I own both of the GBA Advance Wars games and I liked them quite a bit. I liked the first one a little better than the second, but they are pretty much identical.
I was wondering besides the different COs, what are some of the main additions to Dual Strike? Does the second screen add anything to the gameplay?
It's really just another expansion back, but a better expansion pack than Black Hole Rising. Everything from the previous games is back, and they add some really cool new units as well as some new enviromental turret/bomb type units. Two CO's at the same time adds more strategy, but really I can't say I prefer it because its almost too much to think about. The new real time combat mode is good for a quick distraction, but doesn't have much depth. I beat the first two this summer, then I got Dual Strike when it came out, and I'm kind of burned out with the game. So I can't say I'd recommend the game unconditionally. I feel that the game is losing some of the simplicity that made the first Advance Wars GBA such a classic.
Well the training missions in the begining are painfully long (as is the horrible dialogue that you can't skip), but eventually I'd say the game gets just as hard as Black Hole Rising.
More Co's
New, less good campaign - I liked the branching.
Super Powers (better balance)
One new unit (Neotank)
Some new land featurs (Silos, pipes - why jets can't fly over pipes I'll never know).
From AW2 to AWS
lots more
Even more CO's - plus all the old ones.
Campaign mode continuation (I think the weakest of the 3 - no challenge)
Tag battles (allows for a super super duper tag power - maybe too powerful)
Dual front (kind of like playing two battles at once - nearly pointless)
At least 6 new units.
touch controls
Experience system for each CO (makes the longevity nearly multiply bo a factor of 10 if you want to level them all up)
Skill system (to utilise your experience earned)
Combat mode (a kind of brief arcadey diversion based on teh AW rule set - loosely)
Survival mode(haven't tried this yet)
Basically DS version has heaps added to it. Some would say it has overly complicated things. I kinda liked the purity of the first one, but DS is definitely the most featureful version. If the war room was not enough in the old ones, you can now play each map with 4 rule sets, over twenty cos and then some. Man this game lasts FOREVER. Literally.
Really? I found AW1 a lot harder. You just use the cheap-o blue guy and you can churn out mass supertanks or bombers. He pretty much ruins the balance of the entire game. Once you get going its a super every turn.
DS additions:
Leveling system allows for your own selection of bonuses (+5%direct attack, plus 1 base repair etc) Pick and choose depending on the mission. I think this is probably the most significant change in Dual Strike compared to Black Hole. For fog of war maps, level up your CO's to be able to use the plus vision range bonuses and it will help you tremendously.
New units: piperunners, stealth bombers, aircraft carriers, black boats, black bomb, megatank, ooziums. Each fit pretty well into the gameplay. They're all useful in some ways, although a bit overpowering in some instances IMO (stealth).
The two CO system actually is pretty deep. There are subtler differences when you choose your CO's. Good pairs = higher luck and damage. Of course, dual strike powers are on the verge of gamebreaking, but there is strategy to using them at the right time AND in the right order. For example, Jess and Javier are a good tag pair, combining for 110% on their super CO powers. Having Jess go first to move up quick, refuel ammo and fuel, and smash thru enemy lines. Then switch over to Javier and have his insane defence take over.
The second screen doesn't add too much to the gameplay, at most giving you another front for a battle which doesn't usually mean that much. And stay away from using the stylus, d-pad >>>> way better in controls.
Campaign mode even on hard, IMO, is a little bit easier than Black Hole Rising, where I'm still stuck on the last mission of the hard campaign. (Damn laser.) On the whole though, Dual Strike is A LOT faster than Black Hole Rising, and I think overall a better game. Intelligent Systems also added a whole mess load of stats tracking ala Smash Brothers Melee, so it's fun to see how you're doing in the game's various modes. Definitely recommend it for anyone who's played the AW series. Best game on the DS. (sorry Castlevania).
It's essentially AW3 - it continues the story of the other 2. But in terms of game features - AW2 is really AW1.1, and AWS is the real sequel.
Much more added to it. but the gameplay is identical.
And yes, dialogue is skipped with 'a' to skip to the end of a certain sentence, and 'start' to skip the entire sequence. Battle animations can also be skipped by pressing 'a' (though everyone normally just turns them off once they get bored of them anyway - though I leave them on and just skip them).
Campaign mode is very easy in AWDS, in my opinion it is the easiest of the 3.
I "S ranked" every mission the first time I played campaign on normal, I'm now halfway through hard campaign and I have S ranked every mision yet again. I found AW#1 to be the hardest AW, but this may be because it was my first real attempt at a strategy game. It is possible the games are getting harder, or hovering at the same difficulty level, and my experience with the game rules has made them seem easier.
I'm hearing surprisingly little about the Survival modes, in my opinon they are the best additions to the game, bar none. Basically you have to complete a set of 11 levels while using as little units, turns, or time as possible. This is great because even if you find S ranking these challanges to be easy (which they are, I haven't moved on to hard survival yet though) you can still re-paly them for even higher scores with different CO pairs. You'll find a lot more strategy and mangaement exercise here than you will in the campaign, or many of the war room maps.
The stylus control rocks. It's a wonderful addition to the game. Being able to play one handed makes for nice AdvanceWars while snacking. A lot of people bitch about it, and yes a few implementations of it should have been cleaned up, but overall it significantly increases the speed of play. Turning off all animations and playing with the stylus shaves a good 15 to 30 minutes off of the longer battles, which is great since the game is so freaking time consuming. It takes about an hour to get used to, but you will need it for things like time survival anyway, and you won't go back to D-pad once you have it down. The biggest hinderence with the stylus is scrolling while a unit is selected (which you may want to do to check large Cannon firing ranges). In these situations I invariably jump back to the D-pad for a sec.
Combat mode is great fun, but as people mentioned, not very deep. Still it is a nice distraction for when you are sick of intense thinking. It really feels like an old 8-bit game. Combat mode is also best played with the stylus, so you can shoot 360 degrees. When I first got the game I loved Combat and cleared it through brutal before even getting out of the tutorial in campaign mode. However, I've found little reason to go back to combat since then.
The tag COs and CO level up system are very cool, if not a bit too powerful. I think these are part of the reason I feel AWDS is the easiest AW yet. It is really easy for human players to abuse CO tag matches, as compared to the computer. However it is also a lot of fun to try out new pairs of COs, and to rank them up with the experience system. In the previous AW games I was never compelled to stray from my favorite 3 or 4 COs when I had a chance to pick. In this game however, I've been encouraged to learn the ins and outs of each CO, and there are a heck of a lot of them to try. All of then COs return from AW2, plus 9 or so new ones.
At first I was upset when I heard an experience/level-up system would be included. I prefer AW to FireEmblem because, every battle starts how the designers intended it to, as opposed to fire emblem where I end up with a bunch of over leveled characters by the end of the game and the challange is lost. I like how the system is added to AW though. The experience/skill system ultimately makes playing the computer easier, but you can choose not to use them if you'd like a fair fight (good design choice on IS's part). Otherwise it is fun messing with the skills and their existance helps people who struggle with the game get through campaign. I'm all for making the game easier for entry level people. Also, after leveling a CO up to level 10, you get the best unlockable in any AW game ever:
Alternate Costumes for the CO, I've only got 2 so far but they are a lot of fun. Grit's makes him look like a hippy, in fact one of the color swaps turns him into Shaggy from Scooby-Doo
The dialouge is good. The only problem with it is Jake's character, but he talks a lot less once you are out of the tutorial. Aside from Jake, this was the most humorous AW game. Lots of great jokes hidden in the text, particularly coming from Jugger or the chattering between particular CO pairs. I've never found the actual campaign mode stories in AW to be that gripping, ever since I found Andy's clone in AW1, (clones are the worst plot device ever) I've pretty meuch ignored the story as cheesey anime fiction and I've enjoyed the characters for what they are as opposed to how they fit in the story. However, I'd have to say I enjoyed AWDS campaign the most. The story had some nice twists in it involving black hole, which really helped change up play. I was glad we didnt have to teach Andy what an aiport was for a third time. If the end battles against
the Macro land COs (Olaf, Kanbei, and Andy) had been against the real COs instead of clones, the story would really have been nice. They could have had black hole hold Macro land hostage of something, causing those COs to fight against their friends. Clone COs are great for changing up the opponent you have to face, but they suck story wise
Overall, AWDS is easier than the previous games, but you can make it hard by playing war room, survival, or hard campaign with no skills on. The new additional modes make this the most feature rich AW yet, plus you have more COs, Co tag dynamics, an experience system, and a new control system. Another nice addition is a medal earning system (like smash brothers trophies) that ranks you based on how many of each enemy unit you've killed, how many of each unit you've deployed, etc. Unlocking every map, medal, gallery image, and ranking up each CO could easily take years, so pleanty of game play to be found here. I thought I was sick of AW games when I bought this, and didn't actually start playing it until a month or so later. Now I'm hooked. I would say it is the best AW game by far, simply because of all the options.
I played the first GBA game, but skipped the second one because I was still playing the first one. I picked up the DS version without thinking twice about it.
It is pretty easy, but still challenging. It's a challenge to figure out how to make it easy for yourself, is the best way of putting it I think.
I just passed 50 hours played, and I'm still just getting into the meat of it. Word.
S
