With limited units, you had to take on and defeat all the enemy units on a map, and this was always a lot easier said than done.
The gameplay on offer was the big draw here. It’s here, in the combat screens, that Advance Wars shone.
is accused of attacking the other two nations without provocation, it’s all a good excuse for a massive ruck. I’m not making these names up, honest! The story was a load of nonsense, to be brutally honest, and while the waters are muddied after an Orange Star C.O. The story this time was that the nation of Orange Star was attacked by Blue Moon, and then Green Earth and Yellow Comet join in as well. Japan didn’t see Advance Wars until a dual release with the second game, Black Hole Rising, which was released in 2003. Helpfully, Advance Wars was the first game in the series to feature a narrative, and was originally only released in the western markets. The premise of the game was simple: you took on the role of the commanding officer (C.O.) of a ragtag bunch of soldiers and had the job of turning them into a fighting force to be feared. Advance Wars was the game that ended up stealing a lot of my gaming time away, back in those more innocent times where gameplay mattered more than shiny graphics.
