Battalion Wars

"Advance Wars this isn't"

I had no real interest in Battalion Wars until I played Advance Wars for the Nintendo DS. I then found the game for about $30 new and figured I'd give it a go. It couldn't be as bad as everyone said could it? Well.... Yes and no I guess..... Don't go in expecting something like Advance Wars because it plays nothing like that. Think watered down and complex for no reason.

The story of Battalion Wars is simple. You're one army trying to stop another. The characters are heavily stereotyped and uninteresting. They lack almost any personality, unless you call their "amusing" accents to be some sort of personality trait. The game really doesn't offer much more in the story area. While those Advance Wars games didn't have the best plot, this is crap compared to them. I know, I said don't compare but I guess I need to mention it to get it across that they are nothing a like.

The graphics are very cartoon like. But they look nice for the most part. The game can become so hectic that you can't tell if you're firing, being hit or what because the colorful bullets and what not just all blend in and when some of your troops can't attack right away it can become hard to tell if they have shot anything or not.

Sound wise I want to put earplugs in. The voice acting is terrible. Betty has the whiniest voice I have ever heard in a video game. Sound effects are nothing special. The music is also rather bland and uninspired.

Control is one of the bigger downfalls of the game. I have never played a game that is so unforgiving to beginners. You will need to learn how to micromanage your troops but with such a lacking assortment of buttons to use it gets overly complex, require multiple button press combinations to do the easiest things. After awhile it gets easier but I stopped playing the game about 4 months ago and just popped it in to refresh my brain so I could write this, seeing as how I'm trading this game for another. I still had problems remembering the complex controls. I think I would have preferred lame menus that come up and stop actual gameplay over this real time and overly complex crap.

Game play wise you can think of this game as Rainbow Six but with vehicles I guess. I really don't like the Rainbow Six games but granted I only played the Dreamcast one and that was a nightmare due to the control. Anyway, the game is split up into missions. Each mission has gold and silver goals. You need to do the gold goals to advance the game and silver are just bonus objectives. It's simple and you can view them from the pause menu. The problem with objectives is that I swear the game glitches up because I have done everything correctly on a mission and then I fail for no reason. The objectives themselves are fairly tame and uninspired.

Trying to keep track of your troops is kind of hard unless you send them all off together but then it's easier to get ambushed. It adds another layer of complexity and god forbid if you don't have the correct team member with you because then you are most likely dead and have to redo the entire mission again. This wouldn't be a problem but when there are stages with a 5 or 10 minute wait period in them, like having to protect the base for 5 minutes because you're waiting for a drop ship. This becomes tedious and makes you realize that checkpoints might have been a good addition. Throw in those glitches that happen every now and then and you can see why this would get frustrating.

I really don't know what else to say about game play. I find the capture the flag bits to be a pain in the butt and are impossible if you're the only guy left, even if there are no enemies but sometimes the game will give you a victory if you wipe out all of the bad guys. The game has a total of 20 missions and 4 bonus missions that can be unlocked. You can replay any of the levels again once you beat them and try for a higher grade but I found it kind of easy to get A ranks once you learn what to do in each stage. It also lacks any and all two players and is just a one player game, even though this is the type of game that could have used some co-op or vs. game play. The game is below average length. About 5 or 6 hours long which really doesn't justify the price tag of this game and I highly doubt it will ever reach Players Choice status and Nintendo is the only company that feels the need to sell some of their best sellers at over $20 a pop. Makes no sense to me but oh well...

Battalion Wars isn't a terrible game. It's just heavily flawed and those flaws affect the entire game. There is some enjoyment to be had but unskipable cut scenes, glitches and terrible control really made this a game where I could only sit and play 1 stage a day, otherwise I wanted to throw the game out the window. It does make a fine rental but I could never recommend this as a buy and it is nothing like Advance Wars. Hell, the game is also lacking in troop variety and vehicle variety and most seem fairly useless, seeing as you can't look around and you need to zoom the camera out or hit the aim button and pray it locks onto the right thing as it also likes to lock onto your own men....

Story - 4/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 5/10
Control - 5/10
Game Play - 5/10
Replay Value - 2/10

Final Score: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06