"Why must I be an advisor instead of a CO?"

Advance Wars was quite possibly the first game that I had ever played on the Gameboy Advance. Centered on the concept of turn based strategic warfare, it really is something different from most Gameboy Advance games. You’ll often here comments about the fact that it makes warfare look comical and diminished. Well it does, not that that’s a bad thing. When your Orange Star forces are destroying Olaf’s army, I’ll seem like your playing a board game not engaging soldiers in bloody combat. There’s such innocence in such horrid acts. Death is portrayed as your soldiers jumping of the screen in the blink of an eye. So without further delay I bring you, Advance Wars: Behind the Game. Or maybe not…

Gameplay
In Advance Wars, you control units on a battlefield controlling them one at a time. Once you finish moving all of your units your opponent gets to move and this continues on through in game days until someone ends up victorious. There are three types of units to control; ground, sea and air. In each of these unit groups, there are different units who serve different purposes such as capturing buildings, transportation or raw powerhouses. When playing Advance Wars you’ll either be able to produce new units in specially designed buildings such as airports or have a determined set of pre-deployed units with which you must you as effectively and efficiently as possible to achieve your goals. If the map allows you to produce new units then you can use the money you receive per turn to produce them. Different units cost different amounts as they have different varieties in things such as power, movement and overall purpose. For each city you control at the end of a day you get $1000. To capture cities an infantry must stay in the neutral or enemy city for as long as required depending on health of the unit and your CO. When playing the game your opponent and you each have a HQ that if captured causes it’s previous controller to lose the match.

The variation of units in Advance Wars isn’t as large as you may like it and some units are often useless. That though doesn’t really dethrone it as a good strategist can often use what’s given to him on a pre-deployed map or build exactly what he needs. When controlling units, there are certain factors to be aware of such as fuel for vehicles, ships and planes and ammo for any non-transport unit. When these run low, the game luckily shows a blinking icon on the unit letting you know to re-supply so you don’t end up facing the enemy without any ammo or your aircraft doesn’t run out of fuel when flying over the ocean. Every unit has a health meter of ten and when engaged in battle this can go down or stay the same depending on the unit it’s fighting or defending against. When the number is zero, the unit is destroyed. Units can attack from close range meaning the squares the two units fighting are adjust or long distance when controlling something like artillery. Long distance units can’t move and fire on the same turn though to prevent them from having an extremely superior advantage. Some units also have special abilities such as the APC’s Supply and the Submarine’s Dive although more units should probably have things like this. There are also terrain types that affect things such as movement and defense against enemy fire. These terrain types can prove quite useful and crucial for a good player. Unfortunately the variety is somewhat limited.

I hate to break it to you but you actually aren’t a CO. You control all the units and make all the decisions but you’re not a CO. You’re an advisor with the power to do what a CO does. Confused? You should be but basically for every battle that you play, you use a CO who doesn’t do anything except for a special power but still gets all the credit. You’re like the artists, level-designers and programmers who work for Shigeru Miyamoto for lack of a good comparison. In lots of places you can choose a CO from the ones currently available to you and in some cases you even choose the CO you fight. Each CO has a special talent such as supreme air units or hidden unit health. This isn’t to say they have certain weaknesses too of course. Unfortunately not all the CO’s are as balanced as one might think. Each CO also has a special power, which can be used when the power meter is filled up. This power varies and when used at the right time can turn the odds in your favor.

When you first play Advance Wars, you’ll most likely start off by going through field training, which is quite tedious but does teach you the basics of the game. Couldn’t they have made field training more fun though? In campaign mode you’ll play through a bunch of maps with either bases or pre-deployed units or a combination of both. Luckily there are different paths you can take in campaign mode depending on your CO selection and battlefield expertise. The overall objective of campaign mode changes quite a bit and sometimes you’ll have no idea what you’re doing and why. After each match you get a rank and a set number of coins depending on your rank. It’s a shame there isn’t a more accurate score though like in War Room. Coins you gain in either Campaign or War Room can be used to buy War Room and VS Mode Maps for you to play on. Of course you can design your own map perfectly to suit your tastes but unfortunately the game can’t hold very many maps in it’s memory. This is quite a good way to make the player more eager to do really good in either of these modes and keep them playing to unlock everything. Another thing that changes as you progress is your rank, which doesn’t really resemble anything, but it can be fun to try to raise as high as possible.

In War Room you play on many maps depending on which you choose obviously. The odds are usually against you with the enemy holding more territory or better territory. This is done to prevent skilled players from easily defeating the AI when everything is equal. After completing a selected War Room you get a Rank, Score and Coins. The top five scores are recorded for each map giving you something to strive for and letting you play the War Room matches over and over again considering you’ll be able to beat the much harder ones where you have three CO’s against you.

VS Mode is quite fun to play with friends or just by yourself, although by yourself you’ll probably be playing Campaign or War Room instead. VS Mode in Advance Wars is great as it offers you a lot of choices when setting up your game such as a wide variety of maps, fog of war, turn limits, teams and weather. You can perfectly customize any game to suit your tastes. This is something you can really do on one of those long road trips. Just pass around the GBA when the turns change. Thankfully when you have fog of war on a little menu screen will pop up when one person’s turn ends preventing them from scouting out your units without you knowing about it. You can also play with multiple GBA’s which prevents the crowding around one screen to effectively see the enemies moves instead of waiting until your turn and then comparing current and previous locations in your mind. It’s a shame though that when you only have one game cartridge the amount of things you can do with more than one GBA is extremely limited.
Gameplay Score: 9.6

Graphics
When you’re on the battlefield you’ll easily notice that the graphics are plain and simple but good enough for you to tell what every unit and terrain type is. Things such as cities and bases and tanks and infantry can easily be told apart but there isn’t much work done to detail to any of the units or terrain when in the main view. Sure it serves it’s purpose well but where’s the meat. Maybe a little animation when a unit is created from a base, airport or port would be nice. Another thing is when a unit is destroyed; it always explodes even if it’s an infantry who kills another infantry.

Now it isn’t all this plain. When a unit actually goes into combat with another unit the screen switches to a battlefield screen that is split in two showing you both units shooting at each other. Each unit is usually represented in half as in the battle screen there are five soldiers or vehicles usually shown for a full strength unit. Different CO’s units look different which adds for some eye candy. You can easily see the units fire at each other and you’ll probably notice the well-detailed backgrounds, as there are things such as parked cars in the background for a unit within a city. The ammunition fired on one side of the screen is shown on the other side as either explosions or bullets pounding the ground. When a unit loses health, the little soldiers fly off the screen in a comical fashion or the vehicles blow up. In the top corners of the battle animations, you can see the participation CO’s faces in a series of emotional expressions depending on the outcome of the fight. Overall the battle animations are very well executed although sometimes the vehicles do look a bit squished on the screen.

The game menus have good backgrounds and easily provide the right information in a colorful fashion. All the ranks scores and map mini displays are also shown well. When CO’s are talking amongst themselves, little icons of their faces are shown and these change depending on their emotions. The words are neatly to the right of the icons and are easy to read.
Graphics Score: 8.2

Sound
When your moving your units around the battlefield, you’ll hear marching footsteps or vehicle noises depending on the units you’re moving. When you collect your cash you can hear it adding up at the end of the turn. During the battle animations, you can hear the sound of gunfire and small explosions timed perfectly. However Advance Wars has a serious lack of sound. You’ll hear four things; the money being collected, unit moving, unit attacking and unit getting destroyed. It’s not annoying but it isn’t anything special either. Each CO in Advance Wars has his/her own music when it’s their turn, however most of the music is extremely annoying and does little to warp you into the battlefield experience. However some CO’s music is fairly good but still there isn’t much worth listening to in this game.
Sound Score: 5

Control
Control in Advance Wars is essentially basic as you use the A button to perform all your move, build, attack and other basic commands. The B button is used to cancel any of these commands before they are finalized and executed. The B button also serves a useful purpose of allowing you to see an enemy’s attack range to prevent yourself from walking into instant death. You can also see your own units’ attack ranges to ensure that you have the distance required to attack the enemy unit. These basic functions can be learned by any one extremely fast and prove to be extremely useful. The start button will bring up the map for you for some reason while pressing the right shoulder button gives you information on the terrain and the unit in that square. The left shoulder button is pretty much useless as it only cycles through available units and you can easier choose what you want yourself. You get the menu by pressing the A button on an empty square or pressing select. The repeating menus are a little bit annoying. Some of the control layout in Advance Wars may be a little weird at times but the system works.
Control Score: 9.5

Lasting Appeal
Advance Wars is filled to the top with maps to play on in the Campaign, War Room and VS Modes. Getting a perfect score in Campaign Mode is one of the hardest things to do and you’ll be rewarded for it. There are also different paths in the Campaign that you can take by achieving certain goals and making informed decisions. War Room has plenty of maps that you can buy from the Battle Maps Shop and you’ll have to play for a while to get S rank and a score of 999 on each. The VS Mode has so many maps available for purchase that I’ll make your head spin. You can always find the perfect map to play with your friends on or against the AI. Pre-deployed, VS, 3 player and 4 player maps will make sure that you’ll receive the gaming experience you want. If for some very strange reason you can’t find the map you want, then just make your own. It’s that simple. Another good thing about Advance Wars is that up to 4 people can play on 1 GBA so you and your friends can have strategic battles anytime. Basically Advance Wars offers so many things to do that you’ll be playing for a long time.
Lasting Appeal Score: 10

Overall
Advance Wars is by far one of the greatest games to grace Nintendo’s Gameboy Advance. Everyone who said it wasn’t possible to have a good strategy game was mistaken by far. Combining warfare and cutesy personal competition between CO’s changes the image of what a war game has to be. With fine tuned gameplay and enough maps to leave you playing for a long time, Advance Wars is a must have Gameboy Advance title.
Overall Score: 9.6

Score Recap

Gameplay: 9.6
Graphics: 8.2
Sound: 5
Control: 9.5
Lasting Appeal: 10
Overall Score: 9.6

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/02/03, Updated 05/02/03