Systems > Game Boy Advance > A > Advance Wars > Staff Review
Sign up for a free user account and you can leave feedback for this review or even submit a game review of your own!
Review by Jason Venter 
Date unavailable
The plot for the game isn't much of interest. Some armies are fighting. Over territory. It's the usual military stuff. There are around three or four main colors which represent the various armies. You will be facing one army in particular, as well as occasional skirmishes with armies of other colors. The lack of fearsome names for each army hits the game's credibility a bit, but it's not so huge a problem as to be troublesome.
Now that you have the fascinating story (sorry, sarcasm has no place in this review; I will try to cease it) thus presented, it's time to learn what you will do about it. The game's goal, of course, is to reclaim your stolen territory and in general fight for the sake of fighting. To help you, you'll have your advisor, as well as sevral members that will join your team. These people each have unique abilities called skills that you will find useful in battle.
Battle. That is, obviously, what the game is all about. So I'll get right to it and describe a typical scenario. Basically, you see things on a map and then you see the next little flag (or flags; there are branching paths at several points) ahead of you. Select it and you go to the map for that area, where the enemy is startled to see that you have arrived before he could unleash his super-devestating forces. You're always a step ahead of that dunderheaded enemy, by the way, which grows so dull as to be perfectly expected.
Once the enemy finishes cursing his luck that you arrived just before he could have a certain victory, your advisor will tell you the conditions for the battle. Most frequently, you can win by either taking the enemy's base or wiping out all his troops while avoiding a similar fate for your own groups. Sometimes, you have to win in a set number of turns (a restriction the enemy does not have, for whatever reason). Sometimes you have to be the first to capture a set number of towns. Whatever the goal, the strategy is often quite similar: pull out your big guns and back them up with 'clean up' crews that can catch any stray enemy troops you might have missed.
What makes the game good is that there are such a wide variety of ways the enemy can screw you over while you are hunting him down. Some maps have snow, which the enemy always finds a more welcome element than you do. Others have rain, or there's 'fog of war', which means your enemy might be only a few spaces away but you'd never know it until you send out recon groups. There's enough variety from map to map to keep you on your toes. And if you let down your guard for even a moment, you'll suffer humiliating defeat.
I found that often, I would die on a map, then return and try a different strategy, then meet with instant success. So basically, a map is all about exploiting a different strategy. It's also about knowing what tricks your enemy can use. You'll often face the same captain, who will flee at the end of one map to pester you another day. He will have a certain ability, such as one that makes his enemies more powerful in snow or allows them to fire so insanely far that you don't stand a chance of winning that particular round of the battle. The small positive note I should mention is that you also have special abilities. That's the good news. The bad news is that your skills are so weak they might as well not even exist. Your troops are often overshadowed by the ability your rival possesses.
There are other elements to a battle that deserve a brief mention. Besides fog of war, you have to face naval battles, air battles, and so forth. These add a lot of variety at a first glance, but basically the same strategies tend to apply. Whatever your enemy has will be more powerful than what you have, but he's an idiot when he comes to using it. All you do, then, is set up your vehicle that happens to be best suited to defending against his attacks, then strike back when he leaves himself open. Along the way, you capture cities so your troops can rest, all as you either wipe him out or take his city.
If this review makes the game sound dull, well, perhaps it's because the game can be precisely that. But it can also be immensely rewarding. There are around 20 stages through which you can play, which means you'll get several intense hours out of this just from one go. And there's a multi-player mode, too, if you happen to have a friend with a copy who wants to link. All of that combines to make Advance Wars one of the best titles for the system so far, but not the best. Translation: buy this if you have enough money to buy more than 3 or 4 games a year, but otherwise save your money. There's bound to be something better available eventually, but not by a whole lot.
|
|
|
Most recent video game reviews written by Jason Venter
The Simpsons Arcade Game (Xbox 360) [February 04, 2012]
Pushmo (3DS) [January 31, 2012]
Unstoppable Gorg (PC) [January 19, 2012]
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure (Xbox 360) [January 08, 2012]
Defense Grid: The Awakening (PC) [January 04, 2012]
|
You can click the tabs on the above bar to choose whether you wish to read comments from visitors who have posted on Facebook, or from registered site users who have left feedback on the forums. Please leave a comment of your own if you have anything to say!
|
|
|
Follow Us |
Advertise exclusively for 1 month... only $1000!
Recent Forum Discussions
+ Alpha Olympics 2012
+ JoeTheDestroyer's Tales of Phantasia review
+ holdthephone's Final Fantasy XIII-2 review
+ Where's SkyWard Sword's review ? And please bring back the rating feature.
+ JoeTheDestroyer's Area 51 review
+ zippdementia's Mega Jump review
+ [News] Schafer has pitched Psychonauts 2, Minecraft dev says 'let's make it happen'
+ playstation vita, yo.
+ RotW January 29 - February 04 2012
+ Games to be added to the database...
+ The Final Fantasy XIII-2 thread
+ [News] Final Fantasy X HD will be a remaster, not a remake
Staff Game Reviews
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| SoulCalibur V |
| The Simpsons Arcade Game |
| Quarrel |
| Star Ocean: The Last Hope |
| Pushmo |
| Medal of Honor: Airborne |
Site Staff
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |
Featured Reviews [+]
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Rayman Origins |
| Othello |
| Scarface: The World is Yours |
| The Last Express |
| Golden Axe II |
| Assassin's Creed: Revelations |
Exclusive User Reviews [+]
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Tales of Phantasia |
| Mega Jump |
| White Knight Chronicles |
| Dragon Wars |
| F-Zero GX |
| Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door |
Info |
Help |
Privacy Policy |
Contact |
Advertise
© 1998-2012 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site--from reviews, guides, cheats and editorials to message board posts--may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Advance Wars is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Advance Wars, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors.
