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Advance War were declared.
Sterica
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
And as we all know, unlike normal war, Advance War is fun and sometimes even cute.
The Advance Wars series (Nintendo Wars in Japanland) is yet another gem bestowed upon us by those wonderful people at Intelligent Systems. In the turn-based strategy family, Advance Wars is the standard military man, with his sister Fire Emblem being the fantasy RPG hippie. You can't ever bring Florina back, but we always build more fucking tanks. OO-RAH.
The series has is well established in Japan, but is new by comparison in North American (debuting on the GBA where as it's been around in Japan since the NES). Let's stick to the more familiar entries for now (since I personally know jack about the Japanese exclusives).
Advance Wars (2001)
Oh the classics. Advance Wars was released very early in the GBA's life, and the GBA needed AAA titles like this. I mean, I was personally Castlevania'd and Chu Chu Rocket'd out and just sticking with Mario Kart.
Having the unfortunate release date of September 9th, 2001 (which, if I recall correctly, led to release issues in Japan), the game features turn-based military ackshun.
The game has a loose rock-paper-scissors format with the units. Anti-Air lives up to its name and trumps air units, but tanks easier wreck anti-air. Tanks, however, are at the mercy of the skies. I say "loose" because you have ranged units that can wreck havoc from afar without fear of retribution, but are defenseless once the other units draw in close. Lowly infantry were weak, but the only units capable of mountain climbing and, most importantly, building capture. More on this later.
By which I mean now: there is no base building in Advance Wars. Buildings start off as neutral or under player control. You must press forth and capture these buildings with infantry. Some buildings just offer money and repair services. Other can construct new units. Capitals, however, will end a game for that player if captured.
Commanding Officers (COs) are the other wrinkle to game play. They have their own effects on your units that ultimately shape your strategy. Max is good at close combat with tanks and the like, but suffers at ranged warfare. Drake has a strong Navy, but weaker Air Fore. Andy has no weakness nor strength, but looks like a dork. Furthermore, as battles rage on, you build up a meter that enables a CO Power. Again, these are dependent on your CO. Eagle wins coolest power by getting, in essence, a second turn.
Advance Wars had a great campaign (with a harder second difficulty) and tons of features. Unlockable maps and COs, a War Room that offered different scenarios against the AI and your own Map Maker. Multiplayer was great: don't be fooled by the cover...linking up for four player was foolish. You could simply do a "hot seat" mod that let you pass one GBA around. It certainly saved on batteries and prevented a link cable mess.
The people, of course, wanted MOAR.
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (2003)
Despite the porno-ish subtitle, Advance Wars 2 was mighty good. While some said it was more an expansion than a real sequel, we got a lot of goodies.
The campaign was improved, offering a less linear and more expansive narrative. More COs were added (including Black Hole COs besides the normally banned Sturm) and things were balanced a bit. CO Powers had TWO stages now. A bar was divided into little and big stars. Once you had all the little stars filled, a CO Power was ready for use. Let it keep filling and you can unleash a Super CO Power. The length of the bar varied between COs, so you could go for a more swingy power that you used less or a weaker, but more frequent power.
Not a lot of new units, but the Neotank did offer a shitload of firepower for the large pricetag.
More maps, more unlockables, and the return of Map Maker and Hot-Seat Multiplayer. The interface was also improved, and all was good.
Of course, the people wanted even MOAR.
Advance Wars: Dual Strike (2005)
Fuck Nintendogs: in late summer/early fall of 2005, I was eagerly awaiting this gem. Two screens meant a nicer interface to be sure, but it always introduced a bevy of features.
A second front would be added in certain battles, meaning you had two games in one going on, and the fate of the top screen's battle would give you an edge or disadvantage in the bottom screen's main front.
The bigger change was dual COs. You'd have an "active" CO and gain that CO's pros and cons. But, the end of each turn allowed you to switch to the other. Each CO had a power meter, and if you were patient enough to let BOTH of your COs get a full meter, you could unleash a Tag Power. Your first CO fights with his or her Super Power active then you get a second attack phase with your OTHER CO's super power active. Certain COs work differently together and could receive further boosts or penalties during a tag.
Sadly, I found a lot of new COs here a bit...lacking. Instead of strengths and weaknesses, a lot just had very mild strengths and no weakness at all. I liked Grimm, who gained a nice offensive boost but at the cost of armo. Jake, however, just gained 10% power on plains. And a lot of people hated his localization. Word.
But lackluster COs are made with more units! The Megatank, because you just can't have enough tanks right? While boasting monster power, it has limited ammo and must rely on an APC to keep the gun firing. It's low movement also makes it harder to use for offense on larger maps, as your opponent has more time to respond. But, with its incredible armor, it is great for base defense. Piperunners are ranged units available only if the map has, well, pipes. Carriers can store air units and provide your Navy with ranged anti-air firepower. Black Boats can provide minor repairs, supplies and transport infantry. Stealth Fighters provide an answer to all unit types and, well, stealth...but drain fuel a lot and are no match for the Jet. Black Bombs are the Advance Wars' answer to the Zerg's Scourge. An air unit that explodes and damages nearby units. Oozium, while not available to the player, is worth a mention. It's a blob that moves one space at a time and instantly kills any unit it moves on.
Another feature is Comm Towers that can be captured like other buildings, but also provide increased attacked.
All the old stuff of the series is back, along with a neat real-time Combat mode that's a fun diversion. No longer bound by link cables, multi-DS multiplayer is a bit more fun, but full-featured, single cart and single DS hot-seat action are available for the cheapskates.
And no, I have no idea why they didn't name it DS Wars.
The Spinoff
Battalion Wars was originally Advance Wars Under Fire, but changed (rumor has it they didn't want to risk tainting the Wars series' name on it). It's radically different from the Wars series (fancy pants real-time and all), but worth playing. It's like Pikmin with guns. Beware of annoying voice acting, though.
And it also has a sequel due for the Wii, which will no doubt be waggle-laden. It's Battalion Wars 2, or BWii for short. And that is NOT a lame Wii joke I made up, and I have proof:
Blame Nintendo if you wish.
Of course, the logical future for the main Wars series is...Wi-Fi. Like...now. Not tomorrow or in a few hours. This very second. I'd probably pay full price if they remade Dual Strike with good Wi-Fi support. I haven't heard anything about a new game, but we're probably bound to get an announcement about a new DS iteration shortly here, and I'd be very surprised if they didn't give us sweet sweet online.
There are several browser-based Advance Wars games (some flash-based ripoffs, others not so much), but they're of dubious legality so you can find them on your own.
It's a serious with plenty of replay, be it single or multiplayer. Fights your friends or just do a bunch of War Room maps. Or make your own challenging maps tp beat the AI or fight buddies on.
Advance Wars: good for your handhelds. Good for you.
The Advance Wars series (Nintendo Wars in Japanland) is yet another gem bestowed upon us by those wonderful people at Intelligent Systems. In the turn-based strategy family, Advance Wars is the standard military man, with his sister Fire Emblem being the fantasy RPG hippie. You can't ever bring Florina back, but we always build more fucking tanks. OO-RAH.
The series has is well established in Japan, but is new by comparison in North American (debuting on the GBA where as it's been around in Japan since the NES). Let's stick to the more familiar entries for now (since I personally know jack about the Japanese exclusives).
Advance Wars (2001)
Oh the classics. Advance Wars was released very early in the GBA's life, and the GBA needed AAA titles like this. I mean, I was personally Castlevania'd and Chu Chu Rocket'd out and just sticking with Mario Kart.
Having the unfortunate release date of September 9th, 2001 (which, if I recall correctly, led to release issues in Japan), the game features turn-based military ackshun.
The game has a loose rock-paper-scissors format with the units. Anti-Air lives up to its name and trumps air units, but tanks easier wreck anti-air. Tanks, however, are at the mercy of the skies. I say "loose" because you have ranged units that can wreck havoc from afar without fear of retribution, but are defenseless once the other units draw in close. Lowly infantry were weak, but the only units capable of mountain climbing and, most importantly, building capture. More on this later.
By which I mean now: there is no base building in Advance Wars. Buildings start off as neutral or under player control. You must press forth and capture these buildings with infantry. Some buildings just offer money and repair services. Other can construct new units. Capitals, however, will end a game for that player if captured.
Commanding Officers (COs) are the other wrinkle to game play. They have their own effects on your units that ultimately shape your strategy. Max is good at close combat with tanks and the like, but suffers at ranged warfare. Drake has a strong Navy, but weaker Air Fore. Andy has no weakness nor strength, but looks like a dork. Furthermore, as battles rage on, you build up a meter that enables a CO Power. Again, these are dependent on your CO. Eagle wins coolest power by getting, in essence, a second turn.
Advance Wars had a great campaign (with a harder second difficulty) and tons of features. Unlockable maps and COs, a War Room that offered different scenarios against the AI and your own Map Maker. Multiplayer was great: don't be fooled by the cover...linking up for four player was foolish. You could simply do a "hot seat" mod that let you pass one GBA around. It certainly saved on batteries and prevented a link cable mess.
The people, of course, wanted MOAR.
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (2003)
Despite the porno-ish subtitle, Advance Wars 2 was mighty good. While some said it was more an expansion than a real sequel, we got a lot of goodies.
The campaign was improved, offering a less linear and more expansive narrative. More COs were added (including Black Hole COs besides the normally banned Sturm) and things were balanced a bit. CO Powers had TWO stages now. A bar was divided into little and big stars. Once you had all the little stars filled, a CO Power was ready for use. Let it keep filling and you can unleash a Super CO Power. The length of the bar varied between COs, so you could go for a more swingy power that you used less or a weaker, but more frequent power.
Not a lot of new units, but the Neotank did offer a shitload of firepower for the large pricetag.
More maps, more unlockables, and the return of Map Maker and Hot-Seat Multiplayer. The interface was also improved, and all was good.
Of course, the people wanted even MOAR.
Advance Wars: Dual Strike (2005)
Fuck Nintendogs: in late summer/early fall of 2005, I was eagerly awaiting this gem. Two screens meant a nicer interface to be sure, but it always introduced a bevy of features.
A second front would be added in certain battles, meaning you had two games in one going on, and the fate of the top screen's battle would give you an edge or disadvantage in the bottom screen's main front.
The bigger change was dual COs. You'd have an "active" CO and gain that CO's pros and cons. But, the end of each turn allowed you to switch to the other. Each CO had a power meter, and if you were patient enough to let BOTH of your COs get a full meter, you could unleash a Tag Power. Your first CO fights with his or her Super Power active then you get a second attack phase with your OTHER CO's super power active. Certain COs work differently together and could receive further boosts or penalties during a tag.
Sadly, I found a lot of new COs here a bit...lacking. Instead of strengths and weaknesses, a lot just had very mild strengths and no weakness at all. I liked Grimm, who gained a nice offensive boost but at the cost of armo. Jake, however, just gained 10% power on plains. And a lot of people hated his localization. Word.
But lackluster COs are made with more units! The Megatank, because you just can't have enough tanks right? While boasting monster power, it has limited ammo and must rely on an APC to keep the gun firing. It's low movement also makes it harder to use for offense on larger maps, as your opponent has more time to respond. But, with its incredible armor, it is great for base defense. Piperunners are ranged units available only if the map has, well, pipes. Carriers can store air units and provide your Navy with ranged anti-air firepower. Black Boats can provide minor repairs, supplies and transport infantry. Stealth Fighters provide an answer to all unit types and, well, stealth...but drain fuel a lot and are no match for the Jet. Black Bombs are the Advance Wars' answer to the Zerg's Scourge. An air unit that explodes and damages nearby units. Oozium, while not available to the player, is worth a mention. It's a blob that moves one space at a time and instantly kills any unit it moves on.
Another feature is Comm Towers that can be captured like other buildings, but also provide increased attacked.
All the old stuff of the series is back, along with a neat real-time Combat mode that's a fun diversion. No longer bound by link cables, multi-DS multiplayer is a bit more fun, but full-featured, single cart and single DS hot-seat action are available for the cheapskates.
And no, I have no idea why they didn't name it DS Wars.
The Spinoff
Battalion Wars was originally Advance Wars Under Fire, but changed (rumor has it they didn't want to risk tainting the Wars series' name on it). It's radically different from the Wars series (fancy pants real-time and all), but worth playing. It's like Pikmin with guns. Beware of annoying voice acting, though.
And it also has a sequel due for the Wii, which will no doubt be waggle-laden. It's Battalion Wars 2, or BWii for short. And that is NOT a lame Wii joke I made up, and I have proof:
Blame Nintendo if you wish.
Of course, the logical future for the main Wars series is...Wi-Fi. Like...now. Not tomorrow or in a few hours. This very second. I'd probably pay full price if they remade Dual Strike with good Wi-Fi support. I haven't heard anything about a new game, but we're probably bound to get an announcement about a new DS iteration shortly here, and I'd be very surprised if they didn't give us sweet sweet online.
There are several browser-based Advance Wars games (some flash-based ripoffs, others not so much), but they're of dubious legality so you can find them on your own.
It's a serious with plenty of replay, be it single or multiplayer. Fights your friends or just do a bunch of War Room maps. Or make your own challenging maps tp beat the AI or fight buddies on.
Advance Wars: good for your handhelds. Good for you.
Sterica on
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BWii has WiFi play.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
I still haven't beaten the campaign in AW DS yet.
I remember when I first started reading IGN I saw that they gave the first AW a perfect 10. I wanted to buy it really badly, but it was so hard to find. I eventually found a used copy at EB that I had my Dad drive me to in early 2002 to buy(I was 14 at the time this game came out). To this day I don't think I've put more hours into a single game than the first AW.
Gave 2 away, haven't opened DS. Figure nothing can be as good as Fire Emblem or Front Mission.
Sasha, on the other hand, owns my heart.
Though I am fond of Grit.
They've got to be making another one for DS, right?
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
And the casualties are in the thousands.
When I got the DS Lite, AW:DS was the third game in a "Buy Two, Get One Free" deal and got even less attention than the first.
This time, though, I'm just playing in the War Room, working on CO rankings and S ranking maps. It's pretty much the only game I've played in the past couple weeks.
How do the rest of you extract the distilled fun from these titles?
That said, I doubt AWDS would light your passion anew.
Isn't this touched on in AW DS at the end?
I think it's a cultural thing within the game world, and there's always one who doesn't really agree with the others.
The Orange Star guys are all, "Yeah, war's a big game! All the COs should shake hands and walk away!" Max seems kind of reserved about that, though, because he doesn't want to be friends with the other team.
The Blue Moon guys seem to recognize that war kills people, but more importantly it kills other people, so they don't really mind throwing their men into a meat grinder. All but Colin, who just wonders if he's being wasteful spending his cash on hired goons who are going to die anyway.
The Yellow Comets seem to see their soldiers as expendable, except for Sensei, because he used to be one.
I never saw much personality from the Green Earth COs, but the heavy emphasis on planes and ships makes me think that they care more about their vehicles than the people inside.
But what the hell, it's a light-hearted little romp. I'm more worried about the crack commando squad that starts taking orders from a DJ kid who probably roller-bladed his way through officer training school.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
But it does make for better chances that the eventual AW sequel will have WiFi.
BWii is definitely a sign, but so many franchises are getting DS Wi-Fi that I can't imagine AWDS 2 not.
They just need to announce the damn thing!
Really, though, I just want another game like Sacrifice.
PSN: super_emu
Xbox360 Gamertag: Emuchop
1) Advance Wars is full of fairly disposable units. Everyone counts in Emblem.
2) Advance Wars became an action shooter/real time strategy game with a bit of Pikmin. Emblem would likely be regular action RPG.
3. Fire Emblem has already made the jump from handhelds to consoles. I look forward to a Wii Emblem with purty graphics.
I could see myself playing this game and nothing else for the next three months. It's that big.
"what that?"
"war were decleared"
you know, i honestly want BWii to be Wi-fi. thered be bitches who would complain "OMG WHY CANT THEY DO 16 ON 16?"
i would easily be happy with a one on one match mode.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
Fire Emblem seems to be returning to consoles (it has a Wii in the works), but it seems like Wars is staying on handhelds.
At first when I saw Batallion Wars announced, I thought it'd be like sacrifice.
Hoping for the second coming, even if it had to be in another guise.
But I have never played BW (lack of GC at the time), so I could ask you guys: how good was it?
BWii maybe something to really look forward too.
I think Grit is my favourite CO, all relaxed and stuff. No worries, boss.
I have and love the portable AW's.
I even have Colin's (one of my favorite CO's) theme from AW2 as the ringtone for my cell-phone.
I think it's been there for about two years too.
edit: ah, there it is: Ninjatoes!
With thanks to Muddbudd and his papercraft thread.
Anyway, how close are these two series?
EDIT: Sorry for the derail. I know this is an Advance Wars thread, and not a Battalion Wars thread, but the OP piqued my interest in the home console iteration.
Switch - SW-3699-5063-5018
Yes it is a very chess like game.
Holy shit Rorus, thank you so fucking much. I've been looking for those forever.
Sasha's theme is my favourite of all of them.
Dual Strikes were so much damn fun to setup and execute. Also, Eagle + Sami combo = win. Extra turn from Eagle, then capture every city in a single move with Sami. There's something awesome about killing Neotanks with Mech infantry.
I played that game for a month straight, finished it on Hard too just to unlock the little bits that were left.
The music in that game is excellent, I could spend ages just listening on the jukebox.