Intelligent Systems has made strategy gaming their business. While recent years have seen Fire Emblem’s fantasy-based friendships earn all the plaudits, Famicom Wars was their first grid-based game, its story of warring factions an excuse to move tiny tanks into the best spot to blow up other tiny tanks. Advance Wars perfected the formula, with a series of similarly excellent sequels that followed it, but 2001 is a long time ago in gaming, meaning this is one series that is genuinely due a reboot. Handily, that’s exactly what we’ve got in Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp.
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp pulls together the original game and its stellar sequel, wrapping them all up in a shiny new 3D graphics. Alongside the dual narratives, there’s a cool couch co-op mode for four players, while you can head online for some one-on-one strategy battling as well. In addition, you can take all of your Advance Wars knowledge into the Design Room and create your own maps to confound your friends with. In terms of gameplay there are few surprises to be found here for returning players, but the addition of online modes and improved local multiplayer ensures that this is a great package whether you’re a newcomer or you’re returning to the fray.
The visuals are the first and most noticeable update, and while I wasn’t originally convinced about them, I have come to enjoy what WayForward has done for this remake. There are times, particularly with the infantry troops, where I think they’ve lost some of the original’s character along the way, but the vehicle units look fantastic, and there’s now a clearer distinction between the different armies thanks to unique unit skins for each.
It’s all tied together with newly imagined cartoon cutscenes, semi-animated characters and vibrant artwork, bringing the cast of characters to life in a way they weren’t before. Like the recent Fire Emblem games, there are some voiced sections and others where you must read through the dialogue, and while it works well I still wished they’d opted to fully voice the entire game, just to add a further level to differentiate it from the original.
The two campaigns being bundled together certainly minimise any grumbles that returning players might have about the lack of innovations in this remake. In truth, this seems to stem from the way the games were originally launched in Japan, with Advance Wars delayed in the region (and Europe)Â following the September 11th terrorist attacks and only seeing a bundled release years later. Nintendo displayed a similar sensitivity to real world events by delaying this remake’s release following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Each campaign follows the ongoing story of the Orange Star nation, drawn into conflict with forces from Blue Moon, Yellow Comet and Green Earth, before the true villains of the piece are eventually unmasked. There’s plenty of interesting moments, though the central drive of the narrative is carried by the idiosyncratic commanding officers, and it’s clear that the strategy is the real star here.
Advance Wars plays out across grid-based maps, with each unit taking up one square. Your units have a range of movement and a range of attack, with a corresponding set of strengths, weaknesses, and specialisms to fret over as you plan each unit’s move. On top of that, vehicles have limited fuel and ammunition which you have to factor in, for fear of finding yourself stalled and effectively useless in some distant corner of the map. The bright, vibrant colour scheme belies the fiendish level of difficulty that you’ll experience later on in the campaigns, and it’s as involving and technical a challenge now as it was twenty years ago. The only concessions to the original difficulty is the ability to fast-forward gameplay and rewind your turns.
Each time you win a battle in the campaign you earn coins to spend in Hachi’s Shop, purveyor of music, Commanding Officers, and maps for use in the Versus mode or the War Room challenges. The War Room lets you battle against the CPU across a huge number of preset maps, saving your high score for each one. It’s a great reason to keep returning to Advance Wars as a solo player once you’ve completed the campaign, and there’s a huge amount of content for any would-be generals to hone their tactics, even before you consider the map creator and playing with others.
