The WhatsNext verdict
If you enjoy turn-based tactics that gradually teach deep combined-arms planning, Advance Wars rewards careful play with highly replayable battles. Choose it if a lighthearted story and occasional fog-of-war frustration will not outweigh the strategic depth.
What it does best
Every turn is a tightly readable tactical puzzle
A deceptively simple war game with enormous strategic depth
The rare strategy game that welcomes beginners without outgrowing experts
One more battle becomes an entire lost evening
What might put you off
The cheerful anime war story can feel shallow
Some campaign difficulty feels more rigid than fair
The setup
What you are walking into
Just because this battle fits in the palm of your hand doesn't mean the stakes are small. On the contrary, this all-or-nothing fight will have you accessing guns, grenades, launchers, and weaponry of all sorts. Players assume command of an army that's out to reclaim a world that's been broken up by warring factions. The battle map is essentially a grid, and moving units is like moving chess pieces on a board -- each of the units can move a specific amount of spaces within this grid, and can only attack at a certain distance from specific enemies. Advance Wars features more than 115 maps, a map editor, head-to-head play via link cable, and an easy-to-understand tutorial mode for beginners.
Where it lives
Genre
Vibe
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