Advance Wars I and II Review of Reboot Camp: pitching for excellence
Our Verdict
Nintendo and WayForward deliver the blueprint to the perfect remake with Avance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp, offering new ways to engage with timeless gameplay. Whether it be for fans of the series or strategy newcomers, there’s something special here that is worthy of the endless hours of play.
Among Nintendo's sleeping titans, Advance Wars has to rank among the largest. With no new tactical games to stir the gears in your head throughout the Wii U period and far into Nintendo's Switch renaissance, this beloved series has been dormant since 2008. However, that is about to change as Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp presents a dazzling remake that will allow both returning commanders and new players to relive the excitement of strategic conquest.
Let me quickly explain the idea in case you are unfamiliar with the Advance Wars series or the Wars series in general. Two armies of land, air, and sea forces engage in combat across a variety of maps throughout a substantial campaign that puts you to the test on all fronts in this turn-based tactical game. As you fight throughout the continents of Cosmo Land, you may choose among three Orange Star commanders, or COs: Andy, Max, and Sami. Each has a unique CO ability and advantage. It's still a lot like Fire Emblem from when it was first released, but for tanks and helicopters in lieu of pegasus riders and mounted cavalry, which is by no means a bad thing.
Re-Boot Camp is a visual feast, from the new anime-style cinematic introduction to seeing your soldiers' feet on the ground. You get a renewed sense of immersion in the Advance Wars universe right away thanks to the vibrant colors and emotive character designs. You identify with Sami's quick fuse, conventional big-man-who-cares Max, and Andy's strange fascination with tools. Advance Wars comes to life like never before thanks to the inclusion of voice lines, even if they aren't completely spoken. The tiny group really seems like a close-knit squad.
This time around, the broader group also seems more playful, with minor redesigns that perfectly capture the intended persona of COs like Grit, Sonja, Drake, and others. In addition, Sturm seems to be a real enemy this time around as opposed to the cartoonish antagonist from the first game. The masked enemy now manifests as this universe's Darth Vader, as usual, and a new animation for his special CO ability Meteor Strike shows just how deadly a threat he can be.
One contentious aspect of Re-Boot Camp, if you can call it that, is the redesign of combat soldiers as a "toy." If you have any worries, I can allay them immediately. The map's appearance as a real board game contributes to the impression that you're not really dealing with mortality here, and the fighting troops look fantastic and definitely don't belong in the chibi genre.
The makeover of the toys effectively keeps things from becoming too serious while solidifying the game's fictitious nature—which is helpful since all you're really doing is acting out miniature conflicts in which miniature troops die. Being devoid of geopolitics, this military-themed game is one of the few that permits some degree of virtual escape from reality.
The fights in Advance Wars are, of course, the main attraction, and they do not let down. Taking as Olaf, Kanbei, and other well-known characters as you rush into war in the cause of Orange Star, the campaign is mostly unchanged from what you remember. However, the main quest does seem a little different. The narrative seems significantly less constrained because to the new anime-style character designs made feasible by not relying on GBA-era pixel visuals combined with the more lines of conversation in between missions. If there's anything I can learn from writing a video game story, it's that the stakes seem bigger, which makes for a more engaging experience.
You see that the COs, troops, and battles stand up rather well versus contemporary strategy games. If I were an extraterrestrial visitor, you could convince me that this is a brand-new game with innovative concepts for 2023, but it would take some persuading. The gameplay of Advance Wars has a timeless quality that this remake only serves to emphasize. Rather than attempting to alter the legacy of a fantastic game, it aims to accentuate it, reminding us of just how amazing it was and persuading potential players that we haven't been overhyping the series during its unfortunate break.
Re-Boot Camp refines every aspect of the original game's mechanics throughout the experience, allowing you to focus on the actual task of leading your men to victory. It's still a significant difficulty. Even though there have been a ton of tributes and quasi-copycat titles released in the fifteen years since the last Wars game—I'm talking about Wargroove, Tiny Metal, and Into the Breach—the main campaign still stands tall thanks to its excellent turn-based tactical content, diverse level design, and challenging difficulty curve, which Michelangelo would be proud of.
Thus, in terms of remakes, Re-Boot Camp does all you would desire. It keeps the best elements, smooths out the irksome ones, and adds a couple of amiable new mechanics to help the entire thing flow a little better. You may now quickly advance opponent turns, see the grid at all times to quickly determine the range of your troops, and even play in an easy mode to ease yourself into Re-Boot Camp's tactical challenges.
The double-pack has a little catch: in order to access the second game, you must finish the first game's campaign. However, the majority of returning players are either coming to experience both games again or are brand-new to the series, so this really only poses an issue for the tiny minority of people who are only interested in playing the sequel. For the latter, it's definitely best to begin with the more manageable maps from the first game before Black Hole Rising's scope widens, simply to make sure you understand the basics of the battlefield.
It's evident that WayForward, the developer Nintendo selected for this remake, studied several of the previously listed titles, particularly the cheery and cozy Wargroove. Both games are tactical, of the don't-take-this-too-seriously kind, where the on-field troops are led by humorous characters. The map design aspect and the need to strengthen the story are two more areas where parallels can be seen. The most striking resemblance is the paint job of Re-Boot Camp, which makes every nation's colors more noticeable than they have ever been. Similar to how they improve Wargroove, all of these ideas give Re-Boot Camp a distinct flavor and personality that sets it apart from other tactical games while also improving the fundamental gameplay.
Even though you spend the most of your time in the campaign mode, there are lots of opportunities for breaks when you encounter a combat that you need to take a break from. The "war room" is where you can test out new COs and battle maps from Hachi's shop. The "versus" option allows you and up to three friends to battle against each other under your own set of rules. Finally, the "design room" allows you to create your own maps to test your battlefield awareness. Though Re-Boot Camp is a turn-based tactical game, it cleverly offers a variety of gameplay options to ensure that the experience never becomes boring.
Additionally, there is an online mode, which is the one for which you have been waiting, people. Here, if you and your pals are competing over who has the greatest battlefield tactics, you may face off against a buddy in a one-on-one match. It's a little restricted in that there's no random matching and you can only fight pals, but it's simply another way that Re-Boot camp offers you varied gameplay options.
Re-Boot Camp surpasses a lot of Nintendo's Switch remasters and remakes in terms of value for money, giving your tanks more gameplay options and, of course, two games for the price of one. You can see how much thought and care has gone into bringing the Star Wars experience to current audiences by comparing this to 2020's Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX or 2018's Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. You can also see how much more value for your money is included in Re-Boot Camp.
It's also important to note that you will be spending a lot of time with this game if you like extended gaming sessions. The combined length of both games makes for a campaign that may easily last 50 hours, squandering your time as quickly as one of Drake's battleships. The major quest lines provide enough diversity across the stages to keep the various regions of your brain engaged until the campaign's conclusion, so it seldom gets old either.
Nintendo and WayForward have taken a very comprehensive approach to this return journey to Cosmo Land, from the new game types to the stunning remix of the music. Here was where I heard the whole Advance Wars music for the first time, having grown up trying not to bother my siblings by keeping my GBA on mute. I can't even begin to count how many turns I purposefully let go so I could tap my foot and play the air guitar to the hits from the battlefield. The synth bass in Andy's Theme, which literally jumps out of the screen, is really amazing. It gives a Red Hot Chili Pepper feel to the already vibrant game.
Thus, in summary, Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp offers everything you need. The main narrative seems more significant and enjoyable to play than it has ever felt, the game environment and characters are vibrant and have depth, and there are a plethora of game options to keep things interesting when you're not in the campaign. In a word, Re-Boot Camp is a captivating strategic genre classic, and that's just what I needed from an Advance Wars reinvention. If it's okay with you, I'll return to my apparent specialty, naval warfare, while you prepare for the impending fight.
Check out our Metroid Prime review for another Nintendo remake that we just had to have. See our Pupperazi Switch review or MLB Perfect Inning 23 review if you'd like something a bit different.