 Alright, before I get started I'm sure this is going to be another Circle of the Moon situation because I'm playing, with fresh eyes and no preconceived notions, the first game in a series that I'm sure has since received better games with more capabilities and options open to the player and whatever else. But the point of this video is to look at advanced wars as it holds up today, if you're unfamiliar with the game or the series. In case you can't tell already, this is a turn-based tactical strategy role-playing game as part of Japan's never-ending quest to get this style of game to catch on in the West. No joke, there were nearly three dozen strategy role-playing games released in Japan on the Super Famicom that never saw the light of day anywhere else. Safe to say they liked these kinds of games a lot more than the rest of the world evidently did. Or maybe is it because the right game hadn't come along yet to get mainstream audiences excited about tactics and strategy? Advanced Wars is as close to that game as you'll get. This game did sell half a million copies in North America alone, a very impressive figure for such a niche genre. So yeah, Advanced Wars is definitely accessible. You maneuver infantry, tanks, helicopters, bombers, fighter jets, artillery, battleships, transport shifts, and your maneuverability and strategy all depends of course on positioning, terrain, and sometimes the weather. You can also join damaged units together, capture bases and cities to replenish health and provide money and supplies. There's a lot here, if you can't tell. Thankfully, you can even save your game in the middle of a battle and pick up right where you left off, so that's real handy. Sadly though, Advanced Wars has one ginormous glaring flaw. The game makes you complete a 13 step tutorial that goes over every single gameplay aspect and you have to complete it to get to the actual game's story. Now if you're brand new to tactical RPGs and you have no idea what you're doing, then this tutorial is great, it's well made and extremely helpful. And again, I get why they did this, it's for the purposes of getting tactics heavy games to catch on with a larger audience. But if you've already played through stuff like Fire Emblem or Tactics Ogre or Shining Force or Final Fantasy Tactics or whatever, then you don't need this, you get the gist of what to do. But nope, you can't skip anything. You have to play through all 13 missions, that's really annoying. I should mention though that you can still play 2 player mode without going through the tutorial, but if you want to play the game by yourself, it's still a big pain in the ass. Once you do get to the story campaign though, the game is really very good and pretty dang challenging. You're eventually introduced to new characters that all have unique special abilities that are a little bit like the God powers in a game like Age of Mythology. Like you can restore health all at once, allow extra movement to certain units, or just strengthen firepower altogether. It's pretty cool. Anyway, since I mentioned Fire Emblem a little earlier, there's an obvious comparison here to that series, since they were both developed around the same timeframe by Intelligent Systems. I'll say this much, if you're looking for more of a story-driven game of this nature, Fire Emblem is the way to go. That's the kind of game that immerses you in the battlefield with your comrades. Advance Wars is much lighter on story and makes you feel like a general operating from much further away. In other words, Fire Emblem is more RPG than strategy, and Advance Wars is more tactics and strategy than RPG. So yeah, the original Advance Wars is a great game that's currently available on the Wii U Virtual Console. It's just hampered by one major flaw, that stupid unskippable tutorial. Hey, that works great for the purposes of making this video, since the game helpfully provides examples of everything I want to talk about and show off. But yeah, for playing purposes, it's a major drag, and I can totally understand why that would be a deal-breaker for some people. If you're willing to grind through that, though, Advance Wars really is a quality handheld title with fun, accessible, and time-efficient battles, and a distinct style that no other tactical game can match.