readvancing upon the original advance wars

i finally finished the long game i’ve been playing, which was a replay of what has become a classic, the original GBA advance wars. i had first played the original almost three years ago, and although it was a little slow in coming i eventually grew to love the series almost as much as i love the fire emblem series. [most of this review is going to get into minutiae, but if you’re interested in info on the original game mechanics check out this review at edge.]

when i had first played the game i had just finished playing all four (up to then) US-released fire emblem games and one of the japan-only titles, so i was a bit disappointed in AW‘s lack of plot and the focus on battle tactics over levelling up a set of characters. coming back to this after having played the rest of the AW series was a pleasurable rush of familiarity and appreciation for how perfect this game truly is. the characters are lovable and their CO powers distinguish them well; the battle mechanics are absolutely top notch; the graphics and music are excellent; and there’s an enormous number of maps with a fully satisfying level of variety among them. although i adore dual strike and in many ways consider it to be the pinnacle of the series (well, the US series at least, as i haven’t yet dipped into the japan-only titles), the original makes a strong case for not injecting the core game with steroids and in some ways overloading the game with a glut of extra features.

a lot to love, so it seems churlish to have any complaints. this time through i did an S-rank run of the normal campaign mode, and chose my route in order to unlock the rest of the COs. it didn’t end up being too difficult, although i chose sami the whole way through and her missions are probably harder than andy’s or max’s. i also S-ranked the first war room maps and tried out the hard campaign mode, and here’s where things started to get dicey. a large part of the reason i like the fire emblem and advance wars series is that, unlike a game like chess, the emphasis isn’t on planning far ahead and instead a general strategy will suffice. but when trying to S-rank maps and in what i’ve experienced so far of the hard campaign this isn’t always the case, and although i enjoyed the “puzzle” aspect of some of the maps, at times it feels like there’s too much “try and die” gameplay. the game feels less cheap overall than other games with more-egregious cases of such gameplay, because as this article at edge puts it: “It’s not so much trial and error as trial and education, each mistake teaching you a little more about the impeccable clockwork that powers the game’s simple, stunning mechanics.” although oftentimes the lessons learned from a particular map do feel like they’d be applicable to others, the amount of memorization that can get to be involved and working out the timing of where your units can be on what day compared to the enemy’s can really make the game feel like a chore. also, although in the war room you can choose from all the available COs, because of the strict speed requirements if you’re trying to S-rank you more often than not have to rely on sami or max, which makes that section of the game feel more repetitive than it could have if it had had more varied objectives and conditions (as another example, sonja is completely useless in this mode since none of these maps feature fog of war). the fact that the war room maps also don’t include any pre-deployed units also make them feel too same-y.

despite my mild complaints, the game is clearly still a grade-A (or should i say “grade-S” ;)?) classic, and although i don’t think i’ll be tackling the hard mode any time soon i’m definitely looking forward to returning to this at some point in the future, as well as replaying the others in the US series. although since playing this i’ve had an overwhelming desire to play a fire emblem game again …

roll, tanks, roll! readvancing some advance wars links:
– this is still the best FAQ overall for the game’s campaign modes, although it misstates the requirements to unlock nell, which is that you have to beat the advance campaign
– advancewarsnet.com has some great info including a guide to the war room, guides to the campaign modes, the soundtrack, and sprite sheets and animated GIFs
– the similar-sounding site advancewars.net also has some great content, including CO sprites and a damage chart
– text of the entire script
– war room guide at gamefaqs
– this look back at the making of the original advance wars at edge from a year ago doesn’t have any great insights, but it’s one of the few interviews with the creators that i’ve seen

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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

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

advancing wars

i’ve been playing advance wars 2: black hole rising for GBA on and off for ages, but i finally finished the normal campaign mode a couple of weeks ago. i’d been playing it for so long that i’ve forgotten what the game added compared to the original advance wars, which i’d played a while back. this review at cubed3.com has served as a good reminder; the main additions to the sequel were: super CO powers, a handful of new COs (each with their own unique powers), some new weapons including neotanks and missile silos, and some new enemy hazards including cannons and lasers. in terms of the structure the game has quite a different feel from the first game because instead of three COs that you use for the majority of the game, in the sequel you’re required to use a new group of COs after every few maps. i actually prefer a bit more continuity, but this change does mix things up a bit.

in some ways i enjoyed this game more than the original, partly because i knew more about what to expect so i wasn’t as fixated on the lack of a story or characterization (esp. as compared to my beloved fire emblem series), and partly because i didn’t have to go through all the work of learning how to play the game so this time i could just enjoy the game and its undiluted tactics from the very beginning. but although the changes weren’t insignificant, somehow all in all it just felt too similar. this makes the second sequel i’ve played recently that was more disappointing than not due to its lack of innovation (the other being metroid prime 2). i was starting to get worried that my interest in the advance wars series as a whole was on the decline, but i started the DS games and luckily they both look like they’re different enough to make them worth checking out. early intel indicates that we may receive reports on that sooner than later …

advance! links against links on the battlefield!
– entry at wikipedia
– PDF of the manual at replacementdocs.com
– good FAQ at gamefaqs
– S-rank FAQ, also at gamefaqs
– guide at IGN

advanced wars

after becoming such a fire emblem-obsessed freak, it’s no surprise that having exhausted all the english-released FE games i turned my attention to FE’s sibling series, advance wars, as it’s known in the US. the original entry to the series (called famicom wars, for the japanese NES, and only released in japan) was released less than two years before the first fire emblem, and both are developed by intelligent systems (along w/ the paper mario and warioware series).

it’s easy to see the similarities between the two series as both are turn-based strategy games, and no doubt there are many who are fans of both. but there are also significant, inherent differences that make it seem likely that there are many more who are fans of one but not the other. on the fire emblem side there’s an actual story with a huge cast of well-delineated characters, along w/ the fantasy setting and the strong RPG feel. in contrast advance wars is much more about the tactics, as your units never get upgraded and you have to manage their production by capturing cities and factories. all in all i def. prefer the fire emblem series, as story and characters add so much to games for me in general. nevertheless, this is still a top-notch game and there was still a lot i enjoyed in terms of the more undiluted tactics, even despite the somewhat formidable learning curve. w/ advance wars b/c there isn’t much of a story and the gameplay is so focused on the tactics i don’t feel particularly compelled to rush out and play through the sequels. so i’ll prob. replay the main story on the regular mode to unlock the other CO’s and at least A-rank every level before tackling the harder mode. if only the fire emblem DS game would come out sooner!

some advanced links:
– craig harris’s review for IGN is pretty spot on
– FAQ at IGN detailing the CO powers, info for all the units, etc.
– nice guide to all the units at strategyplanet
– damage chart at advancewarsnet.com: for AW2, but i think it pretty much still applies
– details on the calculations at gamefaqs
– guide at IGN: walkthrough for campaign and advance campaign modes