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Advance Wars: Dual Strike Review


Zera
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Greetings, folks. Today I'm here to review Advance Wars: Dual Strike. Since this and Fire Emblem are both part of the "turn based strategy" genre and were developed by Intelligent Systems, I expected this to play a lot like Fire Emblem. But not only is the gameplay different, there are actually some aspects of it that I prefer.

For starters, there's less number crunching. This isn't to say that Advance Wars lacks depth, but rather that it achieves it through different means. There are 25 units to use. Infantry, tanks, artillery, and other ground units, as well as naval and air units. Each is unique, and they give you lots of options. Need a ranged ground unit that can wreak havoc on air units? Try missiles. Want to attack a megatank without taking damage? Use a bomber or a stealth fighter, since the megatank can't attack planes.

In addition to terrains that affect movement and defense, every map has cities, which can only be captured by infantry and mechs. Cities provide funds, repair and resupply units, and provide defense. Bases, ports, and airports are the same, but they can also use funds to build ground, sea, and air units respectively. Finally, each side has an HQ that must be protected at all costs.

Each unit has 10 HP, and can attack certain unit types. When previewing a battle, you'll see the exact percentage of damage that you'll deal, but the enemy's health is always shown as a whole number. What this means is that you never know exactly how much health the enemy has. Every attack will also deal 1-10% extra damage as a luck bonus. Critical hits, missing, and dodging are impossible though. Compared to Fire Emblem, the battles are less random, yet more uncertain. Sometimes you have to decide whether to get a guaranteed kill or a risky one.

Attack damage is directly proportional to HP. As such, there is often an advantage to attacking first, even if the units are the same. Because of this and the value of cities, battles are less defensive and more offensive than the ones in Fire Emblem. Weakened units still have uses though. Transports are fully functional at 1 HP, and weak units can be used to finish off enemies or create barricades. You can even merge two units of the same type to combine their health, ammo, and fuel. And if a unit is truly worthless, you can simply delete it before you take any actions with it.

A good amount of the strategy in Fire Emblem is in pre-battle preparations. You have to select your characters, classes, skills, weapons, and starting positions. In Advance Wars, all you have to do is select your commanding officer. Each CO has a continuous ability that affects your overall strategy. As units take damage, the CO gauge fills up. Once it's ready, you can use a CO Power, or wait until it's full to use a Super CO Power. These abilities can turn the tide of battle.

Does Advance Wars DS use both screens effectively? To an extent, it does. The top screen houses all the info that won't fit on the touchscreen. However, weapon info can be vague. Look at that screenshot with the megatank. Its megacannon can attack vehicles, ships, and submarines. The white circle on the vehicle and the white triangle on the ship tell you that it's more effective against vehicles than ships. If you want real info, you can press the R button to get a description, but these are sometimes equally vague. For example, Infantry do "some" damage to T Copters. If you want to know the actual numbers, your only real option is to preview battles, since there isn't a damage chart or anything like that. It's like not having a type chart in Pokemon. I need this information to make good decisions and achieve high ranks on missions, but the game doesn't provide it.

There are other additions that make Dual Strike unique. In many battles you can control two COs and switch between them at the end of your turn, allowing you to combine strengths and avoid weaknesses. If both COs' gauges are full, you can execute a Tag Break, in which they take turns using their Super CO Powers and attacking. The enemy can't interrupt the Tag Break, so you get a double turn in addition to both Super CO Powers. Of course, the enemies can do this as well, so you have to watch out.

You’ll occasionally fight a battle with a secondary front on the topscreen. These battles aren't symmetrical though. You can send units to the topscreen, but not the touchscreen. Winning or losing the topscreen battle won't affect the touchscreen battle, but it will affect which side can have both of their COs and use Tag Breaks.

The campaign is lengthy and satisfying in equal measure. It starts easy and continually introduces new units, terrain, weather, and COs. By the later missions, you'll be taking advantage of COs' abilities and controlling multiple armies on diverse battlefields. It's a blast, and if you think it's too easy, don't worry - a harder version of the campaign is unlocked after clearing the game.

There are many additional modes. In War Room, you fight on unique maps against specific COs. Versus is exactly what it sounds like. Up to four people can play on a single DS, and multi-system battles are also supported. Fire Emblem Awakening's streetpass-not-really-multiplayer is laughable by comparison. Survival has you fight 11 battles in a row with a limitation on funds, turns, or real time. Combat turns Advance Wars into an action game where you control units directly. It's barely related to the core gameplay, but it’s a decent addition nonetheless

Finally, there's a level editor. This is something I've always wanted in the Fire Emblem series - the ability to place mountains, rivers, and forests to create a beautiful landscape... and then proceed to wage violent warfare on said landscape. You can even have the game randomly generate a battle-ready map. Unfortunately, there are only three slots to save your levels in, which severely limits the fun here. If you want to unleash your level designing skills, you're much better off with Bangai-O Spirits, which can save 16 times as many levels.

As you play, you will earn points that can be used to buy more maps and things. These points also serve as experience for your COs, who can rank-up and equip minor perks like (+5% direct attack) and (+1 vision in Fog of War). These are entirely optional, but they're a nice encouragement to battle well.

When you put together all the modes, Advance Wars: Dual Strike has nearly 200 maps for strategic battling. It is a game of great quantity, so its a good thing that the mechanics are incredibly well designed. If not for the ridiculously small number of save slots in the level editor, I would call this the Super Smash Bros. of turn based strategy. If you have even a passing interest in the genre, you really can't go wrong with this one.

9 out of 10 (Awesome!)

Edited by Zera
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I remember playing Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

I absolutely love the combination of Hachi and Sensei.

Since you can get a mass produced amount of troops. A bunch of Mechs from Sensei then can buy a lot of troops from Hachi. Merging the Mechs to add to your funds.

I felt Advance Wars was more approachable quite honestly due to the simple mechanics of 100% hit and having to do math just to plain out plan out your strategy.

Quite honestly I want Fire Emblem to take terrain mechanics from Advance Wars like going atop the mountain increases how far you can see in Fog of War. The ability to hide in forests etc.

Glad you enjoyed the game.

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When my house was destroyed in a storm, all I had was AW:DS to play with for the next few days (before the battery died).

I have very, very fond memories. Absolutely amazing game, for an amazing series.

It's a shame Days of Ruin never really went anywhere. I really liked that spinoff.

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Advance Wars as a whole remains one of my favorite series. And I totally agree with the "units in FE on mountains should be able to see further" and when I picked up FE for the first time I was very surprised that this wasn't the case.

Tag powers are ridiculously OP, though. Especially the ones where the COs only have 5 stars each (cough Adder-Koal cough).

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Tag powers are ridiculously OP, though. Especially the ones where the COs only have 5 stars each (cough Adder-Koal cough).

I don't think they're necessarily balanced, but I wouldn't say any of them are "ridiculously OP", especially when you consider that Adder in particular never has any extra stat boosts other than movement. His units can move really fast and that's it. Koal has +10% attack on roads, but Max has +20% attack on direct attackers, while Hawke has +10% attack and defense at all times. The other characters have longer CO gauges because their Super CO Powers are generally better. Adder and Koal may be good for using lots of weak Tag Breaks, but their crazy mobility is their real strength.

Even the Eagle/Sami Tag Break isn't broken. "I'm gonna move my units 3 times and have my 1HP infantry instantly capture your headquarters! All I had to do is fill up Eagle's massive 9-star CO gauge while you were wrecking my army!"

It's a shame Days of Ruin never really went anywhere. I really liked that spinoff.

Actually, Days of Ruin sold much better.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=advance+wars

Still, those sales numbers are small. I hope Advance Wars gets a 3DS title as popular as Fire Emblem Awakening, because more people need to try this series.

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