I am really cooking lately. This is my third What I'm Playing this week! At this rate, I may end up finishing 50 games by the end of the year, which would be incredible. Anyway, on to Advance Wars: Dual Strike.
High school, for me, was filled with playing a lot of games by Intelligent Systems. My friends and I all loved the two Fire Emblem games for the GBA, and the two Advance Wars games. We frankly preferred Advance Wars, however, due to the hotseat multiplayer that allowed you to play against your friends with only one GBA. We spent many Biology classes passing our little GBA SP back and forth under the desk (sorry Mrs. Fombelle!). So when they came out with a DS iteration of the game, I was very excited.
But I can't remember if I beat it or not, and my cart didn't have any completed save data on it, so I'm assuming I never did. I was feeling getting back into the seat of command of the Orange Star army, so I added it as the next in my handheld queue.
And it was just so great to be back in Cosmo Land. Or is it Macro Land? Nope, it's Omega Land, which is functionally identical to both of the settings of the two previous Advance Wars games. Which is fine by me, as Advance Wars: Dual Strike felt like a remarkably pleasant and nostalgic walk through memory lane.
The Advance Wars games are turn based strategy games, in which you control your army of soldiers, tanks, ships, and aircraft to push back your enemy and seize the day. Gameplay largely revolves around capturing properties, which provide you money each turn and allow you to build bigger and bigger armies with which to crush your opponent. In order to capture these, you must send your infantry out to enter the property and capture it, while building enough vehicles to protect these infantry from attack. The game ends once you've killed every enemy on the map, or once you have captured the enemy's headquarters. Sometimes there are more complex victory conditions in the campaign, but most revolved around one or the other of these two options.
The game's campaign is 27 enjoyable missions long, and follows your path to pushing Black Hole out of a new land. The story is a hackneyed and tired environmental screed in which Black Hole is destroying the environment to power their military force, and I love it. Story, after all, is not why you turn on this game.
The campaign has a decent difficulty curve, although the beginning and end of the game were much better on the curve than the last missions. The last mission was frankly laughably easy, and the third to last even easier. But the beginning is a master class in gradually introducing the player to the wide range of gameplay options available to you, featuring introductions to basic movement and capturing, gradually increasing the power of vehicles available to you, and increasing your capabilities slowly, so as not to confuse the new player. Because there are a TON of options available to you as a commander.
Speaking of options, the flexibility of the game is one of it's main strengths. Customization is the rule of the day, and the game is balanced (enough) to make you able to play with any approach you like. Want to build ranged units and drop artillery and rockets around your opponents ears? Choose Grit as your commanding officer (CO), and enjoy his increased range and power of his ranged units. Want to push down your enemy with pure brute force, eschewing tact? Pick Max and wreck some face! There is a roster of nearly 20 COs, each with their own approach and tactics, and the vast majority being playable to some advantage. Each CO also has Powers and Super Powers, which build up through a meter while you deal and take damage. Once you unleash them, it will give your army a wide range of bonuses. Add to these COs the dizzying array of different units you can build, and each round of the game can take on new life as you attempt to try to beat that mission that's been troubling you in a slightly different way, or just feel like playing with a different strategy.
In addition to the campaign, the game features a huge array number of bonus maps that you can play to level up your COs, master your craft, and just have fun! You can also play against your friends using the hotseat option, or play wirelessly using 2 DSes (spelling?). Unfortunately, there are no online options to speak of, but as an early DS release, I can understand this.
The DS version comes with a number of mostly great new features. One is that the status screen is now displayed at the top, showing you information such as the amount of defense a particular terrain gives you, the amount of money being generated from a property, and plenty of others. Another is new dual screen battles, in which you fight on two fronts. Winning on one front comes with huge advantages, as you will then be able to gang up on the remaining front once you've knocked out your opponent. Speaking of ganging up, the DS version now allows you to battle with 2 COs at once. This allows you to mix and max your strengths and weaknesses, and makes for some fun interplay. You can also use tag powers, which enable you to use one COs' Super Power, take your turn, and then take the other COs Super Power, and move all of your units again! While fun, this is a bit unbalanced, which is one of my main critiques of the game. You can also use the touch screen to command your units, but I never did, so I can't really speak to it.
The game still looks great, has good music, and plays very well. There are tons of unlockables to get with the points you earn in battles, and you earn more points based on how well you do, as well as how challenging the battle is.
The main downside of the game was the competitive balance in the later part of the campaign, as well as the overpowering nature of the tag powers. The tag powers are one of the reasons why the late game is so simple, as it makes completely destroying your opponent before he gets a chance to move a breeze. It also allows you to control for your CO's weakness in a way that wasn't possible before. So, for example, if you are on a map that starts you off with a ton of indirect units, you can choose Grit, abuse those units until they are gone, and then switch to a more balanced CO for the remainder of the fight. No longer do COs really have defined weaknesses, which is not as much fun.
With that being said, Advance Wars: Dual Strike is a superb game with nearly infinite replay value, as long as you have a friend who likes playing! It's a standout on the DS, and a truly must have title for this beloved little handheld.
I'll give it a 9.2/10.
I'm still not sure which handheld game I'll be playing next, so it'll be a true surprise!
-TRO
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