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Buy this game it's a lot of fun with very high replay ability. If you are new to Advance Wars this is a good place to start because of the completely new story and characters. Fans of the series will fall in love with this new edition. The new story is in depth and adds to the addictiveness of the game. The units and structures are similar to the old ones but with a few twists. The new maps and controls are a nice improvement. My only disappointment was that there wasn't as many CO's in comparison to Dual Strike, so it's a good idea to get that one too or keep it if you already have it . The long awaited wifi capabilities are awesome too.
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In an earlier review I declared the Advanced Wars the best games ever for the GBA and Dual Strike met or exceeded everything the previous two achieved. So Days of Ruin had a lot to live up to and.... didn't.
Let me start with what I didn't like. After three iterations of Advanced Wars I grew rather fond of the cast of Commanding Officers but DoR ashcans them all replacing them with a whole new cast of characters. It reminds me of when Capcom decided to swap out almost all the Street Fighter characters in SFIII. It just doesn't feel right. There is also a much smaller selection of CO's compared to Dual Strike and you don't even get to choose your CO during the main campaign. There are no more dual commanders, commander advancements and even the shop is gone. Another thing I have to take an issue with is the music. It's a blaring beat on a short loop that grows maddening after a while like Chinese water torture. At some point I had to completely turn the sound off on my DS or go crazy. Finally, this is the most verbose Advanced Wars ever and it can get tedious. I just want to fight not read a novel.
On the plus side there are some great new units including motorcycles to get troops to cities faster and flares to temporarily get rid of fog of war for a section of the map. My worry is that the more units they add the more complicated the game gets and the whole allure of Advanced Wars is in its simplicity. The Duster, for example, is a new aircraft that can attack both air and ground units. Isn't that what the helicopter is for? There are also additional training missions during the main campaign that can be a lot of fun. Actually the training missions are sort of a replacement for the purchasable missions. In this case you have to earn them rather than buy them. The CO powers have been toned down and made more difficult to use. Whether this is an improvement or not is debatable but I think the CO powers had become more annoying than useful. The single best improvement is the addition of unit advancements. As a unit destroys enemy units it can advance up to veteran level with slight increases in power.
Days of Ruin takes a departure from the previous three games with few improvements. The world differs, the commanders are new, and even the style of art has changed dramatically. What remains the same is the gameplay which continues to be excellent. My feeling is that games in a series should always improve and unfortunately, in almost every way, Dual Strike was superior to Days of Ruin. Because of this I cannot in good conscience give DoR anything higher than four stars.
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This is my first Advance Wars game. That being said I must confess I had no idea what Advance Wars was really about or how to play the games. However, I kept hearing all this hype about how great they were and how addictive they were. I decided to take a leap of faith and try this out. Boy am I glad I did. Days of Ruin is by far one of the most fun handheld games I've played. It's very easy to pick up and learn. I didn't even look at the instruction booklet. I just popped it in and let the on screen tutorial introduce me to the game play. I've only made it through the first 4 missions, but I know I'll be playing for many hours to come.
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If you enjoyed the first three Advance Wars, there's no doubt you'll like this one too. While I did enjoy the games, I was not fanatical about it and I would eventually stop playing it after a few weeks or so.
I swapped out Dual Strike for Days of Ruin and I must say this is the most addicting Advance Wars to date. They basically took everything that I felt were flaws or problems with the series, and fixed it up and improved upon what was already good.
Some things to know:
* No more cheap AI during Fog of War! That's right! Now the computer is actually AFFECTED by the fog just like you are! This makes the game more realistic and the computer doesn't have a cheap edge like they used to!
* A better CO system. If you liked the insane CO powers, you may not be happy with it but I personally felt it was too overpowering. The powers are still there, but innovated in a way that is more realistic and requires you to rely more on strategy rather than Meteor Strike or Power of Money.
* A much better storyline. The days of "What's a tank?" and "Come on you Black Hole monkey faces!" are gone with more realistic dialouge and a much better story as a result. This game goes for a much more realistic feeling all the way, and it's great to finally have an Advance Wars game where the storyline and dialouge doesn't suck.
* A better unit balance. New additions and removal of units such as the Neotank and Megatank make everything more fair, and less reliant on building hundreds of the most expensive units. I have not seen better balance since the first Advance Wars, in fact I would say it's much better. Some new additions like the bike and anti-tank are great and come with pros and cons that even them out.
* Design maps mode is better than ever! You can now store up to 50 custom made maps and even adjust the size of the maps (from 5x5 to 30x30)! There is also an addition of a new paint tool that allows you to fill whole regions of tiles that are the same with one go making the design process far less tedious.
* The music is great too. It's mostly a mix of rock and techno and while the soundtrack isn't perfect, there are some really neat songs. My personal favorite is Waylon's theme.
Wonderful graphics, music, gameplay, storyline, and BALANCE. It's definitely worth the $30, and I would grab a copy before it starts becoming hard to find. I have yet to play the multiplayer so I cannot comment on that, but I can tell you with confidence this is the best Advance Wars to date! Just beware that you may be in for some long sleepless nights once you get hooked. ;)
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I'm a big Advance Wars fan, having played all of the titles so far. I've been waiting for this for a while. It's supposed to be "darker", which I always thought was weird given the land is not PINK instead of green.
That's right. PINK. As in, I hope you like PINK, because you'll be seeing a lot of it. The future is full of ruined lands, and those ruined lands are PINK (e.g.: light red).
Great game though, as per usual. If you've never played advance wars, you can get any of the games and have a blast. For those who've played them, here are the differences:
-You can play ANY past mission you like after you've defeated it. I LOVE this feature.
-No more battlemaps store! :(
-Online play. Haven't used it enough to comment on it.
-No dual commanders (like the last title)
-Cannot choose COs.
-You may put COs in a unit and take them to the field. They have an effect radius, and gain CO power from enemy defeats within the radius. Then you may use a global CO power.
-Unit can get experience, 4 levels. I haven't noticed a practical difference.
Fun little game, I'd highly recommend!
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