Topic: Advance Wars 1+2

Yeah I think I still had my Fire Emblem head on when I started so I was trying to minimise losses, but this is more like Final Fantasy Tactics than it is an XCom or a FE. After a couple of missions you unlock bases and it becomes pretty optimal to just try and swarm and overwhelm your opponent and wear them down with a tidal wave of warm bodies. Especially as, at least so far, enemy commanders tend to play really safely, and will kinda force you to push into them, so trying to do that while minimising casualties just creates a lot of unnecessary frustration.

Casual deffo is probably a little too easy, but classic is still a little harder than I really want, thankfully you are free to turn it up and down, so I'll see how I go.

Is there a way to mute voices?

Wonder will they release the original advance wars on NSO GBA

I guess not...I really hope they return, like, give us an option to hear them in VS mode or something...they feel less epic and stuff here. :c

Well, looks like I'll be receiving my copy today. Looking forward to trying it out and giving my initial thoughts on it!

Only played the 3 tutorials, and the first mission. I started the second mission but I was starting to fall asleep so I decided to turn it off and I'll play tn lol.

After playing about an hour and a half, I’m pretty impressed so far. My main note so far is that the tutorial is much better at explaining how individual units work than in the original game. It feels much more clear what certain units are capable of and how to utilize them effectively, which I appreciate. I also think the UI is a lot more readable and easy to understand which definitely helps with the flow of battles.

So far my only gripe is the voice acting; it’s not very good and there’s no way to turn it off. But other than that I’ve been having fun so far!

Voices don't bother me much, but yeah, barely any options in general...

Also, what was the point in asking us if we played Advance Wars before if they're just gonna make us do the tutorials anyways? lol

Made it to ch 7 for AW1 and ch 6 was a real pain if you're not paying attention. I kept missing the whole point of the mission until it hit me. I spent way too much time on that one haha.

looks at the map editor, sees that it's somewhat underwhelming, looks at the help section

Oh, so you have to unlock stuff in here, oki...
...
WAIT YOU CAN GET THE VOLCANO IN THE MAP CREATOR NOW?! lol

I've put a little over 5.5hrs into the game so far, and onto mission 10. It definitely feels a bit quirkier than I was expecting. Even on casual, I find it fairly difficult in some spots, or at an impasse for quite a few days where it's nothing really going my way or the enemies way. I will say FE is a little easier to pick up and play than AW. It's still a decent time, though. Just need to get used to it when I was expecting something more along the lines of FE, though thats my fault.

Not going to lie, I played a few missions of this and found myself bouncing off of it completely. I keep trying to play it like a standard tactics game, but missions are more like puzzle boxes with set solutions, than anything else. There are usually exact places you need to move units, or exact units you need to attack on early turns, and if you don't do these things, the mission effectively becomes unwinnable. I just don't find that very fun.

To be fair, the early missions are basically tutorials more than anything. The game does become more open to experiment with as it goes on, doubly so outside of the campaign.

I wasn't sure if this remake was just going to be a visual upgrade, but it seems like they fixed the AI in this. Less cheating on the part of the computer, and people are already finding that certain exploits to easily win on particular maps no longer work.

@Reyren If you get to the point where you're not enjoying the game, then you should probably do what you need to do to enjoy it, but the game is balanced around the normal difficulty setting.

Advance Wars is a little different than other games in the genre. It requires more actual strategizing, more careful unit placement, and sometimes sacrificing units to achieve larger tactical advantages is the right call.

A few recommendations:

• Weaker units can effectively serve as bait and shields for your more powerful units. The AI seems to especially like going after APCs.
• In most stages, you can win simply by seizing the enemy headquarters. Sometimes, the best path to victory involves very little actual head-to-head conflict, but instead misdirecting the enemy.
• Mechs (the little troopers with rocket launchers) are some of the most cost-effective units in the game, since a small group of them can hold off tanks effectively.
• Be aggressive, but don't over-extend. The boost you get to damage output from hitting the enemy first often means attacking keeps you safer than turtling.
• With that said, and this is especially true if you're not going for S ranks like I am (which require you to not drag out the battle, since time is an element in the scoring), make heavy use of checkpoints in maps. ESPECIALLY if you have Rockets and Artillery to bombard the enemy with.

Only stages I've had issues with was one in the first game where you had to capture 15 cities before the enemy, all because the game told me to ignore the base on the island. Ugh, tried again and DIDN'T ignore the base and then won....and got a decent score. lol ...also the final mission was a pain for obvious reasons.

Only problems I'm dealing with so far in the 2nd game are ones that are limited on days. >.<

@Joeynator3000 I just played that mission regarding capturing cities. I think it was mission 8 or 9. How many missions are we looking at for the 1st game? I'm wondering how much time I'll have for both games, and some stuff on xbox prior to totk.

I think the first game has 25, of course it also has a challenge mode for both games where all the missions are tougher.

@Pizzamorg I'm speaking from solving 1&2 on the GBA. Haven't played all that much of the reboot yet. But, from what I remember it's a give and take, you push a little, if it works you dig in, if it doesn't you move back and fortify your position. Build up forces, sacrifice some damaged forces or ones that have already served their purpose and inch forward a little more. It's how I beat them the first time around at least. Never did I feel like something was un-winnable even when I know I screwed up. It was always just adding more time or turns to the game until I got back into the dominant position.

...Just now recognizing the Super CO Power themes, they're still in the game, huh. Guess it was just the normal Power themes that got removed, oh well.

@Pizzamorg Hm, okay. Well, i think you are exaggerating. But of course some units are very ineffective against other units, so building the right units is important. I do not think it is so hard except for some of the hardest levels in AW 2. I would not prefer if it was too easy.

Maybe the game should have a hard mode and easy mode.