Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

"In its own right, the best Advance Wars game to date"

Advance Wars is easily one of my favorite video game franchises ever created, and certainly one of my favorite to make an appearance on the DS (and honestly, it has good company with titles like Lost in Blue, Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright, and Trauma Center). So, you can imagine that I was absolutely giddy with excitement with the announcement of the newest Advance Wars game, subtitled Days of Ruin. After spending countless hours with the game, I'm happy to come to the conclusion that Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is significantly more than just past Advance Wars game with a different costume. In fact, it easily stands with past games and heartily vies with its brethren for the position of best Advance Wars game ever (a lofty crown, by the way).

To begin with, the story of Days of Ruin is significantly better than that of any of its predecessors. At this point, we're beyond the simple storyline that goes something like, “Oh boy, war is so fun, so let's just fight, guys!”. Rather, in Days of Ruin, you're introduced with a pretty grim story of death and destruction from the moment you power on your DS -- a huge chain of natural disasters has set the world in a state of ruin. You take control of Will, a young cadet and a survivor of the apocalypse, as he meets up with Commander Brenner and his “Wolves”. The story follows these and other characters as they attempt to unravel exactly what happened and search for other survivors -- fighting numerous battles along the way, of course.

The art style goes hand-in-hand with the plot, and they really get along together quite nicely. The game's visuals are grim, depressing, and far more realistic than they have been in past iterations of the series. Each of the units have also undergone significant change, and the result is everything looking far more believable. There are also some presentation changes this time around, one of the biggest being the fact that your units appear on the bottom screen and your foes on the top during a battle visual, which really utilizes the space the two screens have to offer and is far superior to putting both sets of units on the bottom screen.

But before I get to far ahead of myself, I'd better explain the Advance Wars game play mechanic to any sad soul who hasn't had the good fortune to play one (or all, or some number in between) of the Advance Wars games. It's a pretty basic strategy game, which has you taking control of a number of different units on a battlefield and strategically pitting them against those of a foe. You direct each of your soldiers and units, and issue them various commands, the most common of which are attack and wait. The strategy is in utilizing unit strengths and weaknesses, along with the varying range of each of your many units, to come out victorious on the battlefield. Days of Ruin makes a bit of an addition to the core mechanic, however, with the implementation of an RPG-ish leveling mechanic. Every time a unit kills an enemy, they gain a point, and their stats go up. Each unit can get up to three points, and these aren't insignificant. While a zero-point infantry is pretty useless, a full 3-point one is a force to be reckoned with.

The number of units is also pretty impressive -- there's no real increase over those of Advance Wars DS, but a number of significant changes have been made. For example, the Neotank and Megatank have both been removed and replaced with a new unit -- I'll save it for you to find out for yourself what it is. And then there's the addition of more useful units like the Duster, which is a plane that can fire on both air and land units, and the motorcycle, which is like an infantry unit with increased movement and firepower. There are a lot of different troop types to keep track of, but only by doing so and by keeping in mind troop advantages and disadvantages are you going to be able to win battles.

As any Advance Wars fan knows, they're tough games, and Days of Ruin certainly is no exception. In fact, even the first levels are going to be mildly difficult to a newbie to the series -- you can't expect to just do whatever you want and then have the game hold your hand and help you win. You've got to play smart and make good choices -- sacrificing units, who to attack with, who to get out of the way and who's expendable -- it's all good fun, but it's also quite challenging. At the same time, though, that makes this game all the more satisfying.

One aspect of Days of Ruin that might disappoint some fans of Advance Wars DS is that the CO system has been largely scaled back. Say goodbye to monstrously-powerful CO Powers or devastating Tag Teams. In fact, you can't even choose which CO to use during the campaign. Still, it's something that I appreciate, largely because I like winning to rely on your strategic skill, not on a CO Power. In fact, if anything, it serves to make the game a bit tougher, because you haven't got that crutch to rely on when the going gets tough. Conversely, though, your opponents don't have it either, so let's just say that it makes the game more realistic. You can, however, use whichever CO you want during the online battles, which I'll get to in just a second.

That's not to say, however, that CO Powers are completely gone -- they're still there, but they're far less powerful (which, as I described above, I believe to be a good thing). Each CO still has a single, useful power -- for example, expanding the range of certain units, increasing certain units' firepower, or restoring health to some of your units. Additionally, there's the cool addition of CO Effects, which gives each unit within a range of your CO Unit a bit of a leg up. At the beginning of each battle, after you reach a certain point, you can choose a unit in which to deploy your CO. When this unit does well and destroys enemies, your power gauge fills up and eventually you can use your CO Power. It's a more feasible and realistic system and ultimately, at least in my opinion, works out better than the previous CO Power system.

There's plenty of game value to be had here, thanks to a long, difficult, and engaging campaign and some bonus maps that will challenge you even more -- nearly 30, in fact. Beating the campaign in and of itself is going to take a good while, and the extra maps will require even more time to complete. Sadly, Days of Ruin does not feature a Shop feature (in past games, it allowed you to purchase new maps and COs). Even with that removal, Days of Ruin sports plenty of game time and ensures that you're getting your money's worth with the 30 dollars you'll spend on the game.

In fact, if there is any problem at all with Days of Ruin, it's simply the fact that despite the face lift the game's been given and the additional units, it doesn't bring anything all that new to the table. If you've played past Advance Wars games, and you've had three great opportunities to do so, then you're not going to get the same thrill from Days of Ruin that you would if you were new to the series. That said, the game is still incredibly fun, and if you've played Advance Wars before, then you'll know it's fun enough to warrant a sequel, even if there's not a boatload of new content. Even some of the bonus maps are recycled, but when you consider the massive amount of game play that Days of Ruin offers, the vast majority of gamers out there will be able to overlook the big similarities between this game and past iterations of the series.

Now, the part that everyone really cares about: the multiplayer. I've spent plenty time online, and I can unabashedly say that the online multiplayer kicks butt. In addition to engaging in some pretty fierce online battles, you have the opportunity to chat it up online during the entire battle -- not just in between turns or battles, as in past games (I'm looking at you, Metroid Prime Hunters) -- and you can trade user-made maps online as well. One slight disappointment, however, is that you cannot choose specific maps to take -- instead, you can only select recommended maps or have one randomly given to you. The map-maker possesses a surprising amount of depth and is a lot of fun to use, and you're given space to save up to 50 user-made maps, which can then be played by yourself or via local multiplayer. And of course, you can also upload your own maps to the server and allowed them to be downloaded, played, and ranked by other owners of this game.

All told, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is easily one of the best Advance Wars game out there, at least in my opinion. In fact, if you can take it into consideration independently, there's a very strong case for Days of Ruin being the best Advance Wars installation to date. It takes everything that is great about the previous games, then strips the childish, colorful graphics (which were by no means “bad”), replaces them with something far more realistic, and adds in a storyline that far exceeds that of previous Advance Wars games. The plethora of bonus maps, combined with the long campaign and the potentially endless value given by the fantastic online makes this one of the best DS games out there, period. If you've shied away from the series before, now's an excellent time to jump in. Please, please, please go out right now and purchase Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. Trust me: it'll make you very happy for a very long time.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/08, Updated 02/19/08

Game Release: Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (US, 01/21/08)