Battalion Wars

"A very well-balanced game"

Battalion Wars is a sort of sequel to the Advance Wars series for the GBA and DS. Advance Wars has been looked upon as one of the better GBA or DS games. While Advance Wars is classic, don't look down upon Battalion Wars. Battalion Wars (I am going to refer to it as BW and Advance Wars as AW) features a slightly different way of fighting your battles.

Unlike AW's battle system of moving your units to a square on the grid, BW lets you command squads, tanks, and air vehicles in a 3D environment. That is basically the only difference between the two games. BW features a simple plot, you are a part of the Western Frontier going up against a formidable foe, the Tundras and Xylvanians. Later, you and the Xylvanians team up and meet a new ally, the Solar Empire, and you take down the Tundras with one feral sweep. That is the gist of the game, plain and simple.

The gameplay is simple, you start out commanding about 15-30 troops, including tanks, anti-air, helicopters, among others. As you progress through the mission, you can find captured units and use them. Your mission parameters can be one of a few. First, you can trek through the stage and kill all the enemies, capturing the flags and stuff. In another mission, you have to be able to defend a base from a few waves of enemy infantry. In yet another mission, they have you rescue flame veterans so they can be used in your next mission. Among each of the mission's primary objectives, there are secondary objectives like don't lose more than 10 men, or save this number of people. Pretty self-explanatory, but very fun nonetheless. After each mission, you get ranked. S being the best, and C, I think, being the worst.

The game's replay value is not so great, you can just do each mission over to get the S ranks in all of them. A factor that really irked me was the lack of missions you can complete. The game has a total of 25 or so missions, each a little more difficult, but none too impossible. Had the game contained more missions, it would have been perfect. Though this game applies more towards pre-pubescent kids and early teenagers, it is still fun. The graphics are good, nothing too mindblowing. It is one of the best, and quite honestly, one of the only war games I have played in a long long time. The game is rated Teen for some reason, the graphics are almost like a cartoon's and there is no blood or any sort of bad words. This game is worth 50$ and anything less is a steal.

All in all, this games boasts originality and enjoyability. The cutscenes are good, voice acting good, gameplay great, but funness factor is through da roof. I recommend anyone who likes AW to get this game, and you'll really be glad you did. Another quality this game has is that there is such a diversity of units to choose from, you can be a mortar-er, bazooka man, flamethrower, support man, machine gun man, shotgun man, helicopter pilot, you can get into a tank, anti-air, jet, helicopter, and a Strato Destroyer. All in one tiny mission. What's neat about this game is that you can form squads with your units, and order your squads around like defending, attacking, guarding, some good shtuff in there.

Final score:9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/09/06