Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising Ranking: A
Advance Wars and its sequel are very similar games, so I’m reviewing them together. The first Advance Wars came out around the same time Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade first arrived. Both are grid-based strategy games for the Game Boy Advance made by Intelligent Systems. I actually played Advance Wars before I played Fire Emblem, and while I like the latter much more given my love of RPG mechanics, I think very highly of Advance Wars. It’s a unique game in many ways.
Like I said, these are grid-based strategy games, but your units are generic squads composed of things like infantry or tanks. Some maps have pre-deployed units and others have buildings where you can deploy new units by spending funds, which you get from capturing cities. It makes for a rather open-ended strategy game, similar to WarCraft or StarCraft – the player determines what the army composition is going to be and how to use different units. The difference here, of course, is that Advance Wars is turn-based rather than real-time.
What gives the series so much charm are the commanding officers (COs). COs are unique characters that don’t actually take the field, but affect the army with unique abilities. For instance, Sami has stronger infantry, whereas Sonja’s units can see further in Fog of War. In the story mode, the COs interact and display colorful personalities, such as Andy fearing Sami’s wrath or Nell coolly ordering Sami to bring an enemy commander to her “alive” after the commander insults her. By the way, said commander is Lash, and Lash is completely and entertainingly batshit insane.
I’ll comment on the plot even though I’m fully aware plot isn’t the focus of Advance Wars. The series takes place in a world with four nations: Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, and Green Earth. In the first game, an alien overlord named Sturm, head of some alien faction called Black Hole, secretly invades the world and plots to take it over by cloning an Orange Star CO and having the clones launch attacks on every country except for Orange Star. So even though the game’s plot is pretty much just an excuse plot, it’s still oddly convoluted.
At any rate, Sturm’s plan fails and in the sequel, he drops the clandestine stuff and simply launches an overt invasion. So in Black Hole Rising, the excuse plot is at least straightforward. In either case, though, I actually enjoyed the plot, since the CO personalities and interactions are what really drive the story, and those are great.
Advance Wars and its sequel are very similar games, so I’m reviewing them together. The first Advance Wars came out around the same time Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade first arrived. Both are grid-based strategy games for the Game Boy Advance made by Intelligent Systems. I actually played Advance Wars before I played Fire Emblem, and while I like the latter much more given my love of RPG mechanics, I think very highly of Advance Wars. It’s a unique game in many ways.
Like I said, these are grid-based strategy games, but your units are generic squads composed of things like infantry or tanks. Some maps have pre-deployed units and others have buildings where you can deploy new units by spending funds, which you get from capturing cities. It makes for a rather open-ended strategy game, similar to WarCraft or StarCraft – the player determines what the army composition is going to be and how to use different units. The difference here, of course, is that Advance Wars is turn-based rather than real-time.
What gives the series so much charm are the commanding officers (COs). COs are unique characters that don’t actually take the field, but affect the army with unique abilities. For instance, Sami has stronger infantry, whereas Sonja’s units can see further in Fog of War. In the story mode, the COs interact and display colorful personalities, such as Andy fearing Sami’s wrath or Nell coolly ordering Sami to bring an enemy commander to her “alive” after the commander insults her. By the way, said commander is Lash, and Lash is completely and entertainingly batshit insane.
I’ll comment on the plot even though I’m fully aware plot isn’t the focus of Advance Wars. The series takes place in a world with four nations: Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, and Green Earth. In the first game, an alien overlord named Sturm, head of some alien faction called Black Hole, secretly invades the world and plots to take it over by cloning an Orange Star CO and having the clones launch attacks on every country except for Orange Star. So even though the game’s plot is pretty much just an excuse plot, it’s still oddly convoluted.
At any rate, Sturm’s plan fails and in the sequel, he drops the clandestine stuff and simply launches an overt invasion. So in Black Hole Rising, the excuse plot is at least straightforward. In either case, though, I actually enjoyed the plot, since the CO personalities and interactions are what really drive the story, and those are great.