Description of Power Dolls
Despite a rather flawed execution, I absolutely love what Power DoLLS is trying to do.
Using the ludicrous backronym “Detachment of Limited Line Service,” Power DoLLS is a hex-grid turn-based tactical war game that takes itself rather seriously but for one major hook: all of the mechs, airplanes, and self-propelled artillery units are piloted by attractive women. [I'd say “cute”, but that would imply “kawaii,” and these are more of the classic 80s/early 90s anime style].
You are given a talent pool of several pilots, each with varying stats, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Some are good at piloting mechs, others air support, while others are artillery specialists. You're given several different highly customizable mech frames throughout the game, as well as moderately customizable fighters, bombers, and artillery.
Gameplay is similar to mecha-miniatures games, such as Battletech, but the computer medium allows for semi-realtime fog of war. Each turn represents 5 minutes of operations that can last several hours. Each unit has a number of action points it can use in that 5 minutes; action points are determined by a combination of the capability of the mechs and the women piloting them, and different actions use up differing numbers of points.
The air support, reinforcements and artillery available to you over the course of a mission are determined by the mission time; operations have scheduled phases that require you to time certain strategic and tactical maneuvering. For instance, your air support may not reach the mission area until a half hour after your first mechs hit the ground, and the fighters and bombers only have enough fuel to stay airborne over the battlefield to provide ground support for a couple hours before having to return to base. Calling in air-strikes and off-board indirect artillery bombardment can be tricky, because they are not instantaneous; an enemy you can see in combat will almost always be moving, so any strikes on their location will miss. Instead, you will need to call in strikes against general areas (highways and bridgeheads, usually) to create a blanket of fire in which you will hopefully be able to catch unseen enemies.
The game does offer variant “plans” for some of the missions, which can change things like where your teams' insertion points are, when your air support is available and how much you will have. I would've liked to see more of these variant on more of the missions.
The hex-grid aspect is noteworthy, I feel, because a)serious wargamers prefer it; it has been the gold standard for decades, and b) many turn-based strategy games to come out of Japan have gone with square grids.
The biggest downside to Power Dolls is that gameplay is tediously slow; the AI tends to take forever for its movement (easily 2 minutes or more). This is exacerbated by the steep difficulty of Power Dolls; a single mission can take hours to play, and if you fail or let yourself get into a death spiral in a mission (or even if you win a mission, if your best pilots are KIA/MIA), it can be frustrating to replay those scenarios. And there were several I had to play three or four times to finish.
After each long and bloody battle, you are rewarded with an exported .bmp wallpaper of one of the Power Dolls pilots (some pin-up, but nothing lewd). Except for the last incredibly long and incredibly difficult mission, which apparently gives you nothing? Oh well.
Power Dolls is a very niche title, so it is not a strong recommend. There are several sequels that may have addressed issues in this game, but they are not translated. Worth noting there was also a poorly received OVA released in the mid-90s.
Review By P. Alexander
External links
Comments and reviews
... 2024-04-14 -1 point
"(...) are piloted by attractive women. [I'd say “cute”, but that would imply “kawaii,” and these are more of the classic 80s/early 90s anime style]."
I believe the term you're looking for is "bishojo".
3zo 2024-03-25 0 point DOS version
japanese full version can be running under win10, but would jump while entering equipment screen. Can any body solve this problem?
o0pyromancer0o 2023-05-06 1 point
It downloads easily enough without any fancy tricks, but the file is corrupted and cannot be opened.
WonderBoyX 2023-03-05 -1 point
If one of the DL links doesn't work right away, right click and save link as. That worked for me. First time 15mb English brought back to the page.
Dee Deckard 2022-01-28 4 points
English ISO is corrupted. Tried the "add «.iso» to "En" link" solution with no luck. Please correct it. Thanks.
Damien 2021-11-28 2 points
@TINNOS, you don't drag the folder on the Dosbox icon, just the .exe, .bat or other file that's used to launch the game.
Tinnos 2021-11-27 0 point
Help: I tried to drag the unzipped folder on the DOS desktop icon and the dos correctly opens up but then I don't know what to type after C:\
Itried with PD, DOLLS, etc...but nothing works.
Any help?
Thanks
Phanang 2021-10-25 0 point
Finally, the instruction manual come out because i can't figure out how to win this.
add «.iso» to "En" link 2021-08-11 1 point
copy "ISO Version English version 85 MB" link
paste to the URL-bar
add «.iso» to it
press [Enter]
Write a comment
Share your gamer memories, help others to run the game or comment anything you'd like. If you have trouble to run Power Dolls, read the abandonware guide first!
Download Power Dolls
We may have multiple downloads for few games when different versions are available. Also, we try to upload manuals and extra documentation when possible. If you have additional files to contribute or have the game in another language, please contact us!
DOS Version
Game Extras
Various files to help you run Power Dolls, apply patches, fixes, maps or miscellaneous utilities.
FM Towns Version
- Year: 1994
- Publisher: Kogado Software Products
- Developer: Kogado Software Products
Similar games
Fellow retro gamers also downloaded these games: