Road To Reboot Camp: Advance Wars GBA

 One of my most anticipated releases for this year, and there are so many games to be excited for is "Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp" a splendid looking remaster of the first two games. With that and "Kirby And The Forgotten Land" both approaching release faster and faster, I decided I am going to cover both of those games and few in their series leading up to said releases. The first in the lineup is first game in the Advance Wars series that came to the west with the GBA original. Originally known as "Famicom Wars" outside of America this series, is a bright and colorful RTS that places you at the helm, leading an army, and fulfilling multiple types of conditions to attain victory... hopefully.  Each general with their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as a variety of maps, so let's see how well this first game has aged and if this is a battle worth fighting, time to boot up the good Ol Wii U Virtual Console and find out. 

The first game has a decent variety of modes, a main story, some additional maps that lets you play as characters you could not play as in the story, versus mode, and more. Since there is no way to do versus mode, I did not do that, but I did complete the story, and used said coins from the story to unlock more maps and characters, and a hard mode in the shop. The story tasks you with playing a CO who assists the Orange Star Army, as conflict is breaking out with the other three nations that fill out this world, Green Earth, Blue Moon, and Yellow Comet. You go through the story as Andy, an all-around character with a great super that repairs units, Max, who hits hard but is terrible at distance, and Sami who uses her infantry well and can capture territories in a blink of an eye. Each of these three playable characters with their strengths and weaknesses also provide a ton of replayability, as selecting a CO means you will be selecting a level that is unlike the other two. Each of the characters when given an option to be played as has their own map, with different conditions of victory and even stipulations of victory at times. Beat a level and you will be given coins to buy unlockable.

Some of the characters and some of the writing is pretty dating, this is where I hope the remake fixes things and make the game better. A sign of the time it was produced in, and a distraction, aside from that, these are moments and not the narrative as a whole. The story feels like a bright and colorful Saturday morning cartoon with quips a plenty and fun banter, there is a mystery at hand and some fun character interactions as well when the game is not being dated in a similar vain as NES Punch Out.  The music and sprite work is nothing short of fantastic. For the GBA the presentation is amazing, all the pieces of music fit and are mostly fun and upbeat, the bright colors and fun abilities, as well as animated character portraits give this game a ton of personality. The presentation is mostly great but how does the gameplay fare?

Each map has you commanding different units of land air and see varieties, capturing buildings to add funds, using factories, ports, and airports to purchase units, transporting, battling at close range or long distance, and dealing with different kinds of terrain or even weather conditions. Sometimes you will need to defeat every enemy unit, capture more buildings, capture the HQ for an instant win, or do something super specific like hold out for a specific amount of turns all while keeping a specific unit standing.  As the game gives more options, they will guide you on how to use every unit and there is a good tutorial to get you started, and explanations of every obstacle and unit, both offensive, defensive, close and long range. The gameplay is super fun if you love RTS games as it is full of great moments of pulling a strategy together and then pulling it off. As you deal and take damage, you will be able to use a superpower exclusive to only your CO, such as repair units, dealing more damage, changing the weather to your advantage and more.  

The game is super fun, the gameplay fun and even when the RNG favors the computer retries are a plenty, the Wii U has restore points, and the upcoming reboot will have turn rewinds. If you play this on original hardware a retry is never too far away and it is not until late game story missions where the game has a few pacing issues. Most battles are quite short and the additional battle mode, with the unlockable maps and hard mode give plenty of content and variety to players. You can also save at any point and pick up where you left off if you are playing on the original hardware. With branching paths, the campaign is already replayable and the variety of the different battle maps adds more, but advance mode aka hard mode is no small feat, enimies are stronger and have better units earlier in the game. If you want a challenge, it is there but it can be pretty tough, the main game sometimes feels like the balance is all over the place but even when it gets tough, this game is fun.

 This game holds up super well and I can not wait to see how the remake changes and adds to this fantastic game but I highly recommend it for any RTS fans or people interested in the genre who want a great starting point. The music, visuals, and gameplay hold up super well and make this trip down memory lane a must for retro fans or people looking for a great RTS game.

Overall Thoughts: Great gameplay, great visuals, great musical, sometimes imbalanced in terms of diffuclity scale, writing is hit and miss, high replayability factor, super fun, great for newcomers and fans of the genre, overall fantastic game with some flaws.