Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp review — slick remake of a strategy classic

Before the Fire Emblem games claimed the crown as Nintendo’s premier turn-based strategy game, there was Advance Wars. First released stateside at a calamitous moment — on Sept. 10, 2001 — Advance Wars was a continuation of a series born on Nintendo’s Famicom, but it seemed perfectly at home on the then-new Game Boy Advance. These long, turn-based fights worked well with the GBA’s ability to pick up, play and pause.

But Advance Wars fans haven’t seen a new entry in the series since 2008’s Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, a Nintendo DS video game, took the adorable, colorful combat from the previous games in a dark direction.

The developer WayForward has remade Advance Wars into a stylish collection called (somewhat awkwardly) As. Advance Wars 2: Re-Boot Camp. The Switch Duology brings the charm and cartoony origins of Advance Wars back, as well as the smoothest version of the two GBA originals.

Advance Wars 2: Re-Boot CampLike the popular Fire Emblem game, it is a turn-based strategy that uses grid maps to allow players to build and control military units on land, water, and in the air. As part of a global conflict, players strategically maneuver infantry, tanks and planes in order to control cities, factories and other locations. The missions are often played out as chess games, with players and their opponents having a certain number of units, and a shared goal: to wipe out their opponent’s army, take their main headquarters or achieve some other map specific victory condition. Battles in Advance Wars are slow and methodical — but thanks to a number of variables to consider like terrain, fog of war, and the special abilities of commanding officers (COs), they are rarely dull or predictable.

Image: WayForward/Nintendo

Unlike some strategy games, there’s no frenzied resource gathering — cities give players funds each day to spend on new units, and factories and airports, when present on a map, offer reinforcements. Instead, players need to pay more attention to the striking distances and ranges of units, as well as terrain advantages and strengths and weaknesses. Anti-air units are more vulnerable than bomber planes to a tank. Infantry are able to easily traverse forests and mountains. They can also capture certain structures. But they cannot compete with tanks or helicopters. The short-range unit must be positioned out of range of rocket launchers, artillery or other weapons. The ability of submarines to go underwater, out of view and stealthy means that they consume fuel. As you plunge further into Advance Wars’ battles, its strategic depth starts to show.

Further layering the game’s intricacies are the COs: cartoonish, archetypal characters that have passive strengths and weaknesses, and can unleash special abilities once they’ve charged them up. Re-Boot campEach CO is introduced at a relaxed pace. Andy and Max are two young and inexperienced COs who have the ability to magically fix units. Max’s older, more experienced counterpart can boost his attack. Enemy COs — who can be played in later missions and in the game’s Versus mode — have even more powerful abilities, like Olaf’s Blizzard, a snowstorm that inhibits movement, or Eagle’s Lightning Strike, which basically gives him two turns in one. The abilities are sometimes unbalanced or overpowered, but they can be fun. Advance Wars 2: Re-Boot CampYou can usually limp to victory. The game offers two levels of difficulty: Casual and Classic. If you don’t like your opponents being easy, choose the Classic mode. The game’s questionable AI certainly makes its share of lunkheaded mistakes, just like it did in the early 2000s.

Image: WayForward/Nintendo

WayForward, Nintendo and other developers have improved the appearance of the Advance Wars titles. The battlefield now looks like a wargame tabletop, with action figures, brightly-colored toys and colourful characters fighting each other without bloodshed. There’s a disconnect, though, between the cel-shaded, pleasantly cartoonish COs and the plasticky toys they fight with. While beautifully animated, the animations accompanying COs releasing their special abilities slows down battles in an irritating way. But the overall polish and presentation here is hard to fault; this is a very pretty update of two 20-year-old games, and the charming personalities of the game’s commanders have only improved.

Advance Wars 2: Re-Boot CampIt is a large package. This package contains two story campaign spread out over many missions. Advance WarsThe campaign unlocks from the beginning, as do online multiplayer battles with friends, local multiplayer and a War Room, where players can replay and play individual scenarios. There’s even a custom map designer with a dead-simple set of tools for creating and sharing homemade battlefields. For newcomers, it’s a massive amount of content; for returning Advance Wars fans, it’s a highly polished way to replay dozens of familiar scenarios. I’ve played thousands of hours in Advance WarsYou can also find out more about the following: Advance Wars 2 – Black Hole Rising on lengthy commutes two decades ago, Re-Boot camp felt like revisiting a classic remastered film — I knew all the moves, all the beats, but it was a comforting replay nonetheless.

It’s no surprise that the new Advance Wars is released at such an unusual time. Nintendo recognized this in the past when it delayed its release after the Russian invasion. Advance Wars 2: Re-Boot Camp indefinitely. Nintendo’s 2022 pause was due to the disconnect between the war in the real world and the toys that trampled cities underfoot, or the cartoon characters that were wiped out with artillery. In other words, it’s less off-putting than one might think to have fun with an urban military wargame right now. It’s more like the return of Advance Wars brings back a time when things were simpler.

Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp to be HeldOn April 21, released Nintendo Switch. Nintendo supplied a download code to be used for the review. Vox Media partners with affiliates. Vox Media can earn affiliate commissions, but this does not affect editorial content. Find out more about affiliate links. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.