Back in the 1980s, I had tried a few strategy games on the Commodore 64 from legendary developer Strategic Simulations Incorporated, who absolutely defined the genre in those years. These games were incredibly complex, often involving additional maps and charts to supplement what was shown on the screen.
Imperium Galactum was one I had tried, a game of space colonization and conquest, and damn did I suck at it. By the time I had figured out just how to get my first colony established, the computer-controlled enemies were already showing up with their armadas and wiping it out.
A simpler game from Electronic Arts came later called Lords of Conquest (again on the Commodore 64), with lighter resource management and pared-down complexity that made it, as wine aficionados say, “approachable “. I loved it and beat it in a few weeks.
However, it was Military Madness on the Turbografx 16, my 1991 game of the year, that really sent me. While real-time strategy games were just emerging back then, I preferred turn-based strategy as I needed time to think. Military Madness was turn-based, relatively simple to start and grasp, and grew in complexity as the player battled through map after map.
Years later I read rave reviews for both Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising and the Game Boy Advance SP, and once I understood that it was a portable game like Military Madness, I pulled the trigger and purchased both. I was not disappointed, and played the game until I got stuck on the final battle. It was so good it became my 2003 game of the year.
I was also searching for the game’s predecessor, Advance Wars, which was out of print by then. I eventually found it at a record store of all places, and preferring to play game series in order, started that campaign and got pretty far.
However, I didn’t beat it. Since then, I’ve also picked up Advance Wars Dual Strike and Advance Wars Days of Ruin on the Nintendo DS, increasing my Advance Wars backlog to four games.
Fast forward to this decade and my decision to tackle at least one “unfinished business” game each year, and my choice this year was that first Advance Wars on the Game Boy Advance. I started about a month ago, working my way through the campaign one battle at a time in between sessions of Dead Island 2 and while I awaited my new Analogue Pocket.
With Dead Island 2 in my rear view mirror, the Analogue Pocket in my hand, and some free time opened up while visiting family in San Antonio this week, I fully engaged in Advance Wars at last, hopeful that I could finally win this war.
Wisely, I did not continue my previous attempt and started over. Advance Wars does an amazing job of training the player right from the start and slowly introducing new elements in each subsequent battle. The first few fights use land units, with air and naval units showing up later, as well as factories used to create new units.
There’s a lighthearted feel to the game even though war is hell, with a variety of characters involved. The player takes on the role of an adviser to these characters, who are each commanding officers that have individual bonus abilities that slowly build up during battle.
One CO can use this ability to repair damaged units, one can get a boost to damage, and so forth. Once all these characters are introduced, the player can choose between them at the start of each round, which can be an important strategic decision but not a game breaker if one chooses the wrong one.
As stated in my extensive introduction and backstory above, Advance Wars is a turn based game where the player takes a turn and then the computer takes a turn and so on. Tanks move forward to attack, infantry can capture cities, artillery can move or fire, and submarines can sneak around the seas stalking prey.
Capturing cities is important to fund the factories one captures to create new units. However, factories only create land units, and later in the game one must capture airports and naval bases to create those types of units. Like Military Madness, each new element introduced makes the game incrementally more complex, but never overwhelmingly so.
The story plays out as the characters show up and talk at the beginning and end of each battle, slowly revealing a shadowy threat behind all the chaos between the various factions or nations, leading up to the big, final battle.
There did seem to be a huge uptick in difficulty for the last few battles. Whereas the first three quarters of the game seemed to have maps that took me half an hour to an hour to win, the rest were much longer.
For these tough contests, it became necessary to play a few rounds to see how the enemy deploys and start over knowing how best to respond. I should have done that for the final battle, but after a rough start I just kept going, grinding through a brutal stalemate until I could turn the tide.
It made that victory much more satisfying even though I got a “C” grade.
There is much more gameplay than just the campaign on that tiny cartridge, with a link cable versus mode and map designer, among other options. This game is a complete package.
Good news if anyone is interested in the first two games in the series is that they have been remastered and released on the Nintendo Switch. I’ll probably stick to the original again when I get around to my unfinished business with Advance Wars 2 at some point.
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