Advance Wars

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This article refers to the Game Boy Advance title. For the series of video games, see Nintendo Wars.

Advance Wars
North American boxart
Developer(s)	Intelligent Systems
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Series	Nintendo Wars
Platform(s)	Game Boy Advance
Release date(s)	NA September 10, 2001 AUS 2001 EU January 11, 2002[1] JP November 25, 2004 (as part of compilation Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2)
Genre(s)	Turn-based tactics
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: E (Everyone) ELSPA: 11+
Media	32-megabit cartridge
Input methods	Buttons, D-Pad

Advance Wars is a turn-based tactics video game developed for the Game Boy Advance by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in 2001.^[2] It was released in the USA on September 10, 2001, but put on hold in Japan and Europe due to the following day's terrorist attacks in the USA.^[3] Although released in Europe in January 2002, neither GBA game was released in Japan until the Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 compilation on November 25, 2004.

Advance Wars is the first game in the Advance Wars series of video games, followed by Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (also for the Game Boy Advance), and then by Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for the Nintendo DS. These games form a sub-series of the Nintendo Wars set of games.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Gameplay 2.1 Battle system 2.2 Terrain 2.3 Units 2.4 Multiplayer 2.5 Commanding officers 3 Development 4 Reception 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Plot

The story of the Advance Wars campaign begins with the nation of Orange Star in a war against the neighbouring country of Blue Moon. As a tactical adviser for Orange Star, the player follows the war effort through all four countries over the course of the game. In the end, it is revealed that the enigmatic Black Hole Army, under the command of Sturm, is the true enemy. Using a CO doppelganger clone of Andy, Sturm stirred up war among the four countries in order to confuse, weaken, and eventually conquer them. Once this is revealed, the four countries unite to drive Black Hole out of their land.

[edit] Gameplay

The objective is to defeat the enemy army. There are two ways to defeat an opponent: destroy every one of his units on the map or capture his headquarters, however some maps have specific objectives, such as capturing a certain number of cities to claim victory. The available modes of play include a campaign mode which carries the game's storyline, the "war room" which is a collection of maps on which the player strives for high scores, as well as multiplayer modes and a map design mode.

[edit] Battle system

The battles of Advance Wars are turn-based in nature. Two to four armies, each headed by a commanding officer, take turns building and commanding units on grid-based maps.

All units are limited in the types of units they can attack. What dictates a unit’s ability to attack different targets are its primary and secondary weapons. For example, the Mech unit has a bazooka that can only be fired at land vehicles, but are more powerful for that purpose than their secondary weapons, machine guns, which Mechs can use against other Mechs, Infantry, and helicopters.

The amount of damage done to the enemy in combat is proportional to the number of hit points the attacker has. The majority of the weapons have a limited supply of ammunition. Units with secondary weapons will resort to these when their primary weapon's ammunition runs out.

[edit] Terrain

The terrain on a map affects unit movement, vision, and the defense attribute of units stationed in the terrain. Weather conditions can also affect vision and movement of ground units. Fog of war may also be enabled, whereby a player's vision depends on the individual units' lines of sight, which varies from unit to unit.

[edit] Units

There are 18 different types of military units in Advance Wars. Each unit has a set amount of attack power, vision range in Fog of war, movement range and type, and fuel supply, and most units have two weapons which can be used against different types of enemy units. There are both direct and indirect attack units, as well as transport units. All of the units are either infantry, vehicles, ships or air units. Units have specific strengths and weaknesses

[edit] Multiplayer

In Multiplayer mode, players can compete against the AI or against other human players. Multiplayer matches feature a variety of settings that can be changed pre-battle. Multiplayer comes in two forms: Versus mode and Link mode. In Versus mode, only one GBA system is used, which every participant in the game uses. One person will take their turn, then pass the system to the next person. Link mode is the same game as Versus mode gameplay-wise, but multiple consoles are used, one for each person. It can be played with just one game pak or with one game pak per player.

[edit] Commanding officers

Armies are led by Commanding Officers (COs) who control units. All COs except Andy provide units with special advantages and/or disadvantages, such as extra firepower or a longer unit range. COs also have a Power Meter which fills up by defeating enemy units or when on the receiving end of a brutal offensive attack. When the meter is full, a CO can unleash his or her CO Power, which gives a temporary positive effect to friendly units and/or a negative effect to enemy units.

[edit] Development

This section requires expansion.

In January 2001, Nintendo France gave new Game Boy Advance screenshots exclusively to French gaming sites. Amongst them were new screenshots for Game Boy Wars Advance.^[4] At the time, very little information was given.^[5] Four player mode was confirmed before E3 2001 and with it a US release date of September 10.^[6]

[edit] Reception

According to Julian Gollop, developer of X-COM and Rebelstar: Tactical Command, Advance Wars, besides being influential, opened up the market for similar games on handheld video game systems.^[7] It was rated the 26th best game made on a Nintendo System in Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list.^[8] IGN gave it a score of 9.9 out of 10, the highest score given for a Game Boy Advance game on the site.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Advance Wars

• Game Boy Advance: Advance Wars
• Advance Wars at Nintendo.com (archives of the original at the Internet Archive)
• Advance Wars at GameFAQs
• Advance Wars Open Source Engine

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