Advance Wars: Dual strike

[chuddy_2001uk]

Mormon battles his way through this Nintendo Gem to give you the full lowdown

Advance Wars has been around for a very long time, dating back to 1988 with Famicom Wars for the NES. This game started a series known as Nintendo Wars, which is a series of military turn-based strategy games developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. This series debuted 2 years prior to its little sister series, Fire Emblem, and most of the series releases have been Japan-only. Advance Wars for the GBA was the first to reach North American and European markets. It is known in Japan as Gameboy Wars Advance, and was not released there until much later. Advance Wars was a huge hit, so they made a sequel; Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising. Although still a great game, it offered more of the same, with only one new unit (Neotank) and only a few terrain inventions. The series became extremely popular over the years, and with the release of a new Nintendo portable, it seem that the time was ripe to make another sequel, with Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

Story

The Black Hole Army has risen from the ashes of their last defeat in Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising with surprising speed and under a new leader. They attack Omega Land with an unexpectedly large amount of forces. There is now a new crew of COs determined to conquer Wars World once and for all, even if that means destroying it. You soon find that Black Crystals are powering this large, new Black Hole army, but at the cost of immense environmental construction. You and many other new COs from various other countries battle to save Omega Land from this terrible destruction.

While Advance Wars veterans will already be tired of the hardly-ever changing storyline, people who have yet to experience Advance Wars will find the story intriguing and interesting.

Gameplay



~The Basics

The player takes the role of Commanding Officer (CO) in an army of some various country, but most of the time Orange Star. In the single-player campaign, each level consists of a new map and opposing CO to defeat. Victory is achieved when all of the opponent's units have been destroyed, their HQ is captured, or another (usually mentioned) victory condition has been applied.
Players take turns to use their units, each of which may be used once per turn, unless certain super CO powers are applied. Resources available include infantry, tanks (in various sizes and forms), fighters, rockets, battleships, and many other military units. At the end of each round, players receive money; the amount earned depends on how many cities or bases you currently hold. Money can be spent in factories by building new units. However, each factory can deploy one unit only once per turn.
Each CO comes equipped with various abilities and powers. For example, the Blue Moon CO Olaf’s units fight very well when it’s snowing, while all other units are bogged down. His super CO power causes a blizzard that damages all enemy units, so you can see that the COs abilities always determine what their power is. You can earn more power by combating other units.
~Campaign
Although the storyline is getting kind of old, the real missions in campaign mode never will. The Black Hole is back (again…) and they bring with them all new kinds of missions that put you in various lopsided situations. These missions provide the kind of fun you’d never really get in the War Room because it comes up with an assortment of situations that really make you think about your strategy more, because it is normally very lopsided. As you work your way through the missions you gain new COs as well as newly invented units. The Black Hole army invents many units (such as Black Boats, Piperunners), and to gain the ability to create them you have to capture a certain city in certain missions, and then capture their lab to get the blueprints. The new units you gain include Aircraft Carriers, Piperunners, Black Boats, Stealth Fighters, Black Bombs, and the humongous Megatank, otherwise known as ownage on treads.
~War Room
The War Room provides you with tons of maps for you, all on various levels of difficulty. You can choose to play a Dual Screen battle or just a normal battle, and you can choose to enable CO rank skills or not. This is the quick pick-up and play part of the game, as you can beat some maps in 10 minutes or less. There is tremendous replayability here, because there are so many maps and you’re always trying to beat your best score on each one. These battles tend to be more equal on both sides, unlike campaign missions.
~Versus
This is where the game truly shines. You can do play hotseat mode if your friends don’t have a DS, which is a lot of fun if you’ve got a few people with you. You can also do the DS download play if you’re friends have a DS but not Advance Wars. Either way, this game is a total blast when playing with other people. It’s just way more fun when you’re not playing a computer, because you can try to pull some crazy stunts and its always funny when your friend makes some stupid mistake like making a piperunner when there are no pipes around. You can also create your own maps for this in the Design Room, which adds a lot of replayability.
~Survival
In this mode you fight through a series of maps with three limitations, money, turns, and time. This is a new addition to Advance Wars, and while its still fun, it just doesn’t compare to the other modes of play.
~Combat
Now this is a very welcome edition to the Advance Wars series; real-time combat. I was very skeptical at first, because it seemed that such a turn-based classic could never really convert successfully to real-time, but it turned out to be very fun. You choose a few units to go into battle with, although you only use one at a time. Move your unit onto a city and wait to capture it, and you can wait on your cities to heal yourself. To win, you must defeat enemy units or capture their HQ. If you run out of units or time, or if your HQ is captured, you lose.


Graphics
Great. Much more sleek and stylish than the GBA versions, though not messed-with too much to take away from the original feel. They made a bunch of little changes in the battle animations, and it might not seem like much to the normal gamer, but it made a difference for me.
It is obvious that they did not focus too hard on the graphics here, but overall the graphics are simple enough to appreciate the battles and be impressed.
Sound
Advance Wars seems to have a reputation for great sounds, and this installment is no exception. They added a lot of new music, which sounds awesome. They also took quite a few tracks from the originals, which would normally be awesome, but some still sound like they’re on the GBA. That’s not too much of a bad thing, since the music was awesome in the first place, but people may still have a problem with that. The battle animation sounds have been completely redone this time, and all for the better. It sounds much more realistic when you fire with your artillery and the destruction of their tanks sounds even better too.
Overall, the new music is beautiful and even the old tunes still sound good. I still much prefer the Black Hole Rising soundtrack, but very few games can beat that.

Gameplay – 10/10
Flawless. Newbies to strategy games will soon find they love the simplicity, and expert strategists will love the level of strategy possible.

Lifespan – 10/10
The endless amount of strategies and maps will keep you playing this title for a very long time.

Sound – 8.5/10
Although a few tracks sound too GBAish, the new tracks and new battle sounds are a joy to listen to.

Graphics – 8.5/10
Not straying from the originals, but more modern and stylish.
(overall)

9.5
The best game of the critically acclaimed series, it brings in tons of new maps, features, units, and awesome touch screen functionality. Every element of this game fits perfectly, providing an endless amount of strategies to use and master. Veterans of the series will absolutely love it, and even the new people can’t resist its awesomeness. Possibly the best game on the DS yet, you should not pass this one up.

[Euan]

Hey! WE have a review up!

Just sorta skimmed over it so far, it doesn't look too bad, I'm quite impressed really. This is much better, TDS...

Now for your Nintydogs review, Chuddy... Nanostray? Jump Superstars? Castlevania?

[chuddy_2001uk]

Nonostray and Jump Superstars will be up as soon as DSdude gives them to me >_<

man am i awesome or what

[ShadowMarth]

Cool, nice review.

Wait... so only Chuddy can post reviews? That's not cool.... >_>

[touchds]

Mods can post as well.

[RYGR]

Nice review. Good job. I reckon from now on all the reviews should contain some in-game screenshots too. To make it look nicer.

[P4NC4K3Z]

Yeah i agree with the pictures, it would help you make the review more captivating..of course there's already enough captivation in that..good work =]

[bignds]

I got this game yesterday, good so far, im only scared about how long the campaign will last.