I didn't know much about Advance Wars until the recent GBA release on the Virtual Console. One trip to the wiki and maaaaaaaaaan
. now I really want some Advance Wars characters. Really hope we get at least one.
Oooh, ooh! Like I did with
Ganondorf, let me use this opportunity to promote
Andy as a playable character and how I feel like Smash could really capture the essence of Advance Wars!
ANDY
Advance Wars is a series about tactics and strategy, utilizing units of various types and strengths across a map. I feel like a character representing the series should capture that gameplay aspect in their moveset.
With that in mind, I think Andy is probably the most familiar face to represent Advance Wars. Being somewhat of a younger person and having his iconic wrench also makes him an ideal character to explain why the Advance Wars rep is using wind-up mechanical toy soldiers in their moveset.
Toy Soldiers?
Yes, you'll notice all of Andy's moves use toy soldiers. This is a way to represent the various Advance Wars units in a way that makes sense in Smash; they're smaller, disposable, and not autonomous. Like ZSS's whip and boots or DeDeDe's mechanical hammer, this can be a Smash-specific "explanation" for Andy's moveset that still builds on his character a bit ("Andy likes building and playing with his miniature units to practice his strategies for the battlefield!").
All of Andy's B moves result in persistent units that can receive damage and even be destroyed. They will each have a max "health" of three (represented by the number of units that appear) and passively recover health over time. Andy himself will be somewhat weak and instead relies on strategic deployment and use of his units around the field.
Neutral Special: Infantry
Infantry units immediately appear surrounding Andy and will fire several rounds in a circle around him, dealing a light amount of damage. They can act as a pseudo-shield by absorbing some hits before dying and can act as a damaging buffer between Andy and his opponents. Their damage and hit stun will increase with their health.
Side Special: Recon
Recon units will immediately shoot forward, driving to the end of the current platform all while firing weak bullets in the space immediately ahead of them. Enemies will be pushed back a bit as the recon units perform their drive-by. They will despawn at the end of the platform. How much damage they deal and how far back enemies are "carried" by their fire depends on the health of the recon units.
Down Special: Artillery
Deploys artillery units at Andy's current location and facing his current direction. When Andy next uses this move, the artillery units will fire shells in an arc in their facing direction. After a cooldown period, they can fire again. Holding Down Special will redeploy them at Andy's current location. The number of shells fired will depend on the health of the artillery units.
Up Special: Battle Copter
Battle copters will spawn immediately above Andy, staggered so that each extra battle copter appears a little bit higher than the previous one. After a short time, each battle copter will fire a small horizontal missile. If used in the air, Andy will hang on to the lowest battle copter, similar to an edge grab. Andy can then "jump" off this copter as an additional jump. If there are two or three battle copters, Andy can jump to progressively higher copters to gain height as part of his recovery. The less health his battle copters have, the fewer Andy has to use for recovery. (If there are no copters, Andy has no recovery at all!)
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Andy can also incorporate units into his smash attacks (although they won't have health, and only one unit will appear).
Forward Smash: Tank
A tank blasts the space immediately in front of Andy.
Down Smash: Bomber
A bomber drops a blast at Andy's feet.
Up Smash: Missiles
A missile battery fires a short-range rocket at an upward angle.
In addition, Andy's Final Smash will upgrade all of his units!
Infantry -> Mechs
Recon -> Anti-Air
Artillery -> Rockets
Battle Copters -> Fighters
Although Andy will have his wrench for his normals, his relative weakness will make him largely dependent on skillful deployment and use of his units to gain a tactical advantage. I think all of this accurately represents Advance Wars as a series while still adding a new and interesting gameplay style to the Smash series!
/fanboy