A Review: Advance Wars, GBA 2001
The original teasers and magazine articles really sold this game short, I feel. From my memory, it was seen as a title and genre that would not perform well on a handheld gaming device. I really wish I hadn't listened to those articles, as I was kept from an enjoyable experience for far longer than I would have been if I had taken the plunge. The gameplay consists of leading small armies across land, sea, and air in a campaign to free a nation and save the world, with an overarching plot of sinister masters pulling the strings of their puppets from the shadows. This game has quite the past to it as well. Originally, Advance Wars was never meant to be sold outside of Japan. Nintendo thought that western gamers would not have the patience and interest to play a slower-paced game like this one, much less a turn-based strategy title. In order to appeal to a wider audience, Advance Wars was purposefully developed to be as simple as possible, with a detailed tutorial built into the game that spared the player from reading the lengthy manual. Designer Kentaro Nishimura commented that it was this game that finally opened up Nintendo's eyes to the fact that games like this one would do well with western audiences. Which in turn led to the Fire Emblem series becoming available to the western consumer for the first time. It was rumored, though never confirmed, that Nintendo delayed this title due to the September 11th terror attacks. The game was finally released to European audiences in late 2001, several months after its previously promised release date.
I loved this little gem of a game I really did. I found it to be amazingly simple to get into, with a lot of hidden depth to it that made playing a joy. The characters were all individual and unique and were brilliantly developed and fleshed out, each with their own backstory, motives, and drives. I loved the way that this game played and found that the turn-based system and battles flowed excellently. At first, I was concerned that Advance Wars would suffer from all manner of pacing issues and breaks in play that would come across as jarring. However, the command and combat side of gameplay was relatively seamless for the most part and allowed for far more freedom than I had originally thought it would. The units and their strengths and weaknesses, when combined with the right or wrong CO, gave a level of complexity and replayability to this game that I never thought a hand-held TBS game could ever offer. I did find that balancing was an issue for me at times, and making the 'wrong' choices made maps much harder to win, though that wasn't a huge issue. There were some issues with battery life as well. As the later, more populated missions consumed more power, that could have been more of a 'me' issue than an actual fault or flaw. Still, this game was fun and enjoyable, and it gave me hours of joy and some pretty good memories too.
Visually, I loved how this game looked. The retro style of little sprites and icons looked wonderful, in my opinion, and I loved the little bobbing effect that was given to them when they were idle. The battle screens were very well animated and looked really good, I thought, with the little weapons fire and motion details being quite charming. I liked the CO portraits and thought that they were also well drawn and animated, with their expressions and facial changes being nicely implemented. The world looked pretty good, and I liked the effort put into the various little cities, bases and civilian structures. I really did like the way that this game looked.
Overall, this was a fun and engaging little turn-based strategy game that I really enjoyed playing through.
8/10 – A Good Game!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
I loved this little gem of a game I really did. I found it to be amazingly simple to get into, with a lot of hidden depth to it that made playing a joy. The characters were all individual and unique and were brilliantly developed and fleshed out, each with their own backstory, motives, and drives. I loved the way that this game played and found that the turn-based system and battles flowed excellently. At first, I was concerned that Advance Wars would suffer from all manner of pacing issues and breaks in play that would come across as jarring. However, the command and combat side of gameplay was relatively seamless for the most part and allowed for far more freedom than I had originally thought it would. The units and their strengths and weaknesses, when combined with the right or wrong CO, gave a level of complexity and replayability to this game that I never thought a hand-held TBS game could ever offer. I did find that balancing was an issue for me at times, and making the 'wrong' choices made maps much harder to win, though that wasn't a huge issue. There were some issues with battery life as well. As the later, more populated missions consumed more power, that could have been more of a 'me' issue than an actual fault or flaw. Still, this game was fun and enjoyable, and it gave me hours of joy and some pretty good memories too.
Visually, I loved how this game looked. The retro style of little sprites and icons looked wonderful, in my opinion, and I loved the little bobbing effect that was given to them when they were idle. The battle screens were very well animated and looked really good, I thought, with the little weapons fire and motion details being quite charming. I liked the CO portraits and thought that they were also well drawn and animated, with their expressions and facial changes being nicely implemented. The world looked pretty good, and I liked the effort put into the various little cities, bases and civilian structures. I really did like the way that this game looked.
Overall, this was a fun and engaging little turn-based strategy game that I really enjoyed playing through.
8/10 – A Good Game!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
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