Thank you Teyon for sending us this game to review!

Given the shape of the DS/3DS systems I'm surprised it took this long to get a digitized version of the classic board game Battleship.  There is another game out there named Battleship, but that is a FPS game, and based off of a movie and not the board game.  The objective is simple: you must sink all of the enemy's ships before they sink yours.  To shoot a missile you have to tap on the grid where you want it to go and see if it misses, hits a ship, or hits a mine and causes you to lose a turn.  

When you launch Sea Battle you can play against the computer in single player, play a mission/campaign battle, or play against a nearby DSI/3DS user who also owns a copy of the game.  There are four mission battles that get increasingly difficult as you clear them.  I'm stuck on the third one where I have to sink all of the enemy ships with only one under my control.  I did manage to get a jet to help me once, but it was eventually found and sunk too.  

The mission battles do not let you change the position of your ships at the beginning of the game, but you have full control in multiplayer and single player scenarios.  When you launch one of those modes you can choose between classic or modern mode.  Classic mode limits you to positioning the ship either horizontally or vertically just like the board game.  In modern mode you can position your ships diagonally to make them harder to locate.   

Both modes have mines and enhanced weapons and features that you can stumble upon.  The enhanced weapons let you fire upon multiple squares for one turn.  The other possible enhancement is a quick view of a sonar scan of the enemy ship locations.  (Very helpful!)  

The bigger the grid, the more possible places to put your ships.  Sea Battle gives you several choices including 8x8, 10x10, 12x12, 14x14 and lastly, 16x14.  There are two AI difficulty levels (Normal and Expert) and I must say that I am disappointed with both of them.  At the normal difficulty the AI would sometimes not finish the job on sinking one or more of my ships.  The expert mode is better in that regard, but more often than not, whenever I hit one of their ships they would miraculously hit one of mine on their next turn.  This is obviously a game of luck, but the expert AI seems to have a generous helping of it.

Since this is a DSI Ware game, it does not utilize the 3DS capabilities.  The graphics in general are bland and dated, but they get the job done.  Besides enhancing the graphics, my only other suggestion would be adding the ability to speed up to conversations like we can in the Mii plaza.  The explosions and water sounds are good as is the looping battle background music.  

Just like the board game, this is a kid friendly title that can be fun to play against friends and family. My son enjoyed this game, but Battleship isn't for everyone. Anyone who is a fan of the board game, should consider Sea Battle as a digital alternative.  It won't blow you away aesthetically, but for $2, you can't go wrong.