Your memory plays tricks on you. If we were to remember the two original Advance Wars, released respectively in 2001 and 2003 on the Game Boy Advance, we would have imagined them exactly as they appear in Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. In reality, the two classics developed by Intelligent Systems are much more pixelated than what will be possible to enjoy on Nintendo Switch from April 21, 2023. This is undoubtedly an excellent business card for the modernization work of WayForward Technologies, from the North American veterans famous for Shantae and Mighty Switch Force!, but it makes us understand how iconic and impactful the design of Max, Andy, Samy and all their UC colleagues was.
Despite not being one of Nintendo's most famous and best-selling series, Advance Wars can still count on a large number of fans who fondly remember the friendly protagonists, the colorful design of the units, but above all the very strategy. clean and essential. gameplay, but not trivial for this reason. In it Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp Review We will find out if WayForward Technologies has managed to keep the magic of the series unchanged, in the hope of seeing the other two remaining chapters arrive, or even new episodes.
The Story of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp
know the story of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp It is not essential to understand the game, since it is a kind of excuse found by the developers to push players to face the numerous missions that make up the single-player campaign of Advance Wars and, later, that of Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising. .
The first game opens with the young people. Orange Star Commanding Officers, Max, Andy and Samy, who are forced to face the sudden and inexplicable invasion of Blue Moon, a neighboring state with which there had been a conflict in the past.
Batalla tras batalla, la guerra se expandirá e involucrará a más y más naciones y ejércitos, cada uno con sus fortalezas y debilidades. Al final de este viaje por el World wars The conspiracy behind this invasion will be revealed and peace will be restored between the different countries.
Peace, however, only lasts two years, time for Intelligent Systems to develop. Advance Wars 2: Rising Black Hole, the direct sequel to the first chapter that picks up the story, the protagonists and the game universe exactly where we left them.
The gameplay of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp
Nevertheless practically identical to the original games, the gameplay of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp remains extremely fresh and fun even more than 20 years later. In fact, Intelligent Systems had decided to strip its other symbolic series, Fire Emblem, of any role-playing character to focus on pure and simple strategy.
The result is always one. Very classic turn-based strategy game. in which each player can move all his units only once per turn on a board of variable, but quite small, dimensions. Each unit has its strengths and weaknesses that must be exploited to achieve the mission objective which, in most cases, is to eliminate all enemies or conquer their headquarters.
What is missing is the triangle of weapons, the accumulation of experience, the uniqueness of the troops and in general the drama that characterizes Fire Emblem. Here everything is more colorful and bright, although, on closer inspection, each CU suffers and inflicts catastrophic losses in each mission; Additionally, each unit deals or takes a predefined amount of damage, with no success rates introducing randomness (the classic C factor) into the equation.
Simplification in this case does not rhyme with trivialization.. It is true that all the units are identical to each other, but through intelligent design of the missions and maps the developers managed to always keep the attention high and the experience varied, especially in Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising. The first chapter, in fact, almost feels like a big prologue, designed to introduce the CUs, units, and game mechanics that will really start to shine in AW2.
In Rising black holeApart from a new type of tank and a couple of new buildings, it's the variety of missions, as well as the less linear progression of the story, that makes the difference. Between timed battles, adverse weather conditions, fog of war, missions in which you resist a certain number of turns with limited units and others in which you penetrate enemy fortresses, it will be fun, also thanks to a greater number of commanders to choose from. , each equipped with a special power, also present here in an improved version.
Resource management, conquering outposts and war strategy will therefore make each battle quite satisfying and towards the end of the story also complex. In case you are looking for an additional challenge, once the campaign is finished you will be able to both tackle those missions that the crossroads had prevented you from and unlock a higher level of difficulty.
group war
The same fidelity that was used to recreate the Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp campaigns, Wayforward has used to recreate the others. game modes. Battles are predefined scenarios that you must complete to get the highest score. The challenges contain a series of maps where you can fight up to 4 players. Thanks to the capabilities of Nintendo Switch it will be possible to connect different consoles on a local network or use the Internet to challenge opponents from all over the world. The most interesting mode, in our opinion, is the so-called "hotseat", that is, the one that requires you to pass the console to the next player after completing your turn. Possibly it will be done in portable mode and not with the Switch connected to the television, so as not to nullify the secrecy guaranteed by the fog of war, in case it is one of the many options activated to customize the challenge.
In addition to the many maps that can be unlocked by completing the campaign, available in both the Advance Wars version and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, there is a practically unlimited number of user-designed maps. Through Graphics room It will be possible to draw maps of a maximum of 30x20 squares using all the tools found in the two chapters. Your creations can then be used to challenge other players both online and locally, potentially extending the longevity of competitive gaming to infinity.
The technical quality of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is halfway between a remake and a remastering of the two chapters for Game Boy Advance. This is because, although the game has been rebuilt from scratch using a 3D graphics engine, it is almost identical to the original materials. As mentioned at the beginning, the graphic style is the natural and convincing evolution of the two-dimensional style typical of the GBA era, enriched by a whole series of well-selected anime-style videos that embellish the first hours of the game. However, since they are all the same, they can become boring after a while, leading players to opt out of seeing them anymore to speed up the flow of the game. It's a pity that it is not possible to skip even the very long videos that indicate the activation of the UC's special powers which, especially when the situation on the battlefield becomes critical, greatly slows down the pace, in addition to potentially creating frustration.
The work done was also excellent in terms of music and Spanish dubbing. The former are a collection of upbeat and catchy songs, while the latter are made up of a series of well-recited phrases that underline the key passages of this, albeit light, story.
In terms of content, there is little to ask of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp: the two campaigns are long, fun and complex, the Battle mode offers new challenges, while the competitive modes could be expanded infinitely there. longevity of the game, as long as an active community capable of always producing new challenges is formed.
One step away from glory
All things considered, Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is a successful commercial operation that, with a little more effort, could have been perfect. The first question that came to mind is: "where is Advance Wars: Dual Strike, the final chapter of this trilogy?" It is true that it is a more complex game to adapt as it was created thinking about the double screen of the Nintendo DS, but it is the final piece of the Orange Star epic. Without considering that it introduces new game mechanics, vehicles, UC and buildings that They would have been very useful in the Graphics Room.
Speaking in this way, it would have been interesting to have fewer technical limitations than those anticipated in the early 2000s. The Nintendo Switch is capable of handling more complex maps than 30x20 rectangles and it is a shame that the developers have limited themselves to faithfully reproducing the tools. of GBA games.
This absolute search for fidelity also affected the game's interface. It's true that Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is extremely readable and understandable as it is, but over the years Intelligent Systems has introduced small improvements to the user interface capable of making the experience more fluid (just think in the latest Fire Emblem). In Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, for example, you must press two different keys to know the movement and attack range of enemy units and it is not possible to select more than one at a time. Another element that would have been useful for us is knowing, on maps with fog of war activated, whether our units are visible or not to the eyes of our adversaries. And, as we said, not being able to skip the animations of the UC powers is something that could get boring after several hours.
During our test we came across some sporadic error and game crashes, which however left few traces given that Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp saves after each move, which will probably be solved with the first patches. Artificial intelligence could also be better refined, as it sometimes does not use all available funds or takes short-sighted actions. Otherwise it is a solid and fun experience, which has not felt much the weight of the years.
Conclusions
digital delivery Nintendo eShop Price 59,99 € Holygamerz.com 9.0 Readers (16) 7.2 your voteAdvance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is above all a great game capable of engaging and entertaining for many hours thanks to the two campaigns and the multiplayer mode. The gameplay, essential and clean, is still fresh after more than 20 years and the new graphics, modern, but extremely faithful to the original style, do justice to the excellent work of character and vehicle characterization done by Intelligent System. It is a shame the lack of Advance Wars: Dual Strike and such a total search for fidelity that has limited the potential of the graphic room and the gaming experience, otherwise we would have found ourselves facing an almost perfect relaunch of a series that deserves to return permanently on our screens.
PRO
- Two long and fun campaigns
- Stunning graphic style
- The gameplay hasn't aged a day.
AGAINST
- Where is Dual Strike?
- A few small changes would have made the experience more modern.
