When Nintendo first revealed a remake of the first two Advance Wars games, fans were ecstatic. It has been years since the last entry in the turn-based strategy series and now two beloved games were revealed to be returning. And better yet, the remakes were being developed by WayForward Technologies, but is this a good remake, or should Advance Wars have stayed in the 2000s?
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp brings both games to Nintendo Switch with a bold new visual style that may not be to everyone’s liking, but also comes with some great modern touches to enhance the experience. For those unfamiliar, Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2 are set in the fictional Wars World, a land with various locations inspired by real-life countries.
Our game starts with the nation of Orange Star being invaded by the nation of Blue Moon (something which factored into a delay for the game so as to distance from unfortunate real-life events and you will find yourself in control of commanding officer Andy, being given instructions and orders by Commander In Chief Nell. What follows is perhaps the best video game take on tabletop wargaming ever made, as you must choose the moves of military units, and figure out the best ways to attack and defeat enemies.
Each of your units has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, but also limitations to how they can move across the grid-based maps. Some units do more damage such as Tanks and Aircraft but only Infantry and Mech units can capture cities and bases. You must be careful how you manage your troops because you can win by defeating enemies, but also by capturing the enemy bases.
While you start with Andy as a CO, you will soon gain additional Cos, such as Max and Sami and each CO has different advantages and disadvantages in play. Andy is the jack of all-stats all-around character while Max excels at direct combat while being weak against ranged attack units and Sami specializes in infantry with troops that are able to take over much faster than the other COs. In addition, each CO has a unique CO Power, that can be used when a meter fills, and these CO powers are often key to some of the more intense battles in the game.
As for the missions, they can take quite a bit of time like with any turn-based strategy game, but WayForward and Nintendo have included some changes here. There is now a fast-forward feature to make an enemy’s moves go fast using the ZR trigger, and the game now autosaves between moves, so if you want to stop and take a break, now you can. Advance Wars has always felt like a turn-based strategy game that could be a real tabletop wargame, and the gameplay here is so in-depth yet approachable that it feels like the perfect introduction to wargaming.
Obviously, the big elephant in the room is the new visual style of the game. The gorgeous pixel art of the GBA games is replaced with a much brighter, cartoonish look that gives the units a toy soldier look. It is not for everyone, and some may yearn for a game like Wargroove for the modern game that uses pixel art design, but there is still something special in Re-Boot Camp. The special effects from the CO powers now have a great animation and the music is given a great redo, so there is still plenty to love here.
One other area to address is online play and level creation. The online was a bit of a worry for me before launch but has since become something I have a bit of an addiction to. Designing and sharing maps is also fun in this remake and seeing some maps made by other players has been truly excellent. Plus, there is just the fun of playing a competitive wargame on the Nintendo Switch against players worldwide, with the Nintendo and WayForward charm.
WayForward Technologies was the right partner for this remake and the developer and Nintendo did an excellent job here. This is a remake done right, with excellent modern touches and manages to live up to the original games. This will hopefully lead to more from the Wars series as Dual Strike and Days of Ruin would be great to see great remakes as well. Perhaps Nintendo could let WayForward go all out and create a brand new entry even? After seeing the great job that WayForward Technologies did here, it would be very welcome to see them be given the keys to the Warsworld Kingdom to keep the series shining bright for many years to come. This is a highly recommended game to check out for all.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
This review first appeared on Indiegamerteam.com
