and now having finished the advance campaign, i can now finalize my opinion on advance wars: it fucking sucks! at higher level play the game completely breaks down to midtank spam with the occasional bomber for backup. midtanks are relatively cheap to make compared to its counters, and basically dominates what would be the endgame for most maps. as a result, every map where you can build units feels so incredibly repetitive, and any map where you can't build units turns into an insane game of turtling. i don't need all my games to be fun, but this game's aesthetic is clearly trying to be saturday morning cartoon fun, and then you play the game and it's like pulling teeth out. the tonal clash in that respect is chasmic.
and i get it, maybe this game isn't for me. but now that i've accepted that, i can turn my research question into "well, who is it for then?". well, the strategies that youtube videos use for S ranks aren't reliable or replicable 100% of the time, so it's a shoddy strategy game. the AI cheats (and i mean cheats as in literally does not play by the same restriction the player does) on fog of war maps in that it both immediately knows the locations of all the player's units + is not hampered by needing to have a unit visible before being able to attack it, so the idea of a fair neo-chess type game is lost on about 40% of the maps. who played this game and enjoyed this fake difficulty? like it's one thing to start at a disadvantage to give the player something to work from, but in the advance campaign, your opponents will have armies built for them in advance while you start with 3 infantry. i just can't fathom what is fun about working all the way from the bottom in an already shifted-against-you system.
more than anything else, i went into this advance campaign playthrough with a sharper eye for details and tried to find things that i either didn't appreciate or just missed outright. and the story is still bad, the characters are still flat and lifeless, and i still don't get what this game is going for. why are you going to tackle the concept of war if you're too chickenshit to say anything meaningful about it? people talk about military skirmishes with all the casualness of a game of baseball, meanwhile you literally see units die in every combat animation. it's not absurd enough to be parody, it just comes off as like, complete cowardice for wanting the wartime setting but not being brave enough to actually engage with the themes of war. sure, it's a kid's game, but even kids are smart enough to question this.
extremely disappointed with this game. not planning on playing any sequels to this any time soon. not even going to lie, have a very very very mild case of prejudice against AW fans now. not in like, a super harsh way, but in a "if you like this series i genuinely take any other video game opinion you have with a hint of apprehension and condescension".
and i get it, maybe this game isn't for me. but now that i've accepted that, i can turn my research question into "well, who is it for then?". well, the strategies that youtube videos use for S ranks aren't reliable or replicable 100% of the time, so it's a shoddy strategy game. the AI cheats (and i mean cheats as in literally does not play by the same restriction the player does) on fog of war maps in that it both immediately knows the locations of all the player's units + is not hampered by needing to have a unit visible before being able to attack it, so the idea of a fair neo-chess type game is lost on about 40% of the maps. who played this game and enjoyed this fake difficulty? like it's one thing to start at a disadvantage to give the player something to work from, but in the advance campaign, your opponents will have armies built for them in advance while you start with 3 infantry. i just can't fathom what is fun about working all the way from the bottom in an already shifted-against-you system.
more than anything else, i went into this advance campaign playthrough with a sharper eye for details and tried to find things that i either didn't appreciate or just missed outright. and the story is still bad, the characters are still flat and lifeless, and i still don't get what this game is going for. why are you going to tackle the concept of war if you're too chickenshit to say anything meaningful about it? people talk about military skirmishes with all the casualness of a game of baseball, meanwhile you literally see units die in every combat animation. it's not absurd enough to be parody, it just comes off as like, complete cowardice for wanting the wartime setting but not being brave enough to actually engage with the themes of war. sure, it's a kid's game, but even kids are smart enough to question this.
extremely disappointed with this game. not planning on playing any sequels to this any time soon. not even going to lie, have a very very very mild case of prejudice against AW fans now. not in like, a super harsh way, but in a "if you like this series i genuinely take any other video game opinion you have with a hint of apprehension and condescension".