Wars

The Famicom Wars (ファミコンウォーズ^?) series, usually referred to as Nintendo Wars outside of Japan, is a series of military turn-based and real-time strategy video games (See wargame), usually developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The series debuted in Japan on August 12, 1988. Like another Intelligent Systems series, Fire Emblem, most games in the series were released only in Japan; Advance Wars (2001) was the first to reach the North American and European markets. Advance Wars was released in the USA on September 9, 2001, but put on hold in Japan and Europe due to the subsequent terrorist attacks in the USA.^[1] Although released in Europe in January 2002, neither GBA game was released in Japan until the Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 compilation on November 25, 2004.

In 2005, Advance Wars: Dual Strike was released on the Nintendo DS platform, which follows the basic form of its predecessors. That same year Battalion Wars, a spin-off from the main series developed by Kuju Entertainment, was released on the Nintendo GameCube. Battalion Wars is a 3D action real-time strategy game, as opposed to the turn-based strategy of the main series.

Gameplay

The player takes the role of a Commanding Officer (CO) in an army, usually of a country called Orange Star, more recently Laurentia. In the single-player campaign of the Advance Wars games, each level consists of a new map and opposing CO to defeat. Victory is achieved when all of the opponent's units have been destroyed, their HQ is captured, or another victory condition has been met. COs take turns recruiting and commanding units on grid-based maps. Units available include infantry, tanks, artillery, bombers, and many other military units. Each turn, a unit may move around and/or perform an action, such as attacking or capturing a property. Certain actions, such as capturing, diving, or loading may only be performed at certain instances throughout the game.^[2]

Famicom Wars and Game Boy Wars series

The gameplay in the original Famicom Wars game consists of two armies, Red Star (which became Orange Star in the later international versions) and Blue Moon fighting over square grid-based maps. The two armies could either be played by human players, or a human player could play against an AI opponent.^[3] The Game Boy Wars series featured similar gameplay to Famicom Wars, except the grid was changed so that the grid squares acted more like hexagons; each square is adjacent to six other squares, instead of four. Otherwise, the gameplay remains identical, and only in Game Boy Wars 3 were unit levels and a new resource introduced.^[4] Super Famicom Wars, the sequel to Famicom Wars, introduced Yellow Comet and Green Earth, bringing the number of armies playable at once to four. It returned to the basic square grid-based map style of the original game.^[5]

Advance Wars series

The Advance Wars games introduced different elements of gameplay. The most notable new element is that COs now have special abilities called CO Powers that can affect the battle in different ways, giving the CO a temporary advantage over the other COs, such as providing allied units with increased firepower or causing damage to opposing units. Black Hole Rising introduced Super CO Powers, and Dual Strike introduced Tag CO Powers.^[2][6] Conditions such as Fog of War, rain, and snow affect the abilities of units to reveal the map and move around.^[7] Days of Ruin removed many of the features added to previous Advance Wars games, greatly weakening CO Powers and reintroducing a level system.^[8]

Multiplayer

Multiplayer mode is an important part of the Nintendo Wars series. This allows players to compete against friends, each choosing a Commanding Officer to play and country to represent. The Advance Wars series of games, along with the far lesser known Game Boy Wars 3, include map editors, giving them increased replayability. In the original Famicom Wars, two players were allowed to play; in Game Boy Wars, players could play hotseat multiplayer games.^[4] The Advance Wars series on the Game Boy Advance link-play using link cables. Online multiplayer was originally planned for Dual Strike, but was only later implemented in Days of Ruin.^[9][10]

Games

References