Summary
A must own for any Game Boy Advance fan
The Good
Advance Wars is easily one of my more favorite Game Boy Advance games. The gameplay is fairly straightforward, albeit a bit simple, and can be picked up in a matter of minutes. This is one of the games that you start playing and don't stop playing it for hours on end; it's extremely addictive. Multiplayer battles are an absolute HOARD of fun. Although multiplayer battles are preferable, playing against the AI is also great fun. You can hone your skills here, but perfect them against other players.
It doesn't take much to start playing the game, especially if you've played the other versions (which, sadly enough, were only released in Japan.) But, for those of us more used to other types of games, it has a progressive training mode that's absolutely wonderful.
Advance Wars has some added strategic elements to keep it from being an all-out brawn battle. For example, terrain and buildings add to your defense rating, keeping you from losing more units than you would battling on flat ground. Other excellent strategic features exist, such as an added bonus for attacking instead of being attacked (which makes you think about movement and other factors.)
The overhead graphics leave something to be desired, although they get the job done one the GBAs screen. The battle animations and capture animations look very nifty, if not a bit repetitive.
The Bad
As I said, the overhead graphics aren't all too great, but the developers appeared to do all they could. The nature of the game itself is simplistic, but you could see that as an advantage or disadvantage, it all depends on your point of view.
A more difficult level of AI would have been nice, as most battles can be won without a great deal of strategy or planing (sometimes non at all is required.)
The Bottom Line
This game is an easy to play strategy/war game that should be loads of fun for anyone. Without a doubt one of the best titles released so far for the Game Boy Advance.
