"Days of Ruin is a step down"

While I'd like to give an unbiased review of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, I can't. There's too much that I've come to expect from the Advance Wars series. Sadly, much of that is missing from this installment.

Here's the drawbacks:

THE LOOK: The new post-apocalyptic theme destroys the entire image of the Advance Wars series. Instead of colorful, cartoony characters and pretty landscapes (which look gorgeous on the lower-graphics-capabilities of a handheld console), the look of the characters in Days of Ruin is bland, dark, and uninteresting. The landscapes are all one or another shade of Pantone 392, which could also be called "fallout brown." During battle, the backgrounds behind the units are either gray sky, gray buildings, gray grasslands, gray forests, gray ocean; you get the point. They also opted for a three quarters view during battle and it made the units look less detailed.

THE CHARACTERS: Yeah, I have to admit that some of the characters have depth, most notably Will and Brenner. But even they fall into predictable roles. There's the amnesiac love interest, the morose loner, the fanatic lunatic (there's actually several of these), the arrogant pilot, the honorable warrior. "But these character types existed in previous AW games," you say. Yes, they did, but through three games, I've come to understand many of the characters on deeper levels. Giving us new COs to fill these roles makes it all much more shallow. Even the design of many of the characters leaves something to be desired, like the Mayor. Man, I hated that guy. I'd love to have seen the old characters in this new post-apocalyptic world. We could've gotten some interesting character development.

BATTLE TYPES: Why don't we have dual-screen battles? Those were fun! It's not like there weren't any opportunities for them. There are some campaign missions where several units are trapped behind enemy lines and reinforcements arrive later. Why not combine the missions and have the reinforcements battle before arriving? The dual-screen battles from Dual Strike added an extra dimension to the gameplay, even if you weren't actually controlling the units on both fronts. You still had to decide when and who to send to the top screen.

NO CO SELECTION: Most missions, I never noticed who my CO was. There isn't enough of a difference among their abilities. I think I used CO Power twice in the entire campaign (this is a good thing, see below). Since I can't choose my CO, I'll never know what kinds of strategies will work on the missions. There will be only a few preferred ways to beat a level.

Well, honestly, those are the main things I hated about Days of Ruin, but it's enough to spoil the fun.

The good stuff:

THE UNITS: I'm glad this installment broke the chain of tank upgrades. First we had Tanks and MdTanks. Then Neotanks. Then Megatanks. I was expecting something like the Ninja Tank here (1 movement range, 1 ammo, stealth). I'm glad they put an end to that. I love the Bike. I love the AntiTank. I love the SeaPlane (it gives me a reason to build Carriers, which I've never been fond of). I love the Rigs' building capability. I love the move-and-fire capability of the Battleship (which always felt like a "threat" unit, forcing the enemy to withdraw before it could fire). I love how they got rid of a bunch of Cannons, Lasers, Black Bombs, Piperunners, Black Boats and Oozium.

SUBDUED CO POWERS: Seriously, the CO Powers actually subtracted from the strategy of earlier AW games. All too often, I'd be playing poorly, get my CO Power, and suddenly win with a HQ capture from Sami. Changing the weather? Attacking twice in one turn? These things just devastated my opponents, the games were too easy. Days of Ruin is hard.

All these things being said, the game is fairly decent. I've just been spoiled by all the previous AW installments. A friend asked my opinion of Days of Ruin, and he'd never played Advance Wars. I recommended it. It's great as an introduction to turn-based strategy. If you've never seen the other AWs, you won't be disappointed by the changes in Days of Ruin.

So, overall, Days of Ruin hovers between a 6 and a 7 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/15/08

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