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RTTP: Advance Wars, where did this one end up?

woopWOOP

woopWOOP

Member
Advance Wars 1 + 2 were my jam. Borrowed a cousin's copy of 1, then eventually bought my own to take with me on family holiday and that pretty much started my addiction. Even convinced a friend to buy copies and to play against.
Couldn't really get into the DS one with the experience and whatnot, but I actually bought that again on WiiU VC a year or so back and finally played through the whole campaign. Fun game.

That edgy post-apocalypse one I never got into. AW never had much of a story, but the story in that one was extra bad and the characters were really lame. Couldn't finish it. Shame it ended with that one.

I wish the SNES one was released in NA and EU. Back then around that time I was super into RTS games, but our family PC was too crummy to run most of them and even if it could run those games there was no way to play against each other on one system. A SNES AW would scratch that strategy itch completely and would be the kind of game where me and my old multiplayer group would play a match for weeks.

It's too bad the franchise is on ice right now, but a lot of those AW-inspired indie games look like they'll make good substitutes.
 
I

ivanthebearable

Member
I would trade the Fire Emblem series for Advance Wars series any day of the week.

Dual Strike is the most fun for me even if it’s the least balanced by far. (What point is there in using anyone but Sasha, really) The sheer amount of fun content to explore was ridiculous. Sunk thousands of hours into it to complete everything.

Days of Ruin was really good though, even though I prefer the cartoony, colorful vibe of the first 3 games. Really well balanced and got rid of a lot of fluff that DS added (Pipe Runners are the most useless units I’ve ever seen.)

I really liked it a lot. I even did a sketch of Captain Brenner from Days of Ruin for my first Inktober picture!

Really wish this series would come back.
 
ShiroAmakusa

ShiroAmakusa

Member
Thanks for the thread! :)

I really love this franchise. Still have the original GBA and DS games and even put the GBA games on my SNES-Mini.

Your admiration for the sprite work is very relatable to me and it might be the one thing that turns me off of similar games. Take Front Wars (iOS) for example. A plays fine, but the it looks terrible and I can only wonder if the artist/art director just went through a bad time in his life and just didn't bother. :/
 
C

clay_ghost

Member
ivanthebearable said:
I would trade the Fire Emblem series for Advance Wars series any day of the week.

Dual Strike is the most fun for me even if it’s the least balanced by far. (What point is there in using anyone but Sasha, really) The sheer amount of fun content to explore was ridiculous. Sunk thousands of hours into it to complete everything.

Days of Ruin was really good though, even though I prefer the cartoony, colorful vibe of the first 3 games. Really well balanced and got rid of a lot of fluff that DS added (Pipe Runners are the most useless units I’ve ever seen.)

I really liked it a lot. I even did a sketch of Captain Brenner from Days of Ruin for my first Inktober picture!

Really wish this series would come back.
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Think that they will need to add casual mode, marriage system and cheat dlcs for Advance wars to be popular lol.
 
Ceallach

Ceallach

Smells like fresh rosebuds
The disappearance of the wars series is so odd.

There were 12 games over 20 years from Famicom Wars to Days of Ruin then nothing.

Though I guess technically the most recent release is the JP version of DoR Famicom Wars DS: Ushinawareta Hikari in 2013 but that was such a fucking problematic release.
 
F

Firemind

Member
Advance Wars on the Switch would be perfect. Instead of passing the Switch, you can use the seperate joycons to assess the battlefield making the gameplay more fluid. Online multiplayer could mimick online chess browser/app games where you get x hours to make your next move before you automatically forfeit. Come on, Nintendo, you greedy bastards. You're already printing money now. Throw us a bone.

Cerium said:
Advance Wars and Fire Emblem are very different games. They play almost nothing alike aside from the grid. There was no competition.

Every new entry of Advance Wars sold less and less, and the series was effectively dead in Japan long before Days of Ruin. They killed it because no one bought it.
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Then why were Xenoblade 2 and Metroid Prime 4 greenlit?

Linkstrikesback said:
I'm fine with it, honestly. Despite the first three games, they never really made any gameplay advancements that I actually liked. "New biggertank and another level of co power nonsense!" Is hardly going to pull in a bigger audience. The series wasn't going anywhere and the CO powers were so utterly broken by the third game that I'd started to seriously dislike the direction they were going.
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I still maintain that instead of marketing AW as singleplayer FE without waifus, they should market it as online chess with map creation tools and a campaign intended as a tutorial. People young and old still play and enjoy chess. They just need to streamline the online portion because the online infrastructure was hot garbage in Days of Ruin.
 
Falchion

Falchion

Member
The first, second, and Dual Strike are some of my favorite mobile games ever. I remember being on long bus rides with friends and passing around my GBA and taking turns doing a 4 person versus battle. I even made a few maps for us to play on.
 
C

clemenx

Banned
What a biased thread. DoR is incredibly awesome and at worst is as good as the GBA games.

Batallion Wars is great too. You may or may not consider it part of the same series but they're worth a try. Not quite as good as AW tho.
 
F

FrontalMonk

Banned
man, I love this series, even though I only ever beat AW1 & 2. DOR is an underrated gem that doesn't get enough credit just because it had a different art style.
 
G

Griss

Member
I love all of them but Dual Strike was my first and as such is my favourite. I was 21 years old and sick in hospital for about 2 weeks when I got the DS and that game, and it was one of the most memorable and meaningful gaming experiences of my life. One of very few games I put more than 100 hours into - granted this was partially as I was stuck in bed. Yes it was unbalanced and some of the dual screen gimmicks were stupid, but it was still spectacular.

Days of Ruin was also fantastic, if a bit slow at times because of how well balanced it was. A gritty reboot was a shit idea, yet they took that shit idea and made something really surprisingly enjoyable out of it - the campaign story isn't bad at all.
 
F

Firemind

Member
FrontalMonk said:
man, I love this series, even though I only ever beat AW1 & 2. DOR is an underrated gem that doesn't get enough credit just because it had a different art style.
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No War Room, terrible online infrastructure (being on the DS hardware didn't help), CO's muted influence made games even longer to play out, map design isn't as varied nor interesting, Caulder in the last mission, Tabitha in general. DoR had a laundry list of issues. AW1 is the best one from a design standpoint.
 
D

Draxal

Member
Always thought with the War in Iraq that NoA was very squeamish about having a kiddy war game like that with disposable troops.

Firemind said:
No War Room, terrible online infrastructure (being on the DS hardware didn't help), CO's muted influence made games even longer to play out, map design isn't as varied nor interesting, Caulder in the last mission, Tabitha in general. DoR had a laundry list of issues. AW1 is the best one from a design standpoint.
Click to expand...

Japanese sure think us westerners love them lolis, oh wait. I checked it was Penny, just seemed to ridiculous that you wanted to go to the "gritty" world then you have a child co with a teddy bear.
 
D

DavionStriker

Member
Although very rough, my cousin and I played the hell out of Conflict for the NES.

maxresdefault.jpg


I was a poor college kids during the GBA era, so I missed the AW series. I do love some Fire Emblem though.
 
L

Lumination

'enry 'ollins
AWDS is the most fun to play with friends. Tons of COs and dual strike combos.

DoR has the best gameplay for the series. Tighter CO balance along with the empowering a single unit mechanic added more depth and differentiation between the smaller cast. Making infantry cost 1500 was also a great change. The setting was dark, but I still enjoyed the overall plot.

In short, I need another AW. Nintendo please. I've bought all your Fire Emblems, it's time for some quid pro quo here.
 
A

AR15mex

Member
I'm sorry OP but Dual Strike from a gameplay standpoint is freaking awesome. The style I don't mind that much, but the dual strike missions were crazy, cause you had to battle on two different fronts.
 
L

Lumination

'enry 'ollins
Maybe it's because I've played AWDS way too much, but I prefer that art style to the GBA ones. Sure, it's a little pixelated, but I like the skewed perspective and how it toned down the cartoonishness just a little bit (compare GBA cities being wildly top-heavy boxes to the more down to earth cities of DS).
 
F

Feffe

Member
Anyone played Super Famicom Wars and the first Game Boy Wars? How are they?

Older episodes of Wars seem really obscure, whereas Fire Emblem has a very large Fandom.
 
N

ngFROMAN

Neo Member
Question; should I waste my time trying multiple times to beat the Final Battle of the first game with Grit and Sami, or should I concede to Sturm and cut my losses?

P.S. I'm terrible at the games, used a guide to get that far

Edit: Did it on the second try after initially giving up, looks like I just needed a break :)
 
T

twothunder

Member
own and finished all the portable advance wars games. love the series

the first gba aw was my first real strategy game so i was glad for the tutorial... still got very difficult for me later on and got rocked quite a bit

too bad it had to end... unless we want supports in our next advance wars
 
F

Firemind

Member
ngFROMAN said:
Question; should I waste my time trying multiple times to beat the Final Battle of the first game with Grit and Sami, or should I concede to Sturm and cut my losses?

P.S. I'm terrible at the games, used a guide to get that far
Click to expand...
Haha, my condolences. Grit and Sami are literally the worst combo for that map. If it's on normal, it should be possible if you lure Grit to take the first Meteor Strike and let Sami assist Andy with her crappy units. If you're on hard mode... I would give up. I had this combo on hard too and it's basically impossible to stop Sturm's early advances with just Andy. Next playthrough I had Max and Eagle who roflstomp Sturm even on hard. The downside is you get Rivals on hard as the next mission...
 
Terrorblot

Terrorblot

Member
Another thing I always found kinda funny, in the first one (and I think some of the others) you could completely break the enemy AI by spamming APCs, the enemy will *always* target an APC if it's in it's threat range. So you can spam infantry and APCs and just walk in and capture everything while the enemy targets the transports.
 
T

tmdorsey

Member
If ever there was ever a series that begs to be released on mobile it's this one. I would no lie pay full 3DS price for an Advance Wars game I could play on my phone.

A legit IS Advance Wars, not some knockoff, imitator.
 
M

Mr. F

Banned
I'm so sick of fire emblem, AW was always more my jam. Hopefully whenever it returns it brings warioware with it.
 
B

Buzzi

Member
AW is the goat, so sad FE took everything from it.

AW2 was great, but I have better memories with DoR, which felt much more modern in UI and music and also had beter balance overall. I played only Battalion 2 and while some moments are fashinating, it surely fell short from the main series.
 
F

Firemind

Member
Terrorblot said:
Another thing I always found kinda funny, in the first one (and I think some of the others) you could completely break the enemy AI by spamming APCs, the enemy will *always* target an APC if it's in it's threat range. So you can spam infantry and APCs and just walk in and capture everything while the enemy targets the transports.
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Yeah but you can only lose one unit for every ten units you have to obtain an S rank. It's not like you can do it without consequences. You pretty much have to use this tactic to get an S rank in speed on hard mode.
 
zenspider

zenspider

Member
Cipher Peon said:
Days of Ruin is the holy grail of Advance Wars games for me.

I absolutely ADORE its grittiness, and I'd love it if every franchise needs a dark and gritty reboot with the same tone and quality of Days.

I liked the old style, of course, but I'm so glad it got rebooted.
Click to expand...

Agreed, and the reboot brought much needed rebalancing. Best game play in the series as far as I'm concerned.
 
T

TriggerShy

Member
Firemind said:
Haha, my condolences. Grit and Sami are literally the worst combo for that map.
Click to expand...

What bothered me about this; how was I supposed to know that I would've had an easier time if I did not select Max for "Max Strikes!", like, it just feels kind of lame to think that almost all my problems with that map could have solve by picking a different CO.

Anyway, I'd like to share some of my favorite CO themes:

Andy's Theme

Drake's Theme

Kanbei's Theme

Sonja's Theme

Sturm's Theme
 
D

delume

Member
Serious love for this series. Thanks OP for sharing Tiny Metal, I did not know about it but now I do and my life is better for it. :)
 
woopWOOP

woopWOOP

Member
Feffe said:
Anyone played Super Famicom Wars and the first Game Boy Wars? How are they?

Older episodes of Wars seem really obscure, whereas Fire Emblem has a very large Fandom.
Click to expand...
I fiddled around with Super Famicom Wars for a while after I discovered it. It's probably the cartooniest of the bunch, with cute little cutscenes for refueling units and soldiers having a little tug of war when capturing enemy cities (these get old after awhile tho). I also like that the game has actual light - med - heavy classes of tank. Some maps have railroads where you can build these heavy armored railway gun units for. You can also turn on an EXP system so different units can gain a couple of levels and become a bit stronger, if they manage to survive. Other than that it's just a lesser AW1. APCs and other transport units take up a turn when you load in units. Game has COs, but the first 4 COs only determine how the AI plays and the latter 3 all having stupidly overpowered extra abilities. Despite that I think it's still pretty enjoyable.

Never tried the Gameboy games. Couldn't bother with the slowness of the Famicom version anymore so I doubt I'd enjoy those as much.
 
F

Flux

Member
The campaign got pretty difficult as you got towards the end. Playing AW2 over link cable battles in middle school was great
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
Franchise peaked at Dual Strike.

Days of Ruin was very good mechanically, but i absolutely couldn't take seriously the grittiness and shitty attempt at serious story telling.
 
N

norm9

Member
Loved Advance Wars, 2, and the DS version. Tried to get into Fire Emblem, but the characters are lame designs to me. Gimme cute tanks and artillery.
 
Amibguous Cad

Amibguous Cad

Member
I miss being Sami/Eagle and being able to one-turn cap the enemy HQ from like 30 squares away (double movement on a T-copter with eagle's power, drop off infantry, cap with Sami)
 
M

Marow

Member
Played hundred of hours of Dual Strike and it might be my favorite game. That said, I love the others almost just as much. I actually quite like the graphical style in DoR and it brought some very nice balance with good usage of COs (even if the battles felt like they sometimes dragged as a result). DoR's mechanics would be a nice stepping-point for a sequel, particularly in how it integrated COs into the actual battles.

I did replay AW1 last year and it was just as fun as I remembered, albeit with one severe issue:

the AI cheats

God is fog of war pointless if the AI sees you anyway.
 
F

Firemind

Member
Marow said:
I did replay AW1 last year and it was just as fun as I remembered, albeit with one severe issue:

the AI cheats

God is fog of war pointless if the AI sees you anyway.
Click to expand...
Why do you think the developers liked to hide Rockets in forests and Battleships in reefs lol

Also they can't see you if you're in a forest so it's recommended to hop from forest to forest.
 
M

Marow

Member
Firemind said:
Why do you think the developers liked to hide Rockets in forests and Battleships in reefs lol

Also they can't see you if you're in a forest so it's recommended to hop from forest to forest.
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This is actually wrong. In AW1, the AI can see anywhere and as such attack you even if you're out of "visible range". I believe there are other issues too, but I'd need boot the game to try it out in that case (but it includes them often moving next to you in forests/reefs, and I think air units sometimes attack directly despite that?). AW2 fixed the range cheat, though I believe the AI could still read your position.
 
F

Firemind

Member
Marow said:
This is actually wrong. In AW1, the AI can see anywhere and as such attack you even if you're out of "visible range". I believe there are other issues too, but I'd need boot the game to try it out in that case (but it includes them often moving next to you in forests/reefs, and I think air units sometimes attack directly despite that?). AW2 fixed the range cheat, though I believe the AI could still read your position.
Click to expand...
The AI can see you but it needs to move another unit next to your hidden unit to attack you.
 
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