Advance Wars Producer Doesn't Have A Clear Idea For New Entry

Day one whenever, wherever. Need this more then another Fire Emblem!

Damien: Does a new Advance Wars really need to include Fire Emblem's relationship system to be successful?

That's the point. I think not. As far as I remember, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia doesn't have romances and it is a good entry in the series.

It should leave out the relationship system so it can focus on other strengths and mechanics.

It's like how we can't have Wave Race cos there's Mario Kart. 😕

@RupeeClock This. just give us a good game. Not everyg ame needs a waifu

It's like that's not the point of the games or something.
Focus on the gameplay-- otaku pandering isn't everything.

We like these series for the GAMEPLAY. Not everything is about shallow dating simulators.

I'm beginning to think Fire Emblem: Awakening was a mistake.

I think Damien might be misinterpreting the word "relationships" in that quote. To me it reads as them having a hard time coming up with compelling relations/situations that would get players invented in the story and characters

Edit: I went back read the interview again. I might be a bit off. I really do hope that advance wars isn't being held hostage because they want to add waifus to it.

@Fandabidozi was never a wave race fan but is that really their reasoning for not giving us a new one? Sounds like Nintendo

@RupeeClock
Seriously. This. The support system in Fire Emblem started as something small to accompany the main gameplay, it really shouldn't be the focus.

"it's harder to create relationships between its characters compared to Fire Emblem"

Who cares we just want a great strategy game like all the others not the most amazing story of all time. They managed it before numerous times so why not again? There's millions of amazing writers out there!

Sounds like an excuse to me tbh.

@Oat This.

And besides the last Advance Wars game, Days of Ruin, had character interraction and writing that Fates wishes it could have.

Then why not do a HD Remaster of 1, 2 and Ruin? Those with hand drawn HD sprites could look lovely on the Switch and bind time till you think up a new idea....

Advance Wars has explosions! Who cares about relationships!?!

They should just go back to the sort of cheerful, nonsensical plots of the first three games. Days of Ruin is interesting, but I prefer my warfare to be colorful and happy.

Also, they should resist the temptation to make some epic, $60 console-style game. Just release a cute, sprite-based strategy game with a decent campaign and a full suite of multiplayer options for $30, and people will snap it up in an instant.

just give us adv wars greatest hits hd

It's not called Soap Opera Wars, why does it need relationships? Maybe having a similar mechanic linked to research and development instead, characters can come up with new designs for machinery to use in the game, rather than creating children and stupid time warps

More like they've ditched the franchise in favour of Fire Emblem. It's the same story with F-Zero and Mario Kart.

@Elanczewski
Relationships don't = romance

Echoes has fantastic relationships and excellent support comversations.

Idk when people started confusing the two. Romances were only a fraction of a percent of the broader relationship system, yet people only seem to focus on the 10 second marriage scene as opposed to the hundreds of in depth relationship conversations, which is what makes Echoes every bit as good as Awakening.

FE always had good gameplay, but it's the narrative, characters, story and relationships that elevate the newer entries far beyond what the OG entries could ever achieve.

Even Echoes, with some of the most basic combat in the entire franchise, is one of the best, if not the most enjoyable games in the series specifically because of the relationship and narrative dialog.

Without that, you're left with nothing but gameplay. And while it would undoubtedly be immaculate, it would never dig it's claws into people like FE if the characters aren't personable, and one of the biggest ways they've achieved that in FE was via use of relationship dialog, which has been around since the early entries (albeit in a more bland and basic form, which is why the newer entries have been received so much better)

Just do a cel-shaded remaster of Advance Wars and be done with it

Why do they need to put a relationship sim in strategy games? I like Advance Wars because you're dealing with random units instead of individual people. Call me crazy but the whole "bonding" thing of Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates just bogged down the whole experience. I like Advance Wars for the gameplay not the personalities or story.

Advance Wars is basically a series of small chess battles making up a campaign. I think if they gave us, say, 3 campaigns, improved the AI so you could have different difficulty settings, included a level design tool, and buffed up the graphics to HD, they'd have a winner on their hands. Wouldn't cost that much to develop either.

But I'd settle for the two GBA Advance Wars on a Virtual Console!

I hope that they keep Advance Wars different to Fire Emblem. Heck, if they are struggling for a direction, make it an RTS! That would be awesome!

JUST DO IT!!! What are you waiting for!!!

@Hydrus13
There's a reason people hated Birthright so much.

The characters were bland, the support conversations sucked and the story was below average.

But it had gameplay in spades. A perfect example of how dull SRPG's can be without interesting relationship dialog to hook the player. And I don't mean romance, I mean support conversations. Even without a good story, no one will care if the characters and conversations are interesting

@JaxonH you say that yet Fates is infamous for its awful story and writing...

EDIT: Oh and to add to your second comment: Conquest is known for having a worse story than Birthright but plenty of people enjoy it because of its great gameplay. Birthright's gameplay was just boring.

No need for a relationship system since the game completely different from FE. Will be a day one purchase if it goes back to the duel strike universe as days of ruin did not really fit.

@Fandabidozi yeah, that's some flawed reasoning by Nintendo. Only now thinking about it, it appears a good chunk of my N64 library is racing games. MK64, Waverace 64, F Zero, Diddy Kong Racing, the Cruisn' series, and SW ep I racer.

I love Advance Wars, and I'm not into Fire Emblem. At this point I'd take just a remake of the GBA or DS games with online multiplayer, since I have no local friends to play Advance Wars with regularly.

Alternatively, perhaps I need new friends?

So many comments saying that fe isso a date simulator. Cleary you guys dont play or dont get FE. Two of 15 entries use the mechanic so the series must be about it right? Relationship in fe most of the times is about friendship on the battle field. Echoes, the last entry shows that. So guys please inform yourself before speak lame things.

And the best way to do a New advance wars is do alike to Valkyria Chronicles.

@PotatoTheG
Neither Birthright or Conquest are considered as good as Awakening or Echoes. Plenty enjoyed them for the gameplay, including myself, and yet I and many others are enjoying Echoes, a game with far more basic combat and maps, far more than Birthright or Conquest.

Obviously the game isn't ruined with only having good gameplay, as Fates shows, but it also shows that even with impeccable gameplay, you screw the pooch on characters and relationship narratives the game will be inferior and will be a heavy mark against it.

Advance Wars needs some kind of personal dialog to elevate it. It's the difference between Fates and Echoes

@JaxonH Agree with Your words 100%. Relationship ise awesome when done right. That's why FE 7 still better than any adv wars game. Which are great too.

@JaxonH I see what you're saying, and I agree, but in this context, I think the interview really was referring to the "dating sim." Given the tastes of the Japanese audience for games (and Pachinko machines) I do think IS now views that as a core selling component at this point. IS is turning into a harem game maker. The interrelationships between characters has always been a key to FE and a bright spot, but the harem emphasis has become more and more pronounced. Birthright is a game 20% about incest.

Tune in next year for Paper Mario Color Splash 2, where Paper Mario builds a love nest with a paint can by the beach, and Swimsuit Peach gets jealous! (HD Rumble supported)

@JaxonH Thanks for clarification, never played Fire Emblem game xd

Please make a new Advance Wars similar to the GBA/DS classics. I've always considered Advance Wars as being a superior game to Fire Emblem personally. You could keep the same view and gameplay but just give it the full 3D treatment like in the most recent 3DS Pokemon games or something like that. But, I'm not saying to just make it a 3DS game; it has to come to Switch too (and ideally be made specifically with Switch in mind to take advantage of its increased graphics power and HD output).

@GrailUK ummm we have Battalion Wars for that

Great to hear that they're interested in making the game, but forget the character relationships, just give us a great strategy game!

Advance Wars, F-Zero, 1080, ExciteBots, Golden Sun, EarthBound, Punch-Out!!, Baten Kaitos, The Last Story, Eternal Darkness, StarTropics, Geist, Trace Memory, Metroid: these are franchise Nintendo needs to bring back.

I really believed the Wii U would have had an eShop exclusive Advance Wars, it is really suited to that kind of audience. But either way, I'd buy a new game regardless of format. Like Fire Emblem, it's so addictive. But I love that the two have always been speparate, I'm not keen on the idea of using mechanics from another game just because they can.

@NEStalgia
Even if it was, that's a good thing. As mentioned before, the only "dating elements" in the western release were a 10 second snippet of a still shot wedding, and that compared to all the support conversations needed to unlock it was barely a blip (And even then, those 10 sec marriage still shots only applied with opposite sex relationships)

Having a little 10 second still shot saying "oh you're officially married" is pretty lame grounds for being a "dating sim". Ya they had some weird mode in the JP release but it didn't take anything away from the main game.

And you can't have that without the foundation of relationship support comversations, which is what makes the games great.

So I say bring it on. They wanna allow opposite sexes to see a 10 second marriage still shot after 4 in depth, intriguing conversations? Go for it. What does it matter.

And the incest thing is a cheap shot. You only married who you chose to marry. The game didn't force your hand following S ranking relationships. So the game was whatever the player wanted it to be. Which is the best kind of game. In fact, you didn't have to marry anyone to anyone. 99% of the system is the amazing support conversations, 1% was an optional screenshot, only for opposite sexes who reached S rank, of being pronounced married.

And it was a great system. Fire Emblem goes well with romance, betrayal and political intrigue. Why do people bash that as if you can't feature attraction between the sexes without getting trashed for it

A nonsense reason. Clearly they aren't interested in making one, so just say it!

They can either continue the story after days of ruin or go back and act like DoR never happened and continue with Andy and the hang. Just give me something Intelligent Systems. (-_-)

I actually dislike the relationship mechanics in Fire Emblem, that's coming from a big Fire Emblem fan.

I hope they don't get fixated in it, and if they make an Advanced Wars game not to shoehorn it in.

But IS needs to slow it down with Fire Emblem.

...or just give us a spin off like Binding of Andy or Federation Advance Wars...lol..nooooo...I just want a regular Advance Wars
please...

@Yorumi
I agree on the children front, and never got into having kids for stats, but it worked well in Awakening. Fates it was shoehorned in and felt out of place.

But the support conversations in Echoes and Awakening are exponentially better than past games. Earlier games were just, dry in that regard. I'd say Echoes really sets the bar. Definitely the best in the series I've played, and I've played them all (at least a portion of each game).

So ya, the children thing could be dropped, but aside from that the support conversations are mint (Fates aside which had horrible writing and characters and conversations). Echoes is a return to glory though

edit
And to clarify, I loved the foundation of the stories set up in older games, but the actual writing and conversations were severely lacking compared to newer entries. Ironically, Fates kinda felt similar to older games to me- impeccable gameplay but not much to entertain narrative-wise.

Idea How about we take the Commanding Officers, and put em in mechs to also battle on the field.

Advance Wars doesn't need that feature. This is a series that's all about the gameplay.

Also, I would argue that Fire Emblem Echoes doesn't have the relationships, and it is a masterpiece. Easily my favorite Fire Emblem game yet, and I've played all of them to an extent and have finished Shadow Dragon, all the GBA games, Awakening, and Birthright.

I'll also say I hope they go with something like Days of Ruin again. Definitely my favorite of the ones I've played (1, Dual Strike, and Days of Ruin).

@Yorumi
Yaaa, definitely disagree. I fell in love with Awakening mostly for it a support conversations, which were by far my favorite part of the game. When Lucina' s sister was using Falchion to chop apples... I was rolling on the floor. Couldn't help but fall in love with that.

The only thing I would criticize in Awakening was unbalanced pair ups and bland maps. Fates addressed both issues, unfortunately it stumbled in the narrative and characters and story.

Echoes takes the best from both, aside from the "route the enemy" maps which it couldn't really escape being a remake.

Advance Wars doesn't need a relationship mechanic. It doesn't need to be a Fire Emblem clone. All it needs is great writing, engaging characters, and fun gameplay. Advance Wars was one of my most beloved GBA series. Dual Strike was a little lackluster and Days of Ruin was a bit depressing. I hope they go back to the lightheartedness of the GBA original. One thing they could do is an updated version of the original made for the Switch as a way to test the market for an all-new game in the series. But I definitely want to see Advance Wars make its way to Nintendo Switch. I know we have Wargroove coming, which is basically medieval Advance Wars, but I want a proper new game.

@JaxonH The whole support path to S ranking the relationships to get to the wedding photo was a bit much. Japan had the whole petting game. Even the US had the petting game on S rank. Petting game aside, the whole theme of fates was the obnoxious doting and not-so-discreet open flirting with the character by every female cast member whether they were relatives or not. And that's even BEFORE we talk about Camilla who's like a rejected extra from Dead or Alive. The dating sim extended into the support conversations with the potential mates throughout and that's what makes it cringey. The support conversations between other characters are normal, but the romance characters are all harem-anime tropes in motion. Stella Glow seems tame in contrast. Of course with Senran Kagura dropping the ruse and going full-on "yeah it's a game about school girl jiggle" this time around, I guess SOMETHING needed to fill that genre?

Awakening didn't jump so far overboard, but it started the lurch toward dating sim, and Fates just ran with it full steam ahead.

And then added Camilla just in case someone happened to miss it

The support conversations of characters like the apple slicing with Falchion are great, they do add to the game and the characters. The dating stuff though seems to be like a whole side game they glued in just to get a certain audience of lonely Japanese people to buy in, because right now, lonely Japanese people is a distressingly large market.

@Yorumi
Well you're free to your opinion, but I used plenty of strategy in Awakening, although I agree to a certain extent about those things it didn't really impact the game much for me. I loved the challenge of reinforcements, which older games also used (not exclusive to Awakening). Supports were unbalanced late game, but the great thing about FE is its still fun. And the DLC was designed around the high level pairing- there is one DLC map I have yet to beat in fact.

But certainly in Fates, and Echoes, strategy was impeccable. Fates was the pinnacle of strategy, so from my point of view strategy has never been better. For it's faults, Conquest raised the bar with it's map design and strategy which really saved it from It's bad narrative.

Why....?

Evil army invades. That provides many opportunities to craft situations for the characters to interact in different ways. Maybe throw in some surprise motivation for the evil army to spice things up.

I'd just like to play a new Advance Wars game.

@Yorumi
Oh I think reinforcements are definitely strategy. It tests your ability to improvise. And again, if you criticize Awakening for it you have to criticize the whole series for it, cause reinforcements have been around.

But yes, the pair ups were OP late game. Of course, I grinded alot. I imagine it wouldn't be nearly as bad without grinding. But the unpredictability of skills meant you could still die if you weren't careful to keep pairs together. But ya, I agree it made late game easy. Certainly one of its biggest faults (As I mentioned) and one rectified in the next entry.

@Yorumi
Well, to each their own. If it's not for you It's not for you. If you're not enjoying it, probably best to play something else.

I did enjoy it though, despite its faults and loved the "dating sim" aspects, at least in Awakening. Always enjoy the support convos, and since DLC is optional I have no issues with that, be it $40 or $400. I thought the DLC in Fates was impeccable though. Not so much in Echoes, but hey, it's optional. Support pairings in Fates were perfected, and despite being old school in Echoes, I loved that too.

@NEStalgia
I don't agree with labelling anyone who enjoys it "lonely Japanese". I thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of what you call "dating sim". I like the intrigue and reactions of characters flirting sometimes. It's a cool mechanic, and dialog pertaining to relationships reflects real life. Idk when it all of a sudden became taboo.

The mini game aside, which could be completely ignored, the game actually felt normal. Camilla was awesome, one of the few characters I actually liked from Fates.

I would honestly rather have a new Batallion Wars. The one on Wii was actually pretty good and it had online play. Just my two cents.

Yeah, what? Advance Wars has to be a dating sim now? Just make a bunch of new characters, blow them up, and bring back all of the older characters via multiplayer/vs mode.

Also, character creator. lol

Not everyone who enjoys it is "lonely Japanese", but there simply IS a large market in japan of people who fit that profile and are willing to spend their money on entertainment that simulates relationships, be it in games/dating sims, anime, or, ever so slightly a more "real" market, the host/hostess clubs. That's an actual "mainstream" market for Japan, where it isn't here, and it's clear that IS is targeting that as a business category. Nothing "wrong" with that, but it's a fairly distinct line of business in Japan that more or less doesn't exist (or not the same way) anywhere else (well, Korea has a similar scene...)

It's...wait....Camilla was awesome? She was fan service crystallized into a character. Of all things Fire Emblem, Camilla's the thing that most of all made me think "I'm too old for this hormonal teenager crud" The only awesome thing about Camilla was that she manages to avoid significant spinal problems. The chiropractors of Nohr must be top notch! I think a lot of the other iffy moments in the game wouldn't have seemed as iffy without Camilla leering voraciously at her "little brother" from the start of the game

Though now that I think about it most of Birthright's characters weren't fan servicy. It was Fates that really made it distasteful. And most of that was down to the thoughtless anime tropes used. Plus Camilla. Still a trope...but somehow more distasteful. If the relationship building makes the game more real.....Camilla shatters that illusion by being a totally unrealistic character borrowed from the adult film industry character building toolkit. At least other characters can have some depth to them that makes them the way they are (deranged as they may be.) Camilla has none.

I hope they don't try to force the relationship system into this. Don't get me wrong, I love Fire Emblem, and I loved it before the current relationship system, but I don't understand why you would want it in an advance wars game. They are two different styles of strategy games - let's keep it that way.

I don't think they are talking romantic relationships here. Advance War games have units that are generic cannon fodder (much like actual war) but that means that that there is no real connection to the units beyond the commanders and AW doesn't have the most robust story in the world. However I think that isn't a negative. Just put out awesome gameplay, no it won't pull modern fire emblem numbers but it will still sell to fans of strategy games.

Advance Wars for me is the greatest video game franchise of all time and it would do incredibly well on Switch. MAKE IT HAPPEN!!

Sod the story, just make it already

I would buy Advance Wars for the Switch in a heartbeat. While I like stories, sometimes I miss the simplicity of some guy in overalls going into pipes and killing turtles and having no real reason why other than to save the princess. Stories are not required to make a game fun.

Ridiculous that a current-gen Advance Wars title is off the table because it can't ape a popular section from another game. In other news, Nintendo confirm next iteration of Animal Crossing delayed as they struggle to find a way to include first person shooting mechanics.

Never played an Advance Wars game, but this comment section makes me want to try one...

IS Employee: Sir, I have an idea for a game!

IS Boss: Does it have Waifus?

Is Employee: I'll sit down.

It has all to do with sales: Fire emblem games sell so well nowadays that Advance wars doesn't have priority anymore, sadly. But maybe they could do a cross-over...?

I agree with the comments from people about not caring for a story or character relationships, they were never the things that I loved about this game. However I do understand that trying to make another game would be hard, days of ruin was so complete that it just left nothing more than repetition for them.
I would like to see if they could perfect 'battalion wars', it had so much potential but never quite got it right.

Is this why we can't have another advance wars? The game doesn't need a support system feature to build relationships between characters, the story builds the character dynamics itself.

The whole gameplay is about controlling nameless units in a more chess like play where you can sacrifice units unlike FE. The characters mainly serve as the leaders of the army. Days of Ruin was a wonderful game and it had character development in its story without the need of any supports.

Sure it discarded some of the goofiness of previous titles for a darker, more realistic dystopian storyline, but I felt the changes were quite nice. The CO powers were not obscenely powerful like in Dual Strike (except one), there were less characters but each were more engaged in the story and the new units were great. And it didn't need a 'relationships mechanic'.

They should just outright say that they would prefer to keep making Fire Emblem rather than say nonsensical stuff like this.

@dew12333

Glad to see people bring up Battalion Wars! Yup, I'd love to see it. Maybe get some 2-player co-op campaign going with 2 Switches but, just make another one!

a new adv wars would be awesome. i dont know why they let it die out when its obviously still popular. forget relationships. with new graphics and the right direction, and even, gasp, dlc, this could be a big money maker for them and fun for us fans

@fafonio WE DON'T EVEN REALLY HAVE BATTALION WARS ANYMORE EITHER

T,T

Just make another one in the vein of Days of Ruin, it was apparently ahead of it's time anyways. Unlike Super Mario Maker, you could actually share custom maps and play on them with others in real time online...

So im a really avid fan of advance wars and what i want to say more is the best way to add a relationship is to enhance the tag system in advance wars 3 i dont want to say to add extra attack/defense in battle because that would imbalance the game and not make it fair, but instead add another aspect of story line to it, give the relationship system just a story purpose system, like the more you use 2 CO's in battle together the more you read dialogue between them not in battle but outside of battle like a separate menu, Advance Wars 4 had way more story than its previous titles but i for one enjoyed that aspect. so i know for certain the story written can be good if it can be between characters and why not add like mission elements to this like if one character is confesses to wanting revenge he/she confesses to a certain other character and will go on the mission together be it difficult or not. in advance wars 2 there wasnt a linear path to take if you wanted to beat all the missions or not, you just had to beat certain missions to keep on going. so adding this aspect can unlock more for the story and play ability. the only debate i can really have is which story universe to continue off. both stories of both series have so much potential to branch from. ive even made my own stories in my head about how each series can a sequel. the only thing i dont want is another days of ruin, and i say this because its my 2nd favorite game in the series but all it really had was story added on to it and the extra overworld missions and Vs. Mode but thats about it. the online play isnt really worth mentioning as you very limited to what maps you could play i think it was like a 10x10 square map thats just no creativity. Dual strike had campaign, hard campaign, war room, time trials, money trials, turn trials and the mini game thats still so fun after many years. it was a setback in my opinion but the only redeeming part was probably the last few mission difficulties, characters, and story. i think thats about everything i have to say. i may be late to the date of the post but i wanted to say out my ideas and give a small opinion because advance wars is my favorite video game series of all time. Fire Emblem is okay but it cant beat advance wars for me.