Advance Wars: Dark Conflict (DS) Review
The Advance Wars series has always been regarded as a cult classic on Nintendo handhelds, with its zany characters and addictive gameplay capturing the hearts of many. Advance Wars: Dark Conflict is the fourth title in the series and the second to be released on the Nintendo DS, however this time around the theme of the game has changed dramatically. An entirely new cast of commanding officers has been devised and with them, a much more gritty and realistic world. This is in stark contrast to previous titles, in which the majority of the command comprised of pre-pubescent teens hell bent on ignoring the fact that they consistently send thousands of troops into battle to be slaughtered by the enemy. Regardless of whether or not youll take kindly to the new stylisation or not, Dark Conflict is still the same great sort of game at heart, with a few tweaks and new units thrown in for good measure.
The storyline for the campaign in Dark Conflict is a lot different when compared to past titles, mainly due to the fact that it actually exists. A bombardment of comets from space has left the world in a broken state and killed billions. In the chaos surrounding this terrible natural disaster, old rivals clash again and new factions rise from the rubble, all keen to assert control over this new world. The game follows the course of the 13th battalion of the Rubinelle army, a group of soldiers travelling about after the devastation trying to locate and assist any survivors they can find. Eventually what started out as a quest to help the weak escalates into an all-out war.
For those who are unacquainted with the Advance Wars series, the premise of the gameplay is simple enough. The battle field is divided up into a number of grid-like squares that units can move between. On the players turn they have the opportunity to move each of their units once and even use them to attack an enemy unit if they are in range. The game is turn-based so once the player has made all the moves they wish to make control is passed to the next player. Naturally that serves as a rather gross oversimplification, as different units have a widely varied array of abilities and the type if terrain changes the flow of battle considerably. For instance, artillery can bombard enemy units 2-3 spaces away with considerable firepower, but cant move and attack in the same turn. Combat is executed in a rock-paper-scissors style affair, by which each unit has a weakness to a certain other unit and so on and so forth.
Some units have also changed since previous titles such as the battleship, which has had its attack range greatly decreased but can now move and fire in the same turn. Several new units also make an appearance in the game, including bike infantry, anti-tank artillery and duster and seaplane aircraft. The CO power system has also been greatly revamped. Your commanding officer no longer passively builds up power to use their special ability during a battle. Now they have to actually board a unit in order to confer any sort of bonus to their troops. This can be done at any factory that the player controls on the map and doing so activates a neat little feature called the CO zone that extends from the unit your commander is in control of. Essentially it is a certain number of squares in which units receive certain bonuses based on the particular CO you are using. When a unit the commanded by the player defeats an enemy while in this zone their power gauge rises. Raising this gauge high enough increases the size of the CO zone and at maximum power it can be used to activate the powerful special ability of that commander. Personally I believe its a welcome change as you have to actively pursue filling up the gauge and base your strategy around your commander and whatever unit they pilot, especially since the commanding unit can be defeated and the power gauge reset to 0.
Individual units can also now be upgraded when they win a battle, becoming stronger with each successive victory. Although the most part seasoned players will already know the ropes of the series, the new units and CO changes add enough of a new dimension to warrant pursuing new strategies and play styles, which is inevitably a big plus for anyone who has played the prequels to death.
Unfortunately there have been some features that have been lost from previous titles. There is no longer a shop through which to purchase new maps, with the free play mode simply consisting of 28 maps that are available from the get-go. There are also optional trial missions in the campaign mode outside of the main missions to keep you going, and these are normally much harder to achieve a high ranking on. Making up for a lack of unlockable content is the fact that this is the first Advance Wars title to be playable online over Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, with voice chat compatibility between friends. The design room also returns and allows you to create a multitude of your own maps to add to the replay value.
While the visual presentation is certainly rather nice looking it still doesnt really push the DS in any way. At any rate, it is a fairly great improvement over dual strike, not that youll be worried too much about the visuals in this sort of game anyway. Sound-wise the game is mostly filled with fairly typical videogame techno, with some of the COs having some particularly memorable themes. The sound effects are right on the mark as well though, with higher quality sound than was present in the previous DS game.
Naturally, Dark Conflict comes as a game that I highly recommend to Advance Wars fans, who will truly appreciate the return to the games strategic roots. For new players, what you are looking at is a massive sprawling adventure in a game that very few people will truly complete to 100%. Again, it has one of the best lastability ratings of any game Ive ever played for the sole reason there is so much packed in. It looks great and the gameplay has been refined to near perfection. Unless you really have a vendetta against turn based strategy games, Advance Wars: Dark Conflict is definitely one of the DS games any self respecting Nintendo gamer needs to own in the first quarter of this year.
