Advance Wars

Advance Wars is a turn-based strategy game on the Game Boy Advance developed by Intelligent Systems, the creators of the Fire Emblem series. The first game was released in 2001 on September 10th in North America while the sequel was released in 2003. It is the sequel to the Japan-only Super Famicom Wars and Game Boy Wars. The games shares many similarities to Fire Emblem with elements like maps, attack systems and unit movement but with some differences such as capturing properties, manufacturing units, commanders, no levelling and simplified combat.

A reboot of these games is currently being developed for the Nintendo Switch which was initially released for April 2022 but delayed due to Nintendo citing "Recent real world events" likely referring to the invasion of Ukraine ongoing in 2022.

General:

 * 1) It's essentially a modern-day version of Fire Emblem, with armed soldiers, armoured tanks and aircraft replacing knights, cavalry and magicians. There is more focus on what different unit has strength and weakness and that all units have the same stats as opponent (although this can be altered depending on who the commander is). One of the big differences in this setting is that a unit's strength is dependent on their health meaning that their attack power decreases when they are weak and that all units have 10 health points. The combat is also pretty simplified with each individual unit having two weapons, one primary and one secondary with the former having limited munition and the latter with infinite and that you cannot change the unit's weapon types, each and every unit has its dedicated weapon and use to fufill one role.
 * 2) *Another big difference is the objectives, unlike Fire Emblem, there are no "boss units" and instead HQs somewhat fill in this role. For standard gameplay, the goal is to either capture the enemy's HQ or eliminate all the enemy's forces. Capturing is also new in the series as capturing unclaimed properties such as cities, give benefits like funds or repairs, while others like airports, bases or ports let you build your army.
 * 3) *Additionally, each unit has their own movement costs compared to Fire Emblem where characters mostly have equal movement spaces and that terrain is more emphasised on maps. For example: Wheeled units like Recons, Rockets or Missiles move faster on roads but suffer on plains and forests. Fuel is also another additional mechanic which crucial for movement as if unit loses it, they stop moving (naval or air will be destroyed) and that they can either be only resupplied at certain bases of their manufacturer (air units can only refill at airports as example) or from APCs.
 * 4) *Unit healing is also quite different, aside from abilities, units can only heal if they are on a friendly property or they can merge with one injured unit with another given that unit is the same type as them which their combined health adds up. Like fueling, the units must have to be at a place where the property supports them, land vehicles and soldiers can heal at cities or bases, planes and helicopters in airports and ships in ports.
 * 5) Instead of independent units with their own leveling system and weaponry, the player must choose a commander who has stats that will affect their troops. For example: Grit's artillery units have high range and better damage but the rest of his units have poor attack damage. Most of them are pretty balanced with their own strengths and weaknesses that are dependent on the map. All of them have special powers as well to affect the battle. All commanders you play as have creative but simple to understand stats that make them enjoyable to play with their strengths and weaknesses.
 * 6) *The CO abilities is another mechanic that is important in battles, everytime a commander attacks or gets attacked, they gain a small percentage of that power which once filled to 100% can activate an effect that assist their army either by damaging all enemies, healing friendly units or increasing their strength. It is important to use when the time is proper as good use can be very rewarding or end up losing an opportunity.
 * 7) The selection of units you can deploy are mostly balanced to use, each with their specific strategies on their usage and weaknesses.
 * 8) *Infantry - The weakest unit, they are soldiers with only a machine gun but have infinite ammunition. However they are important for capturing cities which are needed to heal your units and gain funds and bases such as airports, docks and factories to build your army.
 * 9) *Mechanised Infantry - Soldiers with bazookas that more effective against vehicular land units. They move 1 space slower than regular infantry but do not have movement penalties however. If used properly, mechs can be detrimental to opponents convoys with their bazookas and flexibility on terrain, but they are at disadvantage if they are attacked first, or are in unfavourable terrain and that their rockets have limited ammunition (3 in their reserve). Mechs have also more superior firepower in their machine guns than Infantry and can still capture.
 * 10) *Recon - A light military vehicle with a machine gun mounted. They have the highest movement on land but only working on roads in which they sluggishly move in forests and plains. Reconds have high vision range which is useful for seeing far in foggy maps but are very weak, only intended to finish off infantry or weaker vehicles but have slightly more power than infantry.
 * 11) *APC - A vehicle with no weapons. It is an important vehicle as it can transport infantry and resupply units with fuel and ammo. They have treads which lets them traverse through most terrain with some costs (2+ movement when moving through forests as example). APCs are fundamental for deploying infantry especially mechs faster to the battle, or saving weak infantry.
 * 12) *Artillery - A light vehicle that can attack indirectly meaning they don't have to be next to their target to shoot, they can only target land and sea units. However if the enemy is right next to them, the artillery is unable fire. Additionally, ranged units like them cannot move and shoot in the same turn like with Fire emblem archers or mages and must instead wait a turn to be able to fire making placement more important to pay attention to when deploying them.
 * 13) *Tank - The most common and an important attack unit. A fairly verastile tank with a cannon that damages most vehicles but has limited ammo, and uses a machine gun as their secondary to kill infantry or light vehicles if they run out of primary munitions. Uses treads like the APC and Artillery which give it fair mobility when traversing plains or forests but have more movement spaces than the others. They are weak to ranged units, aerial units and medium tanks with the former being superior if they are in their targeting zone, and the latter being unaffected by the tanks weaponry (if they are at full health).
 * 14) *Anti Air gun - A vehicle with an anti-air gun intended to suppress aerial enemies. Not only is it very strong against air units, it can be effective against infantry and light vehicles as well.
 * 15) *Rocket Launcher - The artillery's stronger version. Has more range and firepower but their target has to be 2 spaces apart to shoot them and that they are also expensive. They have wheels like Recon meaning that their mobility is poor when they aren't moving on roads and have weaker armour.
 * 16) *Missiles - It's an anti-air version of the Rocket launcher but possess higher vision range similar to the recon. Missiles are very powerful generally able to one-shot helicopters or jets.
 * 17) *Medium Tank - The stronger version of the Tank, it has better firepower and armour in which they can withstand copter attacks, machine guns or mech rockets, but less movement range and is expensive to deploy. They are susceptible to bombers and ranged units.
 * 18) *Transport Helicopter - Unarmed helicopter that is intended to transport infantry and bypass terrain where land and sea cannot navigate.
 * 19) *Battle Helicopter - Helicopter that can attack air (excepts jets), land and navy. They have average firepower and are versatile in their mobility making them devastating to counter for unprepared players especially with their fairly cheap price.
 * 20) *Fighter - A fighter jet that attacks exclusively air units only. Their missiles are very powerful against their targets and they have the highest movement range of 9 spaces.
 * 21) *Bomber - Plane specifically designed to attack ground and naval units. It is a very strong force that can devastate most land units even anti-air guns if not in range as their movement range is another benefit that pressures opponents. However they lack other weapons to defend themselves or in the event they lose ammo.
 * 22) *Transport - An unarmed boat that can transport two land units but can only pick them up and drop them at beaches.
 * 23) *Submarine - Naval unit that dives underwater in which it can remain hidden from the enemy's view. Their main weaknesses are that they consume more fuel when submerged and that Cruisers can attack them even if they are submerged.
 * 24) *Cruiser - Ship that is intended to destroy submarines and functions as an naval anti-air. One minor perk this ship has is the ability to carry copter units which may be useful for saving them from fuel or being vulnerable to anti-air.
 * 25) *Battleship - The rockets/artillery of naval units. These ships have longer range than rockets and only need 1 space apart from enemy to target. It is also the most expensive unit in the games.
 * 26) Both games provide ample amount of content in the Battle Maps shop, it provides more maps, skins and a harder difficulty option that even gives new missions not in the normal campaign and alters the maps to be much more difficult. It even provides a map editor you can create your own maps ready to battle! You can also play with AI or go multiplayer with these maps as well with up to four at a time.
 * 27) Great vehicle and faction designs that inspired of nations in WWII/Cold war era. Orange star is based on USA, Blue moon is Russia, Yellow Comet is Japan and Green earth is Germany. Black Hole is entirely original with no particular nation as inspiration, rather being futuristic themed instead.
 * 28) The graphics and music are good quality with character designs, enviroments and vehicles looking nice and detailed for a Game Boy Advance title. The battle cutscenes as well are what make the battles exciting to watch in which unlike Fire emblem, the cutscenes are much faster paced with the armies attacking at the same time and also showing the strength of the units in which a unit is actually a squad of five vehicles, soldiers or aircraft (However naval, bombers and transport vehicles are singular).
 * 29) Challengeing AI and maps. You'll also get ranked on maps depending on how well you finished with ranging from least amount of turns, damage dealt and least troops lost which can encourage you to push to get to the highest score.
 * 30) Another small addition is the multiplayer function which can enable you to link up with up to 4 players with a Game boy advance link cable.

Advance Wars 1:

 * 1) Play as commanders with their own skills and weaknesses and with enjoyable personalities.
 * 2) *Andy - Orange star mechanic who is prepared for everything, has no special stats or weaknesses but his powers are that he can heal all his units for 2 hp and slight defence increase.
 * 3) *Max - A loyal officer of Orange Star who specalises in direct combat. Boasts the highest firepower for all direct units except infantry but for ranged units have weaker power and less range. His special ability increases this firepower.
 * 4) *Sami - An Orange star commander with her tactics being focused on infantry. Her infantry have high firepower and has higher capture points but all other units (except ranged) have weak offence however, her transport units have 1 additional movement benefit. Her special ability Double time, increases the firepower and movement of her infantry and reduces movement penalty.
 * 5) *Olaf - The main commander of Blue moon. His stats are average with not much strengths or weaknesses but his main ability is to summon snowstorm that covers the entire map with snow that only his army can traverse with no problem, with the enemy at a disadvantage in their mobility. However Olaf's only real weakness is when he ecounters rainy weather in which his army have severe movement penalty.
 * 6) *Grit - Olaf's lazy second in command, his ranged units have higher firepower and more range but his direct units except infantry have low firepower. His CO power simply increases the range and damage his ranged units have.
 * 7) *Eagle - Leader of Green Earth, his air units are stronger than others and have reduced fuel consumption but his naval units are very weak. His ability Lightning strike, lets all non-infantry units move again, but for weaker firepower (only in AW1).
 * 8) *Drake - The naval captain of Green Earth, his naval units have 1 additional movement space and 20% more defence but his aerial force is weaker than others. When his ability is ready, he can summon a tidal wave that reduces enemies health by 1. Another minor perk Drake's units have is that they aren't affected by rain and that Drake has a small chance of summoning it in his turn.
 * 9) *Kanbei - The overconfident emperor of Yellow Comet. All of his units are extraordinarily superior in offence and defence compared to others with his only downside being that his units are expensive to recruit. His Commander powers increase the strength and defence of his units incredibly higher than others.
 * 10) *Sonja - Kanbei's daughter who is an intelligence officer who focuses on strategy over brute force. Can see further in fog and hide her units health but has terrible luck on hitting targets meaning that she may get reduced damage than expected.
 * 11) *Sturm - An alien commander with unknown origins in which he leads his own faction known as Black Hole, with his desires to conquer the world by tricking Orange Star into fighting other countries. He is the most powerful Commander, all his units have no movement penalties (except in snowstorms) and have the highest offence and defence powers rivalling Kanbei and Max (only in campaign). His special ability summons a meteor that heavily damages crowds of enemies.
 * 12) *Nell - The Orange star general with generally average stats although her units have slightly higher chances of better hits than most other officers. Her powers simply increase this luck and small defence bonus.
 * 13) Solid campaign with multiple routes to choose and depending on which, will alter the final mission's character selection.

Black Hole Rising:

 * 1) This sequel's campaign mode is a great upgrade of what the predecessor is. Instead of focusing entirely on Orange Star, it focuses on the other nations in which you also get to play as them. The campaign is also semi-linear meaning that you can choose whatever mission you want in order and that you don't need to complete every level on the map to progress to another section. In addition, every final battle in the campaign has you choose whatever commander available you want to play as with up to 3 against 1 opponent. Also as well, the campaign features more new objects such as missile silos, laser towers and cannons.
 * 2) *Additionally, Black hole now has their own original units as before, they were just recoloured black Orange star army.
 * 3) Some minor changes from the prequel that have made gameplay easier:
 * 4) *Sonja recieved buffs to make her useful in fogless maps, her troops have better counterattack damage rate.
 * 5) *A chart is added that shows all units affected by the commander which specifies what unit is weak or powerful under their command. It even adjusts to the change if the CO has their powers enabled!
 * 6) The new commanders are welcome additions:
 * 7) *Colin - A Blue moon rookie commander who has a wealthy reserve, in which all units have cheap to recruit but due to his inexperienced training, all units have reduced strength. His powers are Gold Rush which increases his current funds by 10%, and his super being the Power of money which depending on his amount of funds, the firepower of his army increases!
 * 8) *Sensei - Yellow comet veteran commander with stats similar to Sami. His infantry are powerful slightly more than Sami, and his helicopters are stronger than Eagle. His aerial units jets and bombers are normal but all other units including ranged have weaker firepower and his transports have 1 additional space of movement. His special power grants more offence power to battle copters and summons 9 hp infantry ready to move in all cities he owns. His super does the same but infantry are replaced with mechs.
 * 9) *Jess - A Green earth commander with her skills being centered around land vehicles. Land vehicles under her command have better offence but other units including infantry have weaker offence. Her power is that she increases the attack of all vehicle units, defence bonus and one additional movement for them. Her power also refills ammo and fuel all of her units including air and navy. The Super version multiplies this twice.
 * 10) *Flak - Black hole rookie commander with his troops having chance of dealing high damage or lower damage. His ability modifies this chance to be much higher or lower, with his super increasing this exponentially.
 * 11) *Lash - Black hole scientist with a genius mind but reckless personality, all her units (except air) benefits with terrain in which they can gain slight defence and offence bonuses depending on what terrain they are in such as forest or mountain, in which this bonus increases. Her CO powers not only increase this bonus, but they have reduced movement costs.
 * 12) *Adder - Black hole third commander who is an egotist and sadist. Has no real weaknesses but his Co powers are shorter to gain than other commanders in which his abilities Sidestep and Sidewinder grant his army of movement and two points respectfully.
 * 13) *Hawke - Sturm's secondary commander with a very ambitious and cold personality who will not hestitate to sacrifice his army to achieve that goal. All of his units have tiny amount of strength but his CO powers take longer to gather. Black storm heals his units by one health and all enemies minus one health, and Black wave is the same but multiplied by two.
 * 14) *Hachi - The shopkeeper of the battle maps from Advance Wars 1. All troops cost 10% less but unlike Colin, he has no downsides. His first CO power increases the discount by 50%, while his super does the same but enables him to recruit land units on cities he owns!
 * 15) Some of the previous characters recieved redesigns such as Andy and Sonja being more aged, Olaf, Kanbei and Sturm having massive changes that are better than what they were in the first game with the latter having a more sinister appearance.
 * 16) CO powers have been split into two in which the first half is a weaker version of their power while the second is their fullest power that is essentially multiplied by two. This can lead to some strategy as you can save for a Super power or use a weaker ability if necessary to not waste a stronger power or prevent overkill. Some previous commander's powers have been adjusted to fit this as well for additional benefits with examples:
 * 17) *Olaf's Super Winter Fury, is able to make his blizzard damage all enemies.
 * 18) *Drake's Tsunami is able to cut fuel of enemies by half while his super Typhoon enables the map to rain for his turn.
 * 19) *Andy's Hyper Upgrade heals 5 health to all units, grants 1 movement and extra firepower.
 * 20) *Sami's Victory march not only greatly increases the firepower of her infantry but grants them instant capture regardless of health. And because of the doubled movement bonus, this makes her very destructive for unaware opponents and rewards good usage of this power.
 * 21) *Eagle's Lightning strike is swapped into a super. Now, his regular power is to simply increase defence and attack of air units while his super grants an additional movement to all used units but buffs them unlike the predecessor.
 * 22) *Kanbei's super Samurai Spirit, grants his army 1.5% increase in damage when defending.
 * 23) *Because of his already powerful perks, Sturm is the only officer to not have a regular power and instead relies on his Super ability Meteor strike.
 * 24) Introduces a new unit, the Neo tank which is a much powerful version of the Medium tank with more additional movement, attack and armour but is more expensive than its predecessor. They are encountered after successfully finding and winning secret labratory maps in the campaign. They make the battles much easier as they are able to destroy targets more effeciently, sustain damage especially from Medium tanks and their mobility making them favourable to finish battles faster.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) While understandable to limitations at the time, air units cannot fly over enemy (especially land and naval) units making blocking strategies annoying.
 * 2) *Similarly, in Advance Wars 2, there are huge pipes that for some reason an air unit cannot fly over! While it possibly done for game design reasons (limiting aerial movement) its a questionable choice.
 * 3) Fog of War: A good mechanic on paper but executed terribly. What is intended is that the map obscures the vision of both players in which they must carefully use units to navigate and see through the fog, and if they carelessly run into a unit hidden in their view, they are forced to stop in place. However, the AI is able to see through the fog (except if your unit is hidden in a forest or reef) and can attack without penalty! This means that stealthy assaults are impossible since the enemy can see ahead of you. This can lead to some unfair moments and some campaign maps are awful to play because of this game mode being broken and having to use cheap tactics to beat the opponent rather than use intelligent strategy to take advantage of the limited vision of your enemy.
 * 4) While most commanders have fair stats, some are either underwhelming or broken to play against.
 * 5) *Sensei is almost broken with his very resilient infantry and attack helicopters and his special abilities make it harder to clear his troops on cities.
 * 6) *Flak is essentially Nell but with RNG based damaged and having a chance to fail to even deal damage.
 * 7) *Sonja is underwhelming on fogless maps and that her bad luck stats make her unpopular choice to play.
 * 8) *Grit is one of the more broken characters because of his ability to use indirect units having more advantage and that artillery spam is cheaper than using tanks or recons.
 * 9) *Hachi's stats already make him too broken to fight against as he can deploy cheaper units with no negatives and his super powers make him deploy any type of land unit in cities with half their price.

Trivia

 * Advance Wars 1 was initially planned to be released in Japan around the same date as North America, but because of the 2001 9/11 attacks at the time, it was postponed until the sequel was finished in 2004 and it was merged into a single cartridge.
 * In the Japanese version of Advance Wars 1, some officers had different designs and names than the international versions, Nell (Catherine in Japan) had a sleeveless coat and shorter skirt, Drake (Mop) had a pirate outfit, Olaf (Whip) wore what resembles a santa hat and a white beard, Grit (Billy) has a cowboy hat and Kanbei wore samurai armour.