After Fire Emblem: Awakening, Intelligent Systems’ longstanding SRPG franchise soared to new heights in the Nintendo canon, and it’s now enjoying something of a renaissance. Still, for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction, and this can be seen in the rather unfortunate plight of the Advance Wars series, a similar SRPG property from Intelligent Systems. Considering that we haven’t seen a new entry in this series since Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, it would seem that now is as good a time as any to revive the series, but it looks like another developer is beating Intelligent Systems to the punch with its own take.
Area 34 is currently in the process of developing Tiny Metal, and the parallels with Advance Wars are numerous. The 8-10 hour campaign will detail the story of Lt. Nathan Gries, as he commands a contingency of military units in opposition of a villainous nation called Zipang. Gameplay will consist of strategically moving units about on an isometric grid, taking into account factors like terrain and unit strengths and weaknesses. The game’s due out sometime in October and will be seeing a release on the Switch. Here’s the announcement trailer:
What do you think? Will you be picking this up? When (if ever) do you think Advance Wars will make a comeback? Drop us a comment in the section below.
[source inside-games.jp, via nintendoeverything.com]
Comments 35
This article mentions "Advacne Wars" and the tweet with the link got the name wrong.
Feel free to put off writing until you've had your coffee.
seems promising but it still needs some polish.
Edit: i like that gold bar scene.
This looks pretty cool, glad to see some Advance Wars love! I'll keep an eye on this, although for now, War Groove looks more intriguing and fun to me. :]
Heh. The video is great. I'll be keeping an eye on this game.
Advacne Wars is one of my favorite games of all time. For sure I will buy this one.
Advance Wars has been abandoned by Nintendo in favour of Fire Emblem. This game looks alright though I need more info. What are they doing with bags of sherbet? There's no money in sherbet.
I got all excited when I saw the news feed, but no it's just another Kickstarter clone. They should change the name of kickstarter to Clone starter.
Looks promising. I hope the price will be relatively low too to allow this game to explode in the market eventually (if good).
"Zipang" is an old word for Japan. Actually, I think it originally came from Portuguese people mispronouncing "Nihon", and it later mutated into "Japan". I could be totally making that up, though. The important thing, though, is that it's a game about fighting an evil empire which is basically Japan. That seems... fairly likely to not get released here (or have the evil empire's name changed to "Evilmerica" or something dumb like that).
WarGroove looks way better to me, but I won't complain about more AW-likes making their way to the system.
I would love to see a fully-fledged new Advance Wars game made specifically for a console. With the Switch (and actually the Wii U Gamepad before it) especially, you could enjoy local multiplayer battles hotseat-style complete with Fog-of-War simply by turning the Switch's creen toward the next player for their turn.
A less likely IP that I REALLY wish would finally get some proper love (especially here in the West; it's been over a decade since the last game in the franchise even came here) is Daisenryaku (Grand Strategy) by SystemSoft Alpha of Japan. It comes in two flavors, WWII and Modern-era, both with real nations and hundreds of real-life units each with accurate weaponry and features. Think of Advance Wars as checkers and Daisenryaku as chess on steroids. Best of all, the Modern-era Daisenryaku games often come with fully featured Map Editors (among Rules Editors and in some cases even Unit Editors) to provide pretty much endless replayability.
I backed this when it was on KickStarter. The KS failed, but thankfully development was continuing anyway. Yeah, it may not be an official Advance Wars game, but hopefully it'll play as well and keep us going until one does finally arrive (fingers crossed!).
Would not mind a year between FE releases since we got a FE game ever year since 2016. Plus with a switch FE title next year I would be excited for a Advance Wars game late 2018 early 2019
I need my AW fix. Ill take it with that medieval one and this one if it turns out well
@setezerocinco
Which is the best Advance Wars?
This looks cool. I really like the art style and more modern setting. Will definitely be keeping my eye on this one.
If the units had more unique designs I'd consider it. For now, I'm gonna keep an eye on it :3 Fire Emblem is still my #1 SRPG franchise.
I'll gladly remind everyone of Warbits existence. It's a pretty good clone for iOS with internet matches.
An original Advance Wars would still reign supreme, but Warbits has scratched my itch for a year now, it's pretty good.
@fafonio I'm going to have to check that out. I've been longing for a new Advance Wars game for quite some time now.
@Spoony_Tech yeah, it's worth the price.
The only thing is that they still don't have sea battles.
But the joy of playing with your friends online is something that was missing in Advance Wars.
Still I want a true sequel Nintendo!
That and F-Zero!!
Absolutely day one for me.
This just makes me want an actual Advance Wars game even more...
This looks like crap. Dumb story, dumb art direction. I think Wargroove will be much better for those Advance Wars lovers.
@LegacySmikey Advance Wars. Not "Advanced".
I've never considered AW an SRPG (Turn based strategy yes but I don't really see RPG elements), but either way I'll consider this, pretty sure Nintendo is done with AW and I liked the style of gameplay.
Very obvious clone but I will keep an eye on it. October is my birthday month and I tend to spend silly amounts of money then so they may get a free pass.
The hype is so real. Perhaps this was particularly inspired by a certain canceled project: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EBbN58Jb-Ig
@kurtasbestos "Zipang" is actually a variant romanisation of an old Chinese reading of the characters "日本" (Japanese: "Nihon"; older Chinese: "Tsipang"). Japanese media seem to enjoy using this particular rendering in a self-parodying way. Here are more details if you're interested (under "Jipangu" section): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan
The term's usage here is a bit unoriginal yet (still) rather charming and humourous, considering the theme of the game.
@LegacySmikey hope I didn't come off wrong, phones autocorrect can suck, was just letting you know. I've poured a lot of time into the series too but sadly I'm not sure Nintendo will revisit it anytime soon. It was never a top selling game and Days of Ruin did pretty bad (personally, I think it was too much of a change to the mood of the series), and Nintendo has a reputation of abandoning their series that don't sell good enough (Metroid, F-Zero, Star Fox... they may try now and then but only if they have an idea to drastically change the formula). I'd love to be proven wrong though, as I miss this series. However I'll definitely be keeping my eyes on this, if Nintendo won't give me my fix I'll go elsewhere.
I hope there's a level editor. I spent countless hours designing and playing my own levels in dual strike.
Okay, glad it's coming to Switch
Like the look of war groove more but might give this a shot too
Looks good, but there's a small delay between attack and result that would irritate me to no end
@msvt my favorite is Day of Ruins, but is better to play the previous games before this one.
This and war groove are my jam.
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