Advance Wars

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What to expect when playing Advance Wars.

In an attempt to appeal to the strategy gaming fanbase that did not want to play with furry creatures that had magic powers, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems got to work in developing a game that would appeal to this serious gaming market. This game is known as Advance Wars, a series of games widely known as Nintendo's failed attempt at creating a good turn-based strategy game.

Turn-based Strategies Have Never Felt So Good

The core of the gameplay is essentially four armies running around trying to defeat each other with various weapons of mass destruction, while a fifth army attempts to conquer the world, at which point the four previously mentioned armies must band together and defeat this fifth army, resulting in world peace, where the four armies can go back to killing each other off once again; lather, rinse, repeat. There are also several gameplay modes irrelevant to the main story.
Despite its content, it is commonly regarded as a children's game, mainly because of its weeaboo animé graphics, its vast array of characters each with different personalities, and its kid-friendly non-vulgar dialogue. Also, unlike its more realistic but not as popular counterpart, Fire Emblem, units lost in battle can easily be re-purchased wherever facilities are available.

Censorship

Nell's original outfit was deemed inappropriate for American audiences.

As with anything that reaches this side of the Pacific ocean, this game received a heavy amount of censorship. The Red Star army was renamed to "Orange Star" because red stars in a children's video game obviously define some sort of communism and has a dire impact on the great American nation. Drake's outfit was heavily modified to resemble a sailor because a pirate in charge of a navy would not be logical to the typical American gamer. Olaf was edited to not look like Santa Claus, and Grit's cigarette was also removed. Smoking is bad for you, kids, but blowing the fuck out of people is A-OK.

• Various changes between Jap and US versions

Racism

Despite the vast array of characters available, there are no black people in this game. There is an abundance of white, some asian, and one mexican, but no black people present in the game at all.

Hacking

Oddly enough, the game is highly popular on the hacking scene. Be it minor graphical enhancements, or all out modifications, many elite hackers often try their hand at changing some aspect of this game.

Combining CO Powers is fun

How do you balance game? Disable powers!

...Or you can hack already existant COs.

In some hacks, you can play as Black Hole

Indirect units are made slightly more useful

MOTHERFUCKING ZERG RUSH

OH GOOD WORK YOU WENT AND BROKE IT

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How Many Of These Games Are There?

Like most games that originate from Japan, this series has been needlessly milked with boring, lackluster sequels that follow the same basic formula.

Advance Wars

The first game of the series is a complex piece of shit. In Campaign Mode, you fight off the power-hungry Olaf and his Blue Moon army from invading your (Red Orange Star) territory while you march through Kanbei's Yellow Comet territory and invade them. At the same time, you ward off Eagle's Green Earth army because he blames you for having attacked his units. You eventually come across a clone of Andy (where you immediately realize that it was this clone who attacked Eagle) and, once dealing with him, Sturm himself. Upon completion of the campaign, you'll find that you have to play it all over again; no one has become unlocked for purchase because you either took too damn long to complete each mission, or you used the wrong CO to complete certain missions.
Another important note, you can't even play the Campaign mode until you complete all of the Field Training scenarios anyway, so this game is no real fun at all.

Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising

It's surprisingly accurate. The second game in the series, this game is slightly more streamlined, and it's much easier to unlock extra COs. It continues the struggle against the evil forces of Sturm, only now he has a personal army to do his bidding. Unlike the previous game, where you only play as Red Orange Star COs, you play as each CO of each army at least once, giving a more rounded feel of the game. You also face Sturm's henchmen at least 100 times before getting to Sturm himself. Hawke eventually betrays and kills him, running off with the rest of the misfits.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Dual Strike continues the epic saga against the Black Hole army, this time on the Nintendo DS (why it is still called "Advance Wars" at this point is widely unknown). Under a mysterious new commander, Black Hole seeks to drain the world of its energy solely for the lulz. Similar to the previous game, you fight with the COs of other armies as a group now dubbed the "Allied Nations" (more like "Allies", a la World War 2). This game added a new twist of gameplay; seeing as CO powers weren't already horribly broken enough, Intelligent Systems decided to add usage of two COs at once. This inevitably begat Tag Powers, allowing one to use two CO powers in one turn. The game also consists of "skills": rank-based abilities that could be given to COs for even more one-sided gameplay.

Also, the Andy clone is back.

Game-Breaking Combinations

• Drake + Olaf/Hawke: 4HP damage AND -50% fuel? Sign me up!
• Adder + Koal: +2 movement. Twice.
• Andy + Hawke: 7HP recovery. Best results if Hawke is used first.
• Sami + Sensei: OH MY GOD THERE'S INFANTRY EVERYWHERE
• Sami + Eagle: Capture the enemy HQ in 1 turn from your base. 'nuff said.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

Intelligent Systems decided that they would change the fuck out of everything, and give the game a mature twist. The overview on this game has its own section further down the article.

Gather the Troops!

Like any typical army simulation game, Advance Wars has a vast selection of units you can use to kick your opponent's overpowered ass.

Land Units

• Infantry: Your basic cannon fodder. Expect to be swarmed by these when playing against a noob.
• Mechanized Infantry: Sandnigger with an RPG (Not the other kind you stupid fuck). Too slow to be useful. (except in small maps or with Sami's increased footing or Sensei for spamming for the lulz).
• Recon: Only useful during Fog-of-War gameplay. High-speed fodder otherwise.
• Tank: Basic tank unit. Bread and butter of your army.
• Medium Tank: Stronger tank unit. Makes regular tanks have penis envy. But slow as fuck and over shadowed by the Neotank.
• Neotank: Black Hole invention. A giant asshole on wheels. Somehow faster than the medium tank, despite the heavier armor. The allies are morons who don't share their plans with each other, so each nation has to unlock it by raiding different labs. Basically the best over all noob tank
• Megatank: Green Earth invention. 5 barreled monstrosity (Compensating for something?) that rapes everything, if you can get it close enough and keep it supplied. Somehow managed to only put one machine gun on it. At 28000G it is an excellent investment sir. The AI always suicides units on it to drain its ammo in one turn.
• Armoured Personal Carrier (APC): Intended to move Infantry/Mech around faster, but most players use them as decoys and blockers. Can somehow supply adjacent allied APCs fuel even if none of them have fuel defying the principle of mass-energy conservation principle.
• Artillery: Generic indirect firing unit. Observe the way it cumshots at enemies. Used with Infantry to camp.
• Rockets: Artillery on steroids. Guy standing close by with binoculars can somehow see through mountains or other visually impairing terrain like glass to spot targets. But rarely used due to how slow this shit is. In fog of war maps expect the enemy to have one in each forest.
• Anti-Air: Shoots planes down directly. Useful for raping infantry and mechs when not shot at first.
• Missiles: Shoots planes down from a distance with a high range of vision. At least it would if the planes didn't outmaneuver it and blow it to hell. Fucking expensive ground fodder. So no one uses this unless they're Girt.
• Piperunner: Black Hole invention. Useless as no one plays in levels with pipes anyway unless you are a fucking pot head.

Naval Units

• Lander: Because tanks don't work very well underwater and nothing is amphibious.
• Cruiser: Basic naval unit. These can also carry two copter units on board, but nobody knows that. Useful for killing those damned choppers and bombers for sea battles and combat submarines from you battleship.
• Battleship: The only unit in the game with a decent attack range.
• Carrier: A MOST EDUCATED GENTLEMEN's fursona.
• Submarine: Sea ninja.
• Black Boat: Black Hole invention. Repairs units for gold.

Air Units

Cannot fly over pipes but somehow long range ordinance from artillery, rockets, battleships, etc. can fly over them.

• Fighter: Advance Wars did WTC. All pilots are mentally handicapped to only use missiles, preventing them from using a majority of a fighter plane's arsenal including machine guns and bombs. So their only useful for shiting bombers pants and fodder.
• Bomber: Advance Wars also did WW2. Basically useful for pwning expensive units and nuking Japan.
• Battle Copter: Wittmann's fursona. Cheap way of harassing ground units for fun, unless they have anti-air capabilities.
• Transport Copter: Because your Infantry can't fly. Airborne fodder. But more expensive.
• Stealth Plane: The unholy fusion of a Fighter, Bomber, and Submarine. It can attack air and ground units, AND hide itself in the sky. In other words, YOU GONNA GET RAEPED! Offset by the fact it uses shitloads of fuel when hiding. This bad ass is only useful when you're winning or Colin because it's expensive as fuck.
• Black Bomb: Black Hole invention. Blow shit up. An extremist Islamic/Muslim terrorists' pride and joy and answer to airborne infidels. When it gets shot down by a fucking fighter or stealth fighter because of its puny defense there goes your well spent 20,000G.

Black Hole Exclusives

Among the above units, there are also other field objects that Black Hole may use in battle in an attempt to cheat for victory that also defy science and the Geneva Convention, each of which can be destroyed with varied amounts of firepower. Nuclear weapons could have been used.

• Minicannon: Useless field cannon with pitiful range.
• Black Cannon: Useful field cannon with ungodly range.
• Factory: Massive building that creates units every 2 days with the help of slave labor and stolen property.
• Laser: Small laser cannon that literally SHOOP DA WOOPS everything in its path.
• Death Ray: Big fucking SHOOP DA WOOPER of a gun that fires a Big Fucking Laser every 7 days. Actually made obsolete by the cannon's higher frequency of firing despite slightly less damage.
• Oozium 238: Gelatinous parasitic slimy shit that eats other units. Can somehow devour aircraft but can also be pwned easily by infantry or mech spam.
• Black Crystal: Heals units 2 spaces away. Encourages Black Hole units to camp.
• Black Obelisk: Heals units 4 spaces away. Further encourages Black Hole units to camp.
• Grand Bolt: A huge fucking slime creature that breeds Oozium from asexual reproduction by fucking itself.

Choose Your Alter-Ego

Yeah, this guy looks REAL threatening...

Von Bolt in 3D

As with typical strategy games, there are many characters to choose from, each with their own abilities and powers.

Red Orange Star

• Ryo Andy: Known as the Ryu of Advance Wars; everyone Pros uses him. Possesses no real abilities but is able to heal his units.
• Max: Your average muskleman. He has shit artillery making him useless when paired with Girt in Dual Strike
• Domino Sami: ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE
• Catherine Nell: The most difficult playable character to obtain, as this usually involves beating Advance/Hard/Nightmare Mode Campaign with the highest rank possible. All her units are able to do is higher damage at random; supposedly known as "luck". Actually gets into massive orgies with her soldiers to "up" their mood and therefore firepower.
• Eight Hachi: Makes tourneyfags shit bricks.
• John Jake: Typical wigger is a pretty cool guy. He wears massive headphones and doesn't afraid of anything.
• Rachel: Nell's sister. Special powers include bombing opponents' units at random.

Blue Moon

A communist jew nation. Responsible for supplying Liquid Snake with the Hind D in Metal Gear Solid.

• Whip Olaf: Santa Claus, with less presents and more snow.
• Billy Grit: Redneck with BOOM, HEADSHOT!!! Used by noobs to insure instant Winrar and camping.
• Colin Jew: Does not have very powerful power attacks but he is awesome because when he fills up his Super Co Power he will get extreme many moneys; damn this guy is a pimp Jew. He's also used by noobs with less experience because he makes you an instant Winrar.
• Jew: Bitch Caused the stock market crash in 2008. Protip: Don't use her she sucks. Unless for fapping.

Yellow Comet

Ancient weaboo army of Japan.

• Kikutiyo Kanbei: Emperor of Yellow Comet. Strongest units EVER. Sucks off and caters to the obsequious, glorious, parasitic nation of Yellow Comet in the name of honor. Buts units are more expensive than Colin's entire army.
• Asuka Sonja: She can see into your soul. Stereotype of nerdy Asian girl who gets hit on at school for the wrong reasons.
• Yamamoto Sensei: Same Zerg Rush; less KEKEKEKE. All he could do was "sunbathe" all day but was actually financially deprived as proven by Adder and went out of retirement to earn more money and shed more blood. Zerg Rushes infantry for fodder so less people would occupy valuable spaces on the beaches after the war ends. Helicopters and APCs have extra boost range/attack power making him more useful than Sami for CO captures and spamming.
• Kouzou Grimm: Kanbei on steroids. Holds entire colonies of tapeworms in that obese abdomen of his from all that sushi and sashimi he cannot help scoffing down all the time. To bad one strike from a furry will pwn him.

Green Earth

• Eagle: Resident otherkin who has the magical ability to move twice in one turn. Though it takes forever and valuable time to actually use it.
• Mop Drake: Sea man. Summons a tsunami to wipe out half the fuel and rations of enemy forces to his direction to satisfy his petrol-sniffing urges and sustain his obesity.
• Hannah Jess: Spends too much time out of the kitchen. Tries to assert femininity by drivin' tanks. (Yet can be seen nowhere. Must've made a wrong turn) I SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR. Carries a giant pencil.
• Bittman Javier: Verbose thread. The not-so-egotistical version of Chris Jericho. Makes sure an Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus is with him at all times. With a tower shield or 4 his entire army turns into legions of Chuck Norris clones that even bombs can't penetrate and pwn just by walking over them. Though most maps don't have towers which makes him average.

Black Hole

Sure, she doesn't look dangerous...

• Kong Flak: Unlike Andy, Max's clone wasn't very successful. Has the intelligence of a caveman.
• Cat Lash: Closet Furry. To compensate for her immense intelligence and skipping school for university as an engineer, her maturity remains at the level equivalent to a 4 year old child.
• Snake Adder: Some argue that he compensates for his immensely small power bar. Was renamed to Adder so not to be confused with that hero we all know and love who is obviously more manly than Adder. Look at his fucking pasty face; he obviously applied too much of that face powder he stole from Lash. He also wears high-heels, that faggot.
• Hawke: No, he's Mexican, not black. Big difference. Lie. Cheat. Steal.
• Chakka Jugger: Sockpuppet of Flak with larger power bar. Every second line from him is a reference to Windows.
• Zipo Koal: Sockpuppet of Adder that fights better on roads and spouts out random proverbs from that decorated porcelain cranium of his.
• Candle Kindle: Claims to be a better inventor than Lash. Obsessed with her beauty and has a fetish for buildings. Makes the best come backs and is the most well-educated, arrogant and literate Black Hole CO of all time!.
• Hell BouzeSturm: Final boss of AW1 and AW2. A CO made of hacks and is a favourite of noobs as his units are ridiculously overpowered, possesses the strength of an angry God and can traverse harsh terrain as if nothing is there. Somewhat akin to the P90 of Call of Duty 4. When you somehow manage to push him back causes meteors to rain from the sky and pretty much destroys everything. There's a big fuck you in your face.
• Hell Volt Von-Bolt: Final boss of AW:DS. An old fart that controls the flow of electricity. Disables vehicles and somehow infantry by shutting down their nervous system, yet affected units are somehow not brain-dead and still live to counter-attack while immobile. 3D version of Von-Bolt

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

Supposedly a "re-invention" of Advance Wars, Days of Ruin takes a darker spin on the traditional Advance Wars plot. Set in a post-apocolyptic era, a meteor strike (sound familiar?) has left the world in a chaotic state; toxic clouds cover the sky with darkness, food supplies dwindle, and sickness plagues the land. Everyone is pretty much dead, with the exception of the few survivors who will stop at absolutely nothing to survive. A small group of warriors fight to restore world peace amidst chaos, corruption, and turmoil. As would be expected with such a storyline, the entire happy-go-lucky cast of previous generations, as well as their respective armies, have been replaced with new characters, and two generic stereotypical warring countries -- one of the countries is split into two factions. The game is also full of plot-twists and spoilers, such as the 12th Battalion joining forces with the Lazurian Army to go against the New Rubinelle Army halfway through the storyline.

There's also a black guy for once. It's still racist though, because you can't play as him.

Who Are The New Guys?

Badass? Psycho-masochistic fucknut? You decide.

New faces and factions appear in this post-apocalyptic war game, most of which can easily relate to their predecessor characters. Several of them die, and several are either unplayable, or you don't play as them at all.

12th Independent Legion Battalion

• Ed Will: Average stereotypical "only survivor who joins the good guys" type guy.
• Brown Brenner: Troll's Remorse. Gets killed by a WTFBomb.
• Rin Lin: Advance Wars is Serious Business.
• Cattleya Isabella: Some girl that Will rescues early on. Knows too fucking much, and you don't even get to play as her in Campaign. Later on it's revealed she's a clone of Caulder.

Zephyrian Lazurian Army

• Atory Tasha: That's not funny, my brother died that way.
• Trak Gage: Carries around a sniper rifle he doesn't use.
• Caryle Forsythe: Has no CO power, but a massive command zone instead, whatever the fuck that means.

New Laurentia Rubinelle Army

• Cole Davis: Don't bother. He's unplayable.
• Dieter Waylon: HOLY SHIT HE SAYS "CRAP" IN AN E10+ GAME.
• Sigismundo Greyfield: The mix of Hitler and Stalin. Aims to rule everything by eliminating all nations. Gets killed the most pitiful way.

Intelligent Defense System

• Cyrus: Clone of Caulder. He isn't even a CO (thus unplayable), and shouldn't be in this list in the first place.
• Roumi Penny: Loli? In my strategy games? Also a clone of Caulder.
• Lisabeth Tabitha: You'd probably hit this. Another Caulder clone.
• Beris Caulder: Final boss of DoR. Commonly seen as the result of running Sturm through the Internet Hate Machine. Not only is he banned from online gameplay, but players are known to mutually agree not to play as him in multiplayer battles, simply because he is that powerful. Despite his power level, he dies in the end.

Miscellaneous

• Drakov The Beast: Unplayable CO of the Raiders. Caulder kills him for the lulz.
• Fanatic: Christfag who worships an earthworm.

New Units!

Despite everything else in the game being changed to some degree, the units in this game remain largely unchanged from their predecessors. Apart from some units being removed and/or otherwise tweaked in some fashion, new units have been added.

Land Units

• Motorbike: Basic land unit on wheels. Though impeded by terrain, there is still a possibility of being swarmed by them.
• Flare: Fog of War battles can be fun again.
• Anti-Tank: Indirect-firing unit with direct-firing range.
• Rig: So the APC got renamed. Big fucking deal.

Naval Units

• Gunboat: Replaced the Black Boat. Ammunition: 1 Sea-Borne cannon fodder.

Air Units

• Duster: Stealth plane at only 2 percent of its power level.
• Seaplane: Extremely useful unit hampered only by its tiny fuel tank.

Trolling Advance Wars Veterans

Despite how popular this game is, there are not very many methods available to troll its fanbase. An overused method would be to simply make speculation that Sturm is playable in either Dual Strike or Days of Ruin; hackers will flock to present coded evidence that this is not possible, and general fans will be sure to rage.

• 
  SEE HERE'S PROOF
• 
  Not a shop. No pixels.
• 

Quotes

	“	Everything in this game is basically a variation of gray. Seriously, the background during battle animations is all gray: Gray concrete, gray buildings, gray grass, gray everything! Also, the landscapes are even more depressing, since they're all basically gray, dark brown, or some color portraying depression. Very unlifting.	„
	—Days of Ruin remains highly accepted among long-time players of the series.

	“	Everyone knows that this is why they ARE GONNA BUY the game. It’s original, fun and crazy. You wanna keep playing forever. There are so many maps in this game that you won’t know which to choose. You can also design maps which kicks ass. I love the maps in this game; they are a bit better than the old maps. Also, if I'm not mistaken, some maps from the original return in this game too. There are also many CO's in this game, I wont tell you who so I don't ruin it for you. From war-room to campaign, everything is great!	„
	—HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS GAME IS THE BEST EVER

	“	Flak is a mere rehash of Max's character, only he's even more of an idiot, and Hawke's style is frustrating to play against, upsetting the otherwise balanced character designs.	„
	—Tourneyfag senses tingling...

	“	Advance Wars is a game in which boredom and brain power collide in a vicious confrontation within your mind, which then makes you ponder the rather entertaining idea of taking Advance Wars back to the store you just bought it from to get your money back.	„
	—Truth.

Rule 34

• 
  The only reason you'll ever play this game.
• 
  Hott~

Gameplay Videos

The fucking game.

SINGLE MECH ZERG RUSH

Hax

Ok, now that's just cheap.

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See Also

• Call of Duty
• Fire Emblem (A slightly better game. Still no Battletoads, though.)
• Nintendo
• Starcraft
• Steroids
• Zerg Rush

External Links

• Official Website
• Official Japanese Website
• Typical fansite
• Another fansite
• It has its own Wiki...
• And another wiki...
• VIDEO GAMES DO CAUSE VIOLENCE
• Some sort of online version.
• Another playable online version.
• This fansite is in French. Therefore, you can't read it.
• Character Synopses @ TV Tropes
• Advance Wars IRL

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