Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (2023)

I finished playing through Advance Wars 1+2, and... it wasn't good. I have some good memories of playing it as a child, but I never actually finished it. After finally getting around to it, I was very disappointed by not only the quality of this remake, but also the overall gameplay structure of the game. While I do think the game's ok, it's also an incredibly flawed experience that feels more like a chore than a game.

Advance Wars is a duology about war developed by Intelligent Systems. You play as a bunch of commanders in charge of different armies inside one world, all locked in a battle for the survival of their countries. Throughout the game, you'll fight in multiple different fronts while trying to uncover the truth of who truly is behind this war.

The game's designed in a very casual way, and It's very clear that the story is not the main focus here. While the story is serviceable, it's really hard to take it seriously, and it doesn't really add much to the game. It mostly serves as a segue between the different levels, and even feels like an afterthought at certain points.

It also left somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth. Sure, I don't expect the nintendo game Advance Wars to treat the concept of War in a serious way, but it also doesn't really commit to making light of it. Most of the time the story feels like a child playing with army toys, but every once in a while it drops a line about sacrificing yourself for your country or characters surviving through childhood in a war-torn town and it just... never feels right.

Gameplay-wise, the game's pretty solid. It's got a good base that the game builds upon, and the main gameplay loop and war gameplay is a lot of fun. It could be better balanced, especially when it comes to its COs and their powers, but it's still a lot of fun.

But while the main game is good, unfortunately, the single player campaign is a whole different story. The game itself is already pretty unbalanced, and this mode does its best to stack all the cards against you. It starts out fine, but slowly becomes a chore to finish.

So let's talk about the two story modes. They suck.

Advance Wars 1 is an unbalanced mess that punishes you for trying to win. Every objective feels very samey, without any interesting objectives or maps throughout the whole campaign. While every CO has their own strengths and weaknesses, levels are designed to specifically offset the enemy's weaknesses, turning every single match into an uphill fight where you're better off turtling, and stripping your characters of what actually makes them worthwhile

The premise is somewhat interesting, being about other countries retaliating against attacks that your country didn't make in the first place. There's something here, but I feel like it drops the ball halfway through and it just ends up becoming pretty generic right before it ends.

On the other hand, Advance Wars 2's campaign tries more interesting stuff, but it's just a slog to get through. The game has a more variety when it comes to objectives and COs, but it slowly morphs into a repetitive mess where you do nothing but fight the same enemies over and over again. Level design is also lacking, and a lot of levels feel like you're better off cheesing them rather than actually trying to play through them.

And if the story for the first one wasn't good, then just you wait until you see this one! The enemies are as generic as they come, and they serve even less of a purpose than before. It fully sacrifices its story in lieu of the gameplay, and while at first it looks like it might work, it very quickly ends up becoming even more of a bother than the first campaign.

Visually, the game's pretty ugly. It features a lot of different art styles that are always clashing against each other. On their own, they range from just okay to pretty good, but they always look terrible when they're mixed together.

It's also not a very clear game when it comes to the gameplay. Multiple units share similar designs, and are easy to mistake for each other. Add this to the fact that every faction has unique models for every unit type, and it just becomes impossible to actually learn which unit is which.

At least the music is good. As far as I know, it's all remixes from the original soundtrack, which was already pretty good. And these new versions are pretty good too! The voice acting isn't quite as good though, but I feel like that's caused by the actors receiving a lackluster script and poor direction, rather than the actors being bad. It's fine.

I usually don't care much about performance issues, but they were really noticeable in this game. I played this on the original Switch, and it's horribly optimized. Not only did the game crash a few times for me, but the enemy AI just slows to a crawl any time there's too many units on the map. You'd expect this to happen on the original, but on the 2023 remake? That's just ridiculous.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to try out the multiplayer, as I don't know anyone who'd care about this game enough to play with me. However, I think the base gameplay is fine, and fighting against other players in this engine sounds like something I'd really enjoy once in a while. For this time only, let's just pretend the multiplayer is good to save this game from 1-Star hell.

In conclusion: While I like the general gameplay and base of the game, there's a clear lack of direction that makes everything else a bad experience. Missions are frustrating and dont feel good to play. The storytelling is generic and boring. It has terrible optimization... Everything just sucks. I love Strategy RPGs, but this just isn't it.

Even though I was very excited to try it out, I cannot recommend Advance Wars 1+2 in good faith.4/10