degenerates into a teeth-gnashing pattern that necessitates a flick of the volume slider for sanity's sake.

Further madness-inducing design choices exist where the controls are concerned. Raising and lowering land with the stylus is intuitive, but dangerously sensitive. This is a huge problem late in levels, when the situation turns desperate and speed is essential. Quick, loosely controlled flicks of the stylus invariably create vast mountains where level terrain was intended. Thankfully, the player can easily avoid this problem by adjusting the landscape with the directional pad and buttons instead. While this is an adequate fix for the issue, it isn't as intuitive and is therefore somewhat slower. Other than this complaint, though, the controls are precise and easy to use.

Overall, Populous DS is a fantastic game that will find a warm reception with any who remember its previous releases. It's easy to recommend the game to those who may have played it 20 years ago and would like the chance to step into godhead again. The simple but addictive style has remained relatively unchanged in that time, and with the addition of multiplayer and several new game modes, it holds up remarkably well. Unfortunately, newcomers will likely find faults with its limited graphics, its sometimes grating sound design, and its frustratingly sensitive touch-screen controls. Even so, Populous DS is a fascinating title that warrants a close look by fans and newcomers alike.

Score: 7.9/10