The Advance
Wars series is well known for two things: well-balanced, fun, turn-based
tactical gameplay and a cast of characters who seem to be completely oblivious
to the horrors of war. Developer
Intelligent Systems set out to change that perception with their new
installment, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, and for the most part their effort was
a success. They managed to keep most of
the fun gameplay, while completely overhauling the look and feel of the game.
However, it wasn’t a complete victory; while excising
the series’ absurd views of death and destruction, they also removed many of
the best features found in the previous installments. The end result is a game that while actually
playing better than previous iterations, somehow manages to be an inferior
product.
The full review’s after the jump.
These
differences are apparent from the second you turn on the game. In this game’s world 90% of the planet’s
population has been wiped out by meteors.
The game’s plot centers around a young man named Will, who is rescued
from a group of raiders by a charismatic young army officer, Captain Brenner,
the leader of “Brenner’s Wolves.” The
group travels around the land searching for a haven for the many survivors it
has picked up along the way, and dealing with the many problems of a dystopian
future.
This grim
scenario, while a little overdone, is a dramatic improvement over the plot of
previous Advance Wars games. In those
games, a battle would end, with thousands dead on both sides, and the
conversation would go as follows:
Commander A: Aw,
shucks! You beat me.
Commander B: Yeah,
this was fun! Let’s do it again some
time.
Commander A:
Sure! I’ll beat you next time!
Commander B: You
wish! Later!
Things hit rock bottom with Advance Wars: Dual Strike,
featuring the groan-inducing one-liners of Jake (“Get out the plates, ‘cause
you just got served”), so it’s a major relief that Dual Strike’s successor
eschews these laughable conventions.
Days of
Ruin’s gameplay is substantially different from previous installments as
well. Gone are Dual Strikes, Super CO (Commanding
Officer) Powers, and how different
different effects on all of their units on the board. Instead, COs board a unit at a factory or the
HQ and work from there. COs have an area
of effect that powers up units within the radius of the unit the CO is in. As your CO power gauge grows with all your
killing and destruction, the radius also grows, increasing your influence over
the battlefield. If you use your CO
Power, your bonus area shrinks back down to the original size. This adds a great element of strategy to the
game that was missing from previous versions – until now, there was little
incentive to hold your CO Powers past the turn they became available. Now, while the CO Powers are very useful, it
might sometimes be better to wait and continue to buff units around you.
Many of the
units featured in the old game are nowhere to be seen in DoR, such as the
Neotank and Megatank, Stealth Fighter, and Blackboat. However, there are more than enough
additional units to satisfy the hungry DS tactician. In an attempt to speed up the game, a new
motorbike unit can be made. It can
capture buildings like infantry but also moves much faster around the map. There is a new antitank unit that fires like
artillery but has no close-up blind spot and can counterattack when
attacked. The aircraft carrier can now
make seaplanes, which are extremely powerful but also have far less fuel then
normal airplanes. Propeller airplanes
called “dusters” have decent attack strength against both air and ground
units. APCs are now called “Rigs” and
can build temporary air and naval bases that can refuel and repair units. It’s all well balanced and fits together
nicely as a whole.
With the
gritty narrative and style, new units, and new CO mechanics, it’s hard not to
come to the conclusion that this is basically Intelligent System’s way of
hitting the reset button on the Advance Wars series and starting from
scratch. The problem is that by doing
so, they have also thrown out many of the great features that made Advance Wars
so much fun over the years. Foremost on
the list is the War Room. In the olden
days, the War Room was the true core of the AW single-player experience, far
more than the campaign mode. The player
was confronted with a bunch of maps, each designed around a certain CO’s
abilities, and would confront that CO on their home turf. There were so many maps and options one could
spend over 100 hours playing that mode alone.
Unfortunately, the War Room is nowhere to be found in Days of Ruin. Another neat idea introduced in Dual Strike
was how COs leveled up when you played as them.
You could then use these levels to add little bonuses to your army. This is also absent in Days of Ruin.
What the
developer tried to do was substitute these features with online play. In many ways, playing online is far better
than playing against an AI in the War Room, but there is just one problem:
online mode requires you to be online. I
have always loved the Advance Wars series because they were great
timewasters. Have a 5 hour flight, a two
hour bus ride, an hour commute by train?
Then the AW series was great for you!
You could enter the War Room and let those hours fly by. However, now with Days of Ruin, you can’t do
that. Unless busses are now equipped
with Wifi connections, online play is useless. And just how is online play? Not as good as hoped. Unfortunately online play is limited to
1-on-1 battles. Also, when fighting
random people, the map is random, and turns are limited. Sure you can talk to friends in a way similar
to a walky-talky and find opponents by rank if you wish, but that doesn’t totally redeem the rather weak online implementation.
Graphically,
Days of Ruin looks rather ugly, both technically and in mood. Intelligent Systems has never been a studio
known for amazing visuals (for example, the GC and Wii Fire Emblems) and this
is no exception. Other than nice art for
the characters, the general visual experience is not exactly impressive. In game battle sequences look especially bad,
with horribly blurry unit sprites. It
doesn’t help that every map is some shade of purple. On the other hand, DoR has the best
soundtrack of any of the Advance Wars games so far. Each of the CO’s themes is enjoyable and
catchy. Just be ready for a lot of synthesized electic guitar.
The
simplest way to sum up Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is that the gameplay formula
is much better, but the modes that give you access to that gameplay are far
more limited. Is that a worthy trade-off? I don’t think so, while I know many will
disagree. While it’s still worth a
purchase for most strategy nuts, this latest Advance Wars is just not up to par with its
predecessors.
