Advance Wars: Days of Ruin Review
The Acclaimed and Addictive Strategy Game Returns to the Nintendo DS
Intelligent Systems' fourth Advance Wars game gives players more challenging strategy, a darker plot, and online Wi-Fi play.
Strategy game enthusiasts will be given more hours of exciting game play for their DS. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin gives a brand new setting to the game's theme by adding a darker storyline, new units, and more addicting and challenging maps.
Days of Ruin is the fourth installment in the series and the second game for the Nintendo DS. Fans of the series will not be disappointed at all and will have no problem getting used to Days of Ruin. The combat system remains virtually unchanged and the battles are still formidable. Newcomers to the series will have a learning curve to the turn-based strategy, but the story is completely new.
Story
Days of Ruin steps away from the battles of the Orange Star and Black Hole Armies and brings players to a world devastated by a meteor shower and plagued by chaos, disease, and rogue forces trying to take over what's left of the world. The players follow the story of Will and Captain Brenner as they try to rebuild the world and fight off opposing forces.
Previous Advance Wars storylines, while decent, were only good enough to hold the single-player campaign together. Days of Ruin provides a plot filled with tragedy, twists, and betrayal. The dialogue is longer than any other Advance Wars game and gives the player a strong connection to the post-apocalyptic setting.
Game Play
The majority of the game play remains unchanged. It revolves around turn-based strategy, similar to that of chess. For every day of battle, each opponent has his own turn to move each unit one time, before ending his turn. In each battle, there are either a set number of units, or the player has to build and maintain units at his base. The main goal of each battle is to defeat the opponent by destroying all units or capturing the headquarters, save for a few battles which have specific goals.
Advance Wars veterans will immediately recognize the field of battle and probably get right into the game, but there are some new elements. First is the use of CO power. The dual-strike mode is gone and replaced with the classic CO power from the first game. However, COs can also be loaded onto units, giving nearby units extra strength, and move about the field of battle. There are a few new units to learn, but most of them are variations on previous units. APCs can now build temporary bases, to repair naval and air units.
For players who are not into story, there is also "Free Battle" mode, which lets players select different preset battle modes. Players can also design maps and play those as well.
Wi-Fi
Finding another person to play with is easy because Advance Wars is playable via Nintendo WiFi. Players over the world can battle online with each other and download user made maps. This greatly increases the replay value of the game and gives more players a human challenger instead of the CPU.
Overall, Days of Ruin doesn't add anything to the game play that has not been seen in previous Advance Wars games. Some players may be turned away from the turn-based system, but others will be addicted to the challenging maps. Online capability will attract fans of the series, as will the new maps. When it comes to great strategy games, it's hard to go wrong with this series.
