While the Fire Emblem franchise has always been my favorite turn-based tactical game from Nintendo, the Advance Wars series has always held a special place in my heart since it first launched on the Game Boy Advance 22 years ago. I always enjoy how these games encourage me to be creative with my units and strategies. Whether it hides my army in the fog of war and uses the terrain to annihilate them before they know what they are attacking, or build a large platoon of tanks to overwhelm me. It’s rewarding to see your plan work as intended, and painful when it fails, but you’re always learning something about how to improve your strategy in the future. I feel like
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp’s game modes may not have as much variety, but the amount of variables you can swap around to your liking keeps each battle feeling fresh, even when replaying maps. You can Along with improving the original visuals and music, it incorporates other modernizations such as voice acting, animated shorts, and online play, making it a great way for both veterans and newcomers to experience these classics. 60 hours in Re-Boot Camp spend time on different character alternate missions unlocked after completing each campaign, fighting AI on different unlockable maps, and designing your own maps I experienced both campaigns, including things like that, and a little taster online. Multiplayer.
It took me 15 and 25 hours to complete each campaign on the classic difficulty setting (the hardest available from the start). Even up a notch, the original Advance Wars difficulty curve is consistently on the easy side, thanks in large part to the many missions such as tutorials with new mechanics, victory conditions, and the introduction of new commanders (COs). It’s there – it’s not until the last mission of each section of the campaign that things pick up. , will now include more missions with some surprising difficulty spikes.
“
The mission isn’t necessarily difficult, but due to the range of combat controlling multiple armies and my tactical errors such as losing my last infantry unit to hidden artillery, it took me a while to complete. Some were expensive. Tons of extra turns to wipe out enemy forces instead of capturing enemy bases in a couple of turns. The good news is, if you’ve wanted more challenges, completing each campaign unlocks a new challenge difficulty that has begun to push some of the previous winning strategies to the limit, giving you more CO to use in each campaign. and re-evaluate strategy. A map when given a choice. For those of us who already know how to do the series, it would have been nice to have that mode available from the start.
Re-Boot Camp brings the Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising campaigns to life with the use of 3D graphics, fantastic re-recorded soundtracks, online multiplayer, and turns to help beginners learn from their mistakes. Option to resume and fast-forward combat animations to reduce time between turns if desired. The soundtrack is his one of the highlights for me. Each battle feels fresh as each CO has a different musical theme during their turn. Blue His Moon His Army grit has a bit of Bluegrass in his style to reflect his laid-back demeanor, while Yellow His Comet Sensei theme uses piano and saxophone. , giving his turns an upbeat jazz vibe.
“
Other than updated visuals and new features, Re-Boot Camp maintains a faithful retelling of the war between the various nations of Cosmoland and Macroland and the mysterious Black Hole Army. It’s included in later games such as Dual Strike and Days of Ruin, but he must boot up his DS for the experience. (Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp’s attention to detail in nearly every area makes us expect the third and his fourth games to get the same treatment next.)
Neither story is what I’d call deep, but both have their brighter moments, with the addition of new COs and their various personalities improving the Black Hole Rising campaign. In addition to the COs of the Orange Star Army, the commanders of the other nations get a moderate amount of voice acting to help showcase each character’s unique personality. Based on lack of quantity than. One of the most interesting additions is the inclusion of several animated shorts that I thought an animated Advance Wars show might come up in the future, now that Nintendo has been so successful with the Mario movies.
Each CO has its own specialization in building armies and unique powers that can help turn the tide of battle. A spirited but inexperienced mechanic, Andy is well-balanced with no bonuses or penalties, but with the ability to restore unit health with Hyper Repair his powers make it a safe choice for most battles. It is Outspoken and burly, Max gives all direct damage his units a power boost, while indirect units such as artillery and rockets take a penalty to their maximum range. with raw power.
“
Advance Wars 2 adds new depth to the formula with the inclusion of Super CO Power. These often add alternatives to traditional CO power, such as utility effects such as replenishing a unit’s ammunition and fuel, or increasing visibility in the fog of war. The carefree Special Forces Commander Sami gives his infantry units huge bonuses when he activates his Super CO power, allowing him to capture buildings, including enemy headquarters, in one turn, giving his infantry units the ability to emerge victorious from even the worst of circumstances. give to of the situation.
It is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of each. Many battles in Advance Wars can devolve into contests over who has superior numbers, but using the right units in the right positions can render even the largest army incapacitated. One of the most common tactics is to place more durable units, such as medium tanks, on bridges to block the enemy’s advance, and to attack enemy forces with artillery and rockets to disarm them. is to reduce the number of , so that an attack can be launched. Building an army of units that cover land, air, and sea gives your strategy a lot of versatility on most maps, and building a CO strength often gives scale an advantage. Battles that take place in the air are best with COs such as the Eagle and Sensei, which give large boosts to various air units, but Grit’s long range makes it easy to knock enemies out of the shadows of maps with fog of war. It can overwhelm you.
“
At the end of the mission, Advance Wars will rate you based on your speed, power and technique. So the faster you claim victory while efficiently destroying enemy units without losing your own units, the higher the rating you’ll earn and the new maps, music, and CO in off-campaign game modes. You will have more currencies to unlock. This will help improve the mileage you get from Advance Wars, as its replayability depends on unlockable content. So the higher your rank, the faster you can unlock more content to give you more options and further extend your play.
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp’s customizable War Room is one of the areas I’ve replayed the most, and I expect it will buy me the majority of my time going forward. The fact that you can take on the role of any CO on quite a few maps against a variety of AI-controlled enemies with various customizable parameters like fog of war, weather and victory conditions. means there are almost no restrictions on how you can do it. Each battle can be different, even when revisiting your favorite maps.
And if the included maps start to feel too familiar, you can use the Design Room map editor to bring them back to something new. Everything you see in the campaign is at your fingertips, so if you want to build a map that’s all water and play the Advance Wars version of Battleship, you can. Those maps can then be shared online, so if you have a good group of creative friends, you can trade them into a virtually unlimited amount of content.
Re-Boot Camp’s online multiplayer is one of my biggest disappointments in that it has no matchmaking system at all. This means that you can only play against opponents who are on your friends list, so if you’re the only one in your friends group who owns it, either create more friends or You have to get used to playing only with your opponent. A.I. The lack of matchmaking lobbies on current generation hardware like Switch is very disappointing. Thankfully, with the option of local multiplayer with others on the same console or on your own Switch, it’s sure to see popularity at various conventions and get-togethers.
