Advance Wars DS
I’ve been intentionally putting off impressions of my new DS games so that I could spend a little more time with them to really give a definite opinion about them. I decided Advance Wars: Dual Strike will be the first because I am so PISSED OFF at the goddamn thing that I need a break from it before I break it.
Advance Wars DS started off just peachy. I’m a fan of the first two, but I have this habit of getting stuck on the last battle (yup, haven’t beat one). The same holds true for DS. But let me backtrack here a little bit.
If you’ve played Advance Wars 1 or 2 on GBA, you basically know how AW:DS works. There are no real graphical improvements to speak of, aside from a kinda neat Mode 7/sprite scaling thing used during actual battle “cutscenes”. Still, I’m sure this trick could have been done on the GBA. It’s not going to wow any of your friends by showing off the NDS’ power. However, the Advance Wars series is a top-notch franchise, and the game itself is a great followup with just enough new features to keep veterans interested. First off, touch screen functionality is a throw-away. If you’ve been playing AW on the GBA, forget they even added touch screen functionality; it controls just fine with the dpad and face buttons…I’ll even go so far as to say the touch screen functionality is counter-intuitive, except for maybe the map design mode, in which it makes a lot of sense. I think the second screen incorporation is pretty neat, though. Generally, the top screen is used to display unit info, which is useful at first, but any veteran knows their units. In specific battles, however, the second screen is used to control another front, most often an airborne attack on floating fortresses. They also added the ability to use two CO’s in most of the battles, and switching between them (to exploit their CO Powers or invididual skills) adds another level of strategy to the game. They’ve also added a “tag” CO power, which you can use when both CO’s power meters are competely filled. BOTH CO’s powers are used, and you can go twice in a row. This can DRASTICALLY alter the outcome of a battle. For example, it then becomes possible to move a long-range weapon into a strategic location, then use it in the same round. This can also be used with infantry to capture bases in one round. Keeping an eye on your enemy’s power meters is even more important in AW:DS, because the computer LOVES to use it, and you need to think about what sort of damage he could do with two moves in one round.
That’s about it for the new stuff, aside from added “survival” and “combat” modes, which are the polar opposite of fun. In survival, you see how many maps you can beat with some sort of imposed limitation: rounds, time, or money. Survival is for hardcore strategists only; I had absolutely no fun trying to battle through 11 increasingly difficult maps with limited funds. Combat is a lame real-time battle game where you buy a set amount of units and try to battle through all the maps, controlling a single unit in realtime. I went through this once and haven’t had the patience to go through it again, especially on the “hard” and “brutal” difficulties, which are unbelievably unfair.
Multiplayer also received an obvious boost through the NDS’ wireless capabilites. Gone are the days of swapping a single system, or staring at a blank screen while waiting for your friend to finish his turn. As a neat little bonus (more of a gimmick than a useful multiplayer feature), you can also customize short messages to send to your opponent while you’re waiting. These can only be created before the match, and you have to remember which message is assigned to which button. For example, it would suck to be playing somebody across a classroom and accidentally send “Let’s Quit” when you were trying to send “Hurry Up!” (two of the default messages). Unfortunately, you cannot respond while you are playing, so I think the communication possibilities weren’t fully taken advantage of. You quickly learn that yelling “Hurry Up!” is just about the only useful message you can send to your opponent, though I added an “Ooh, bad move…” to help with my strategy on the psychological front.
So why am I so pissed off at the game? Because I love this series, and I actually want to finish one! I have about 17 hours of gameplay logged (that includes a couple combat sessions and some multiplayer battles) and I’m on what the game is calling the “last battle” (I have a feeling there may be something after it…I hope not). Now, I used to have a pretty bad videogame temper, but it takes some seriously cheap shots or AI tomfoolery to get me really fired up now. That game WAS Mario Kart: Double Dash, but I’ve found the replacement…if only for the last battle. I had absolutely no problem getting this far; 95% of my ranks are S, with a couple A’s and B’s sprinkled in. I beat every battle first try until I got to the final battle, which, guaranteed, will catch you off guard the first try (or five). I don’t want to ruin the fun for anybody, so I’ll only say that this battle makes me detest the tag CO power feature. It also makes me hate my Nintendo DS, makes me hate Nintendo, and makes me hate anybody that has ever programmed a videogame. I also makes me hate the word game, and words in general, because I can’t come up with any obscene enough to yell at this game.
So that’s basically where I stand right now. I started out really enjoying myself, and that last battle has me pulling my hair out. If it ISN’T the last battle, I’m pretty sure I’m going to punch my DS through a window. I love it completely and I hate it completely. But that’s something I wanna work on with just Advance Wars. Me and Advance Wars DS together. In a little locked room.
