Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (Review)

[Zera]

Greetings, folks. This is my review of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. This is the fourth game in the AW series, the second on Nintendo DS, the first you might call a "gritty reboot", and also the last one. After it's separately translated NA and EU releases in 2008, it was delayed and canceled in Japan, becoming a Club Nintendo platinum status award in 2013 (five years later). This might explain why there hasn't been a new AW game in nine years, which is a shame, because it's quite good.

For those who never touched Advance Wars, think of it as Fire Emblem with less R-P-G and more stra-te-gy. Instead of worrying about perma-death, experience points, and critical hits, you worry about capturing cities for funds, using terrain to your advantage, and carefully choosing units to counter what the opponent throws at you. There are 26 distinct units that cover ground, air, and sea, and most can attack others with varying percents of damage. This creates a complex rock-paper-scissors-like combat, with positioning and terrain effects thrown in for even more depth. Unlike other popular strategy games like Fire Emblem and XCOM, all attacks have 100% accuracy, so the only luck involved is a 0-10% damage bonus on attacks.

Black Hole units and stealth planes from Advance Wars: Dual Strike are gone, with new units in their stead. Motorbike infantry trade all-terrain ability for speed. Flares can reveal land in Fog of War - including unit-hiding areas like forests. Anti-tanks are indirect attackers that can counter direct attacks. Dusters are discount fighter planes that are strong against helicopters. Gunboats can carry one infantry and have a strong attack - but only have one ammo. Many old units are also rebalanced. War tanks are much cheaper. Rigs (APCs) can build a temporary port/airport to repair/resupply sea/air units. Battleships can move and attack indirectly in the same turn, and carriers can produce versatile seaplanes.

The core mechanics have also been updated. Units that destroy others "level up" and become level I, II, or V ("Veteran"). Higher level units are stronger, so it's advantageous to repair or join damaged units. Commanding Officers have gotten a complete overhaul. The 12 playable COs are brand new, and only the "final boss" character is blatantly broken. A CO can board a unit (and make it level V) by paying half its price. The Command Zone around a CO unit boosts it and nearby units. Dealing damage with them fills the CO Power Gauge, which expands the Command Zone and eventually lets you use a tide-turning CO Power. The catch is that if you do, the Command Zone shrinks back to normal.

In the Campaign, you fight story-driven, structured battles (you don't pick your CO, and you're scored and ranked). The story is darker than past AW games, with conflicts that occur after meteors destroy 90% of Earth's population. The story does a great job of showing how many unique kinds of asshole can exist in a post-apocalyptic world. Most of them eventually die in fitting ways, and it's satisfying to watch them go after the crimes they commit. Unlike past games there's no Hard mode, but the overall difficulty is a bit higher. To keeps things accessible, there's a "Tactics" button you can press for strategic advice on the current chapter. In addition to the 26 campaign chapters, there are 38 trial maps that are the same thing without the "story" part. They replace the War Room of previous games.

In Free Battle, you pick a map, COs, a range of other settings, and blow stuff up. You can do  2-4 player battles with one DS. There are 170 maps here, including the trial maps.

Days of Ruin was the first (and only) AW game with online battles and map sharing - awesome! Sadly, this service was shut down.

The map editor returns, but unlike previous games, you can save more than three maps. FIFTY! No longer is your creativity limited. Now you can make all four maps that you wanted to, plus another forty-six if you feel like it.

Days of Ruin only has one real problem. Despite a good tutorial, It doesn't explain the finer nuances of its mechanics. Most players who don't visit GameFAQs.com like I did will never find out that -

• Luck damage and defense gained from terrain are proportional to unit health.
• The stat boosts for levels I, II, and V are (5% attack) (10% attack) (20% attack & defense)
• The Command Zone boosts all units (10% attack & defense) on top of any boosts specified by the CO.
• Air units can hide in airports during Fog of War... but nowhere else.
• Flares are fairly weak, but deal 45% damage to anti-airs.
• Motorbikes are the cheapest counter to anti-tanks.

...and so on. At the very least, I would like an in-game damage chart. It's far from a deal-breaker since you can preview battles, but it would certainly be convenient. I will give some credit for a cleaner presentation, and the ability to zoom in the camera. Presumably this feature was added for players with poor eyesight, in which case I commend Intelligent Systems for being inclusive. I also like the quick save feature, which let's you save the current battle state and revert to it if things go badly. It lets you experiment without fear of having to restart a long battle.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is a terrific strategy game. While there aren't as many modes and COs as Advance Wars: DS, there are actually more maps (196 instead of 189). Between that, the refined gameplay, and the massively expanded capacity for custom stages, this is now my favorite Advance Wars game. At least the series ended (?) on a high point.

9/10 (Awesome!)

Is it better than...

...Advance Wars: Dual Strike? I'd say DoR is slightly better overall, but DS is still a good entry point for the series.
...Bangai-O Spirits? Both games have 150+ maps, and an editor, but Bangai-O's pace is way, way faster.
...Pushmo? This puzzler from Intelligent Systems has 250+ levels, an editor, but is only $7. It is a safer bet, if you will.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Zera

[henrymidfields]

One question: I haven't played any of the other AW series. Do you think this is something I can get into, or would it be recommended to do Dual Strike or the GBA series first?

[Zera]

I haven't played the GBA AW games myself, but I think both Dual Strike and Days of Ruin are approachable enough for anyone to play. DoR has a "Tactics" button where a character gives you strategic advice for the current map. I don't think the game you play first will make a big difference.

[BrightBow]

23 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

One question: I haven't played any of the other AW series. Do you think this is something I can get into, or would it be recommended to do Dual Strike or the GBA series first?

I think it's worth nothing that the first GBA game is easily the hardest entry of the franchise released in the west. (Although it does have a very elaborate tutorial.) The campaign consists of mostly predeployment maps with very little room for error. The second game "Black Hole Rising" is fine though. Also the first game does the same stupid player tactican thing that Blazing Sword did. Thank god that got retconned in the second game.

Edited January 25, 2017 by BrightBow

[Magical CC]

On 1/24/2017 at 5:52 PM, henrymidfields said:

One question: I haven't played any of the other AW series. Do you think this is something I can get into, or would it be recommended to do Dual Strike or the GBA series first?

Skip the first one, play the second one. It's not only easier but better in almost every way too. And the story of the first game can be read up in 5 minutes or even less so you wont miss much really.

[henrymidfields]

In that case, I might just try the Days of Ruin then. Thanks for the advice, folks!

[francogollo]

You should check out tinywars.online where a couple of chinese devs made an online pvp for DoR. It has very interesting features (like damage calculator)