not-so-superior super c

i played through the GB contra game, operation c, a while back, but to continue on with the series i went back to the original’s NES sequel super C. as i noted with operation C, super C sticks very close to the original’s outstanding gameplay, and thus there’s not a whole lot i need to say about this installment. super C was the first to replace the original’s pseudo 3D-levels (which i quite liked) with top-down levels (which i rather dislike), although at times the top-down levels feel a bit more awkward here than in operation C. and although i enjoyed it overall, somehow the game lacked some of the polish of the original. part of my feeling is no doubt due to the fact i haven’t played the original in ages, but as an example compare the level design of the original game’s first stage, which featured an upper and a lower path, with this game’s jungle stage which features one path and long stretches of repetitive backgrounds. (for maps of the levels for both games, check out the fantastic vgmaps.com.) also, i have to agree with the review at vc.nintendolife.com that the game feels noticeably easier than the first one, even given the fact the first featured the infamous 30-man konami code whereas this one just includes a code for 10 men. the bosses did seem to have more variety, though. once again i was also struck with the feeling that the difference between how difficult the game is when you have the spread gun and when you don’t is so huge it makes the game feel rather stilted at times. but there’s no doubt that this and the others i’ve played so far in the series are fun run-’n-gun classics, esp. in co-op mode.

well, that’s about it for super C. next up, contra 3! looking forward to more spread-gun action bliss.

super contra-versial links:
- entry at wikipedia
- FAQ at gamefaqs
- the entry at strategywiki.org has an entertaining comparison of the japanese, european, and US enemy names
- and if anyone’s interested, the nintendo power coverage is as follows: NP11: preview (stage 1); NP12: cover, feature (stages 2-6); NP14: howard & nester comic, classified info: 10-men code and sound mode, counselors’ corner: how to beat the alien pods in level 7

racin’ the waves

i’m not a big fan of racing games, but i like to pick them up on occasion. i was interested in checking out the wave race series, but when it comes to series i like to start at the beginning … the very beginning. with the soulcalibur series i started with the lesser-known soul blade instead of its much better-known dreamcast sequel, and similarly with wave race i ignored the classic wave race 64 in favor of its game boy predecessor, simply entitled wave race.

retrogamer.net has a good rundown of the game. just based on a description one could easily wonder what the appeal of the original wave race is. you and your three competing jet-ski riders are indistinguishable save for the number hovering over your figure indicating your current position. the water mechanics make it feel like you’re almost constantly sliding all over the place, and on the hardest levels it’s easy to spin out of control. as with many racers, memorization is key and making a single serious mistake can often completely ruin your chances of winning.

to add to all of this is the painful fact that each higher difficulty level adds to the number of courses and laps you have to play through: at the 550 cc level you have four courses with two laps each; at the 650 cc level you have 6 courses with three laps each; and at the 800 cc level you’re faced with a marathon comprised of a whopping 8 courses with 4 laps each. the game also features some decidedly questionable opponent AI (described in this random forum post aptly titled “*** you Wave Race!”, although it’s not as impossible to keep up with the first rider as he suggests, though it is difficult).

but despite what the game may look like on paper (or computer screen, as the case may be), it’s actually quite a fun little game. the game gets compared to other classic top-down racers such as r.c. pro-am. i haven’t played any of those (yet), so i can’t offer up any comparisons, but this game is appealing in many ways. there are only two powerups, a dolphin and an octopus, both of which provide useful boosts. there’s a turbo meter that recharges over time, and a number of hazards on the course including whirlpools, jump ramps, and rapids. the water mechanics are surprisingly believable. there isn’t any background music during the race, but it isn’t missed. there’s also a slalom mode that i found pretty useless, and once you beat the three racing challenges you’ll be disheartened to see that you’re confronted with an additional mode that requires you to beat all three again but with harder opponents. at the higher levels you definitely have to be fairly aggressive about pushing your opponents out of the way, which sometimes requires some AI memorization, which can be annoying. all in all though this was a surprisingly fun title and has me interested in playing its follow-up as well as other top-down racers.

wavin’ at some wave race links:
- here’s a video of some gameplay
- basic FAQ and slalom mode maps at gamefaqs.com
- entry at wikipedia
- i was surprised to find out that the game was a player’s choice title (i.e. sold a million copies)
- and apparently it was produced by miyamoto
- ending at vgmuseum.com

wario’s wares … touched!

i seem to be repeating 2009 so far, having started with a new super mario bros. game this year and then following it up with a warioware game. i’ve been working my way through the warioware series, and playing through rhythm tengoku and part of rhythm heaven reminded me that i still have a few warioware games to play.

i wasn’t particularly looking forward to warioware: touched! for DS which seems to have gotten good but not great scores overall. the game was about what i expected, namely a warioware game that utilizes the new hardware well but that doesn’t really offer many surprises. it was one of the launch titles in japan and came out just a few months after the launch in the US, and at the time it was probably enough to just revel in the DS’s brand-new capabilities. but now, more than five years later, the game’s mechanics have been seen in many, many games since then, and the microgames themselves also feel overly familiar and the in-game toys much more throwaway. it also doesn’t help that the game is imo the easiest of the series either.

on the gonintendo boards one user described the series as becoming little more than a bunch of tech demos, and in some ways touched! does feel that way. i haven’t played snapped! yet, but i feel that smooth moves still keeps the fun factor even while showing off the wii remote’s capabilities. it’s been a while since i played it, though, so i’ll have to try it again now that i’ve had several more warioware games and many more wii games under my belt.

not much more to say. smooth moves and twisted! are my favorite warioware games so far and i don’t expect that to change anytime soon, but i will play through the remaining ones. i’m not a big fan of creating my own content in games, so there isn’t much about the forthcoming warioware D.I.Y. (due out in just a couple of months) that sparks my interest, but maybe i’m underestimating the potentially great user-generated content that will be available. i’ll try to keep an open mind anyway. for wario’s sake. bwahahahhaha!

getting in touch with wario’s links:
- FAQ and list of unlockables at gamefaqs
- entry at wikipedia

another new year, another new mario

although i bought it right away, i didn’t start playing through new super mario bros. wii immediately. i think part of it was just general sequel fatigue, but i was also wary of the game being too similar to its DS predecessor, esp. since my main playthrough of NSMB wii would be solo and not taking advantage of the game’s biggest distinction as being the first multi-player mario game. i had enjoyed the DS game but my main complaint at that time was the lack of novelty and the lack of a challenge.

i was heartened to hear that this iteration would be much more challenging, and in fact i don’t disagree with nintendo power’s assessment that it’s “one of the hardest games in the [2D] series”. oddly enough, though, this proves to be somewhat of a drawback in that the challenge seriously detracts from the multi-player aspect. among nintendo’s continuing goals has been to create an experience that can be shared regardless of players’ varying levels of ability, but i’m not entirely sure that they’ve succeeded here. a group of novices could barrel through a fair number of stages, relying on the fact that if at least one of them is alive at any point they can still proceed, but the difficulty ramps up so quickly that i think they would soon get frustrated. likewise, as i found out from personal experience, a mixed group would find the novices relying too much on being carried past the hard sections and not actually getting to play themselves as much. i think if newbies were willing to put in the time to improve their skills then i don’t doubt that they could get a lot out of the game, but as a pick-up-and-play experience the difficulty level of the original DS game seems to me like it would have been more appropriate. maybe i’m underestimating the tenacity and abilities of newbies, though. also, i have to remind myself that a casual group isn’t much concerned about beating the main game anyway; they’re probably just as happy to be playing the coin-battle or free-for-all modes and seeing who wins the most rounds.

anyway, as for the other combination, a group of experts, i also played the game a bit with a mario vet and it was definitely fun. a nice mix of chaos, trash-talking, magnanimousness, cooperation, and revenge. not being a huge fan of multi-player in general i still much preferred playing it on my own, and although i beat the game fairly easily, playing through every level and collecting all the star coins definitely made the game much more interesting and fun. but as for originality . . . although i enjoyed the game and i am fully appreciative of the addition of multi-player, and although i know it’s churlish of me to feel this way since any mario platformer still towers far above the competition, i just couldn’t help feeling that the game, like many of nintendo’s franchises of late, clings too closely to its predecessors. the DS NSMB mixed super mario world with the original NES game, whereas this one cribs more from the DS game and the sublime super mario bros. 3, and so those elements will feel new to those not intimately familiar with those games. but for a long-time mario fan such as myself, although it’s great to have cameos from SMB3 like the koopalings and the airships (kuribo’s shoe would have been even better), there wasn’t enough that felt really new to counterbalance the old. the ratio of new vs old has been widely contested, but that’s my take after having beaten the entire game. the two brand-new suits are great (although one could argue that both are largely based on functionality from previous games), as is the new ice flower power-up, and there’s a lot of great level design that at times can be very daunting, especially on the first attempt, but are never cheap. but i just kept waiting for real, smile-inducing surprises. several of the hidden levels did give me that unique mario euphoria (particularly levels 7-6 and 8-7), but those feelings were few and far between.

another thing that ended up bothering me a lot is that as the game draws from such a long and storied past, the designers could freely pick and choose from among the most eye-catching elements of the previous games. as a result NSMB wii is loaded and feels like a huge mix (or remix) of content. the plus is that there’s a great feeling of variety (albeit overly familiar to long-time fans), but the drawback is that one is left with a distinct feeling of ADD. this being the MTV generation and all perhaps many would find this a definite advantage, but i found myself wishing for a bit more stability. in more concrete terms, for example, the fact that there are so few yoshi stages makes me wonder if, much as i love yoshi, it wouldn’t have been better to just not include him/it at all and focus that development on other areas. likewise, there’s only one stage that uses the “switch palace” map mechanic from SMW (that adds ! blocks to all the stages in the world), and there are so few mini-mushroom stages that the power-up itself just gets lost among the bustling crowd of the game’s other features (although there seems to be evidence of the remnants of more mini-mushroom usage in some of the stages, making me wonder if it originally had a more prominent role). and instead of having a few ghost houses and a few air ships, why not just focus on one or the other? in their attempt to cram in the “best of the best” nintendo has in some ways chained themselves to the baggage of the past instead of looking to the future by adding new surprises.

among its other innovations, the game introduces the “super guide”, and i think to everyone’s relief the inclusion of an ability to skip past difficult levels hasn’t detracted from the fun or the bragging rights for anyone. the “hint movies” have also proven to be a great new addition. the “super skills” videos have smartly incorporated enough variety to make them entertaining (including some multi-player videos that are as tightly-choreographed as a ballet), and the ability to see that a level is marked as having a secret exit without actually watching the video itself has proven to be a useful addition (although, as with previous mario games, most of these can be inferred from the maps).

all in all i still can’t help feeling conflicted: although the game is a lot of fun and a much more satisfying level of challenge than ever before and although it offers up a new brand-new experience in terms of the multiplayer, at its core there just wasn’t enough to make me rank this among my list of all-time greats. i suppose time will tell if my opinion will change. in any case, playing this game has made me want to replay the DS game, and i’m still hopeful that in its next iteration the series will deliver the level of innovation that earlier games in the series had.

new mario (and luigi and toads) links!
- iwata asks feature: these interviews with miyamoto are like master classes with a virtuoso. miyamoto is amazing.
- entry at wikipedia
- official site, includes wallpapers
- good FAQ/guide at gamefaqs
- and i’m sure i’m not the only one who remembers these leaked images from before the official announcement of the game from last summer

2009 and another full year of gaming

shoo whee. another year packed full of gaming. i had thought 2008 was pretty packed, but 2009 turned out to be even busier. here’s what my year looked like (games listed in approximate descending order) with links to each game’s corresponding blog review:

HIGHEST
- super mario bros. (NES)
- the legend of zelda: majora’s mask (N64)
- super mario world 2: yoshi’s island (SNES)
- advance wars: dual strike (DS)
- super mario galaxy (wii)
- metroid: zero mission (GBA)
- rhythm tengoku (GBA)
- samba de amigo (wii)
- mario kart 64 (N64)

MIDDLE
- advance wars 2 (GBA)
- geometry wars: galaxies (wii) 1 | 2
- the legend of zelda: oracle of seasons (GBC)
- osu! tatakae! ouendan (DS)
- super monkey ball (GCN)
- warioware: twisted! (GBA)
- balloon kid (GB)
- lumines plus (PS2)
- fire emblem: shadow dragon (DS)
- new super mario bros. (DS)
- milon’s secret castle (NES)
- ico (PS2)
- metroid prime: hunters (DS)
- metroid prime 2: echoes (GCN)
- wii sports (wii)
- advance wars: days of ruin (DS)
- nintendogs: lab and friends (DS)
- donkey kong land (GB)
- tetris attack (GB)
- final fantasy III (SNES)
- chuchu rocket! (DC)
- house of the dead 2 and 3 (wii)
- wario land II (GB)
- the legend of zelda: four swords (GBA)
- soul blade (PS)
- altered beast (gen)
- my japanese coach (DS)
- alleyway (GB)

LOWEST
- kirby’s adventure (NES)

NOT RATED
- jungle jewels (PC flash)
- scramble (PC flash)
- metroid prime hunters: first hunt (DS)

REVISITS
- super smash bros. brawl (wii) (w/ olimar)
- yu-gi-oh! world championship 2007 (DS)
- pac-mania, part of pac-man collection (GBA)

yikes. despite my attempts to cut back, this past year has been pretty busy. i played rather more sequels than i would have liked, but i managed to cross some classics off of my lists, as well as squeeze in some lesser-known titles. nintendo games, both old and new, continue to elicit my highest praise, but i’m also starting to venture out a bit more to other platforms. handhelds seem to be dominating more (lying down on a couch or bed has become an ideal way to unwind), and retro titles less. i also seem to have gotten pickier about which games i finish: kirby’s adventure is the only game that i finished last year that i placed in my lowest tier. there were some good revisits, some multiplayer, and some flash games that i spent some time with, and i covered a pretty good range of genres. this year marked the 100th game i’ve finished since around the start of this blog, and i was also prompted to highlight my top 10 2D platformers so far. lastly, near the end of the year i crammed in three advance wars games in just a couple of months, and despite a slow start the series that has become one of my favorites. it’s been a busy year, and it looks like my list of games to play just continues to grow … anyway, thanks once again to anyone who’s stumbled across my little patch of cyberspace, and welcome to another year (and a new decade!) of video games rock!

heavenly rhythm

[wrapping up one more review from last year before i post my end-of-year list ...]

i don’t remember where i first heard about rhythm tengoku (for GBA), but i’m guessing it was soon after i started getting into the warioware series a couple of years ago. this was before its DS sequel, rhythm heaven, a.k.a. rhythm tengoku gold, was released, but both games were created by Nintendo SPD who co-developed the warioware games. fans of that better-known series will definitely fall for its sister series as much as i did.

like the warioware games, rhythm tengoku combines a wide range of wacky art styles and situations (tap-dancing monkeys! lady rappers!), and most notably, music, in a series of mini-games, in this case all rhythm based. the R and L buttons aren’t used in the main game, and many games only require a single button, but the gameplay can get quite tricky. chris kohler has a good description of the sequel’s gameplay which is exactly the same as the original (as is nintendo’s oftentimes maddening custom). in short, both games provide a refreshing take on the rhythm genre as everything is centered on feeling the pulse of the music as opposed to hitting complicated button patterns in sequence. the structure is also very cleverly arranged in that the games/songs are grouped somewhat thematically, and at the end of each group is a “remix” track that combines all the music and gameplay from that group. also, like the warioware series the games include little unlockable diversions in the form of toys and mini-games, as well as stories and a music player. for those wary of importing the original GBA game, although it’s all in japanese, for the most part everything is easy to follow and self-explanatory, although having played a bit of the english version of its sequel i realize more how much of the humor i was missing out on. (you can find a basic translation for the menus here.)

the only design choice of the series that seems questionable to me is that you can earn a medal if you perform well on a song, but to earn the highest rating you have to be absolutely perfect and not make any mistakes. in general i’m against “perfection” in gaming as it ends up making a game much less fun, but in this case since the songs are so short getting a perfect on all of them, while certainly requiring a fair amount of effort, wouldn’t be crazily impossible. all in all, despite the language barrier and the emphasis on perfection, this is a great game and a lot of fun, and it’s an easy recommendation. as semi-regular visitors to my blog might expect, i’ve already played through the sequel a fair amount. even though it is a sequel from a company notorious for not tinkering with well-established formulas, it all feels a bit too same-y to me, and the humor and scenarios don’t seem quite as crazy and off-the-wall as the original. i’ll prob. finish playing through that game sooner than later, though, so there’s still a chance i’ll end up being pleasantly surprised. we’ll see.

for now, feel the b-b-b-beat of some r-r-r-rhythmic links!
- i linked to this already, but it’s worth linking again: this is a handy site with translations of the menus and a guide to every song
- entry at wikipedia
- youtube video of an early favorite from the game
- an exhaustive survey of the man behind the music, tsunku

caught up in a jungle o’ jewels

like most people, i’ve come across and played bejeweled online at some time or another. the game never really grabbed me, although its casual appeal is undeniable: according to its official website it’s “the first and only puzzle game since Tetris to be inducted into Computer Gaming World’s Hall of Fame”. but when my bf got hooked on one of its many unofficial spinoffs, namely jungle jewels on facebook, i found myself oddly hooked.

like many of the casual games that have popped up in recent years there’s not a whole lot of skill involved, and luck plays a significant role (although you could say the same about tetris, i suppose). nevertheless, the additions to the gameplay are well designed and do call for some strategizing, and since the game’s only 4 levels long and there’s a time limit, there’s a fair amount of incentive to beat it. and in fact i played it for hours on end until i did so, and didn’t really begrudge the time since the game had a decent design. (although once i realized how much luck is involved i made a habit of restarting without letting the timer run out if it was clear i was going to get stuck.)

there’s not much else really to say about the game itself, although you can find the official site here and a review here. despite my previous, and similarly short-lived, addiction to scramble, also on facebook, i don’t see myself getting too ensnared in this wild, wacky world of casual online games; they’re just not deep enough for me. this game has rekindled my interest in puzzle quest, though, which is a fairly well-known by now DS game that combines bejeweled-like play with RPG elements. i’ve recovered enough from my jungle jewels addiction that i have a feeling it won’t be long before i pick up that game. another year (and decade), and the list of games to play continues to grow …

advance wars conquered … for now

yes, i confess, i do let my obsessions get the better of me. i’d finished advance wars 2 and advance wars: dual strike back to back, but i couldn’t help trying out the next in the series, advance wars: days of ruin, the second advance wars game for DS. i was intrigued by the different direction that the game took in terms of its art style and presentation and was curious about how much the gameplay had changed.

i agree with the common response that in some ways the gameplay of days of ruin feels more like a step back than a step forward. the game lacks any of the new modes or features from dual strike and omits CO powers completely until about halfway through the campaign mode, and even then the CO powers are much less powerful. instead of the game-changers of previous games, CO powers here provide more-modest bonuses restricted to the region around the CO who “boards” a unit and retreats when that unit is destroyed. the game’s other main change is that rankings have been rehauled: the power score is now based on the effectiveness of your attacks (i.e. the fewer number of attacks the better) instead of the percentage of enemy units defeated during one turn (which always seemed rather pointless to me anyway), and the technique score is now based on the number of units you’ve used compared to the number your enemy has used, instead of the number of units you’ve lost as a percentage of your total (so now churning out units hurts rather than helps that score). another small addition is that each individual unit can increase a level if it defeats an enemy unit. there are only two levels it can obtain (after defeating two enemy units), and the bonuses it receives are minor, but it does give some motivation to keep units intact.

all of these changes focus the gameplay on keeping units alive, and thus force you to strategize a bit more in order to get S ranks. in some ways it feels like with these changes intelligent systems was looking to their other strategy franchise, the fire emblem series, for their inspiration for the gameplay of days of ruin. but IS borrowed from the fire emblem series more liberally for the presentation of this game: the music is distinctly reminiscent of the recent console fire emblem games, and the story, although set in a post-apocalyptic, contemporary world and not the fantasy world of the FE games, feels similar as well in its tale of a small band of do-gooders fighting against all odds to bring peace to the world. i was looking forward to the story, which the advance wars series thus far has been sorely lacking, but the story in days of ruin is trite: although it dwells on much heavier subject matter than the series has thus far, its exploration of such issues as survival, selfishness, and selflessness in extreme conditions is nothing we haven’t seen hundreds of times in other games and media.

in the end this was a game that i enjoyed playing through but isn’t my first pick for an advance wars game to replay anytime soon. it doesn’t contain a hard campaign mode, although it does include a slew of tougher “trial” maps, and it does have the advantage of enabling you to revisit any previous campaign map so you can try for a higher rating. when i think back on it i appreciate the new focus on strategy, but i still can’t help missing the fun of the previous games. although it took awhile and it hasn’t nearly supplanted my affections for fire emblem, in its four releases in the US advance wars has proven to be a series well worth playing in all of its iterations. i’m definitely looking forward to seeing where the series goes from here.

advance wars links … conquered!
- entry at wikipedia
- FAQ at gamefaqs, including a damage chart
- you can get a PDF of the manual at nintendo.com
- entry at strategywiki.org including regional differences
- you can get a the official site has a few wallpapers
- entry at metacritic.com

cat and mouse MANIA

although my first foray into the sega dreamcast library was fairly random, there were several dreamcast-exclusives that were high on my list of games to check out. among them was the party puzzler chuchu rocket!, created by none other than the sonic team. i’m not exactly sure where i first heard about the game, but it looked like a colorful, quirky sega game, and although it’s not that well known those who do talk about it give it positive reviews.

the entry at wikipedia gives a good run-down of the space-mice-guiding, space-cat-avoiding gameplay (according to the manual chuchus are not mice; they’re space mice). i enjoyed the frantic pace of the multiplayer mode at first and definitely appreciated the style, well within the usual flashy-but-fun sega aesthetic, but i lost interest once i realized the game doesn’t require very much strategy: the outcome changes so quickly that winning involves more luck than skill. there are two other modes, stage mode in which you place arrows in real time to direct the space mice to their rocket, and puzzle mode where you’re given a limited number of arrows to position before setting the space mice and space cats loose on their fixed paths, rather like setting a rube goldberg contraption in motion. the former gets prohibitively difficult without another player to help out, but fortunately the puzzle mode is worthwhile enough that it makes up for the deficiencies of the other two modes. beating the stages in puzzle mode oftentimes ends up being a matter of trial and error, particularly for stages that are highly dependent on the movement speed of each space mouse or cat, but many of the stages are so ingenuous that the entertainment comes as much from finding the solution as just the act of setting the chuchu machine in motion and watching it chug along. the game apparently includes 100 of these puzzles and allowed users to submit levels online; apparently 2500 of them were included in the game boy advance release of the game. although i enjoyed beating a fair number of the puzzles in the dreamcast version, 2500 more seems like overkill. still, once i get through the dreamcast puzzles i’ll know where to head to next.

chuchu! make way for a rocket-full of space mice links!
- if you’re looking for wallpapers, the game disc actually includes some. rad!
- FAQ at gamefaqs
- list of unlockables at gamespy.com
- a review of the GBA game (apparently a launch title) at nintendojo.com

wars advanced … again!

just when i thought i was safe from my fire emblem obsession, somehow i got sucked into an entry in its sister series, advance wars, in particular advance wars: dual strike for DS. i had just finished advance wars 2 for GBA, and although i had to force myself to finish that game i had dual strike on hand so i thought i’d just dip into it, as is my wont.

and before i knew it i was hooked! the situation was somewhat similar to my experience when i immediately followed up the somewhat dull and tedious metroid prime 2 with metroid prime: hunters: dual strike turned out to be different enough from AW2 that the experience felt much more refreshing than its predecessor. although the core mechanics are still the same, the game has a host of additions even within the main campaign mode. the main addition is the new tag-team mechanic where you can switch between COs during battle. this change doesn’t seem like it should be nearly as fun as it is, but it’s satisfying to unleash a “dual strike” attack when both of your COs’ attack meters are completely full. the dual strike mechanic is a bit broken in that you get two consecutive, CO-powered turns and it’s easy to completely overwhelm your opponent, but bracing yourself for your enemies’ impending dual strike attack fits fairly well into the overall strategy. the new units are all fun and worthwhile, and the new COs (both enemy and ally) are entertaining as well. the game also adds “dual front” battles where two distinct maps are presented simultaneously on each screen (although most of the time the computer’s AI handles the top-screen battle and you just have to provide support in the form of units you send to the top screen), as well as CO levelling which provides bonuses in battle that are minor but another nice distraction (and you can choose to ignore them if for some reason you don’t want to use them).

beyond all of these gameplay additions are a host of new modes as well. the most straightforward of these are three survival modes (money, turns, and time) that turn out to be a lot of fun. a new real-time “combat” mode provides an occasional diversion, although it isn’t deep enough to be worth spending much time with. one of the most compelling additions for all the obsessive completists out there (such as myself) is the history feature, which tracks such useless stats as number of turns used and number of enemy units of each type destroyed. each stat has 3 “medals” you can earn, and although earning them is much more a matter of gameplay time than skill, it’s still fun to watch your medal count go up as you progress.

looking back on the game it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what made this iteration of the series (the 3rd for the US) so compelling. being able to level up your COs somehow makes one more attached to them, and i appreciated the fact that the later maps in the campaign mode aren’t the long, drawn-out affairs that its predecessor has. and although the additions seem relatively minor, they add up and give the game quite a unique feel, especially after the sameness of AW2. the series ended up going in a different direction for the next installment, taking on an entirely new cast, so for now the game has become the third of the “advance wars” trilogy begun with the original advance wars for GBA. it’s a fitting conclusion to the trio, with a host of new features that easily propels this to the top of my list of not only favorite advance wars games, but favorite games ever. now what about that fourth advance wars game? well, any guesses as to when i’ll get around to playing that one? … hmmm? … …

more links advancing to the battlefield!
- entry at wikipedia
- complete script at gamefaqs, especially useful if you’re wondering what the outcomes are of the two choices you’re presented with after the last battle of the campaign mode
- list of unlockables, detailed CO FAQ (including tag affinities), and detailed attack and defense stats FAQ at gamefaqs. (i still don’t understand why the game doesn’t give explicit defense stats, but ah well.) you can also find a damage chart here at advancewarsnet.com.
- you can get a PDF of the manual at nintendo.com
- guide at IGN