Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
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| Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising | |
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| Developer(s) | Intelligent Systems[1] |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Series | Nintendo Wars |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Advance |
| Release date |  June 23, 2003[1] 2003 October 3, 2003[1] November 25, 2004 (as part of compilation Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2) |
| Genre(s) | Turn-based tactics |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone (E)[1] PEGI: 7+ |
| Media | 64-megabit cartridge |
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising is a turn-based tactics video game developed for the Game Boy Advance by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in 2003.[1] Nintendo of Japan had never released the original GBA game after it was postponed due to the September 11, 2001 attacks[citation needed] , and so the sequel was also not released until 2004, when both games were released together under the title Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2.
Black Hole Rising is the second game in the Advance Wars series of video games, preceded by Advance Wars and followed by Advance Wars: Dual Strike, and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. This quartet of games is a sub-series of the Nintendo Wars set of games.
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[edit] Gameplay
The gameplay in Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising is based on defeating the enemy or enemies. Generally, there are two ways this can be accomplished. The enemy may be routed if all of their units are destroyed, or they may be defeated by capturing their headquarters. In certain Campaign mode maps, there are special objectives, for example, destroying a Black Cannon.
Black Hole Rising features a turn-based tactics game system. Two to four armies, each led by their respective commanding officers (COs), take turns recruiting and commanding units on grid-based maps. Similar to many other turn-based games, each turn, a unit may move around the game grid and/or attack enemy units. Other actions, such as capturing, diving, or loading may be performed at certain instances throughout the game. This game features phenomena such as fog of war, which limits the ability of players to see the map.
The basic premise of the gameplay is as follows: Each team, at the beginning of their turn, receives funds based on the amount of properties they own. They can then proceed to buying units for their army, provided they have sufficient funds. The armies clash, and damage received in battle contributes to the CO Power Meter of the Commanding Officer(s) receiving the damage. Should COs have a filled or semi-filled bar, they may trigger their CO Power or Super CO Power, which enhances the abilities of the Commanding Officer, but usually only for that turn. This is repeated until the map has been finished.
[edit] New features
Black Hole Rising is nearly identical to the previous game in terms of core gameplay. The new features as they pertain to this game are covered below.
[edit] Campaign mode
Black Hole Rising does not feature a field training mode like the original, instead integrating tutorial elements into the first several missions.
There are 32 missions in the campaign mode. The campaign is nonlinear in mission selection, unlike its predecessor, Advance Wars. The campaign is divided into five parts over five fictional continents, each focusing on one of the game’s five countries: Orange Star, Blue Moon, Green Earth, Yellow Comet, and Black Hole.
In each continent, when a mission is completed, usually several more maps become open for play. The player can freely choose between the available maps. In Black Hole Rising, not all maps on a continent must be cleared before its final mission is open. The player can then choose to complete those maps for credits to be used in Battle Maps, or they can choose to skip those maps, and finish the continent. Once the final mission on a continent is completed, remaining maps on the continent are closed automatically.
In addition, each continent features a secret mission, unlocked by capturing specific properties in specific missions. These secret missions involve capturing the enemy's Laboratory, which functions as the enemy's Headquarters. These maps all have time limits. By completing a secret mission for a continent, the ability to purchase Neotanks, the game's new unit, is unlocked for the continent's COs, which would otherwise only be available to Black Hole Commanding Officers.
The player's performance is judged after each completed mission, based on three categories: speed, power, and technique. The player earns Speed points by completing missions quickly. Power points are earned based on the player's ability to destroy enemy units, and technique points are given for the player's ability to have few units destroyed themselves. The three categories' points are tallied, and that total gives the player a rank, ranging from S-Rank, which is the best possible, to C-Rank, which is the worst. Once the campaign is completed, the player is given a final rank for the overall campaign, and by achieving S-Rank or A-Rank, the player gets the opportunity to purchase more unlockable elements from Battle Maps.
Once the player completes the Campaign mode, they are given the ability to purchase the Hard Campaign (similar to the Advance Campaign in its predecessor, Advance Wars) from Battle Maps. The Hard Campaign is similar to the normal Campaign, but is more difficult, and often maps are modified. Completing these maps give the player double the amount of credits they earn (compared to the normal Campaign). Hachi, the Battle Maps vendor, becomes unlockable after the Hard Campaign is completed, regardless of the overall rank achieved.
[edit] Gameplay
Several new concepts are featured in Black Hole Rising and are integrated into the campaign mode as well as the multiplayer mode. These have the effect of helping lend the campaign mode a far wider variety of mission objectives.
[edit] Commanding officers
Eight new Commanding Officers (COs) join the original game's eleven to make a total of nineteen COs in Black Hole Rising. In the normal Campaign mode, the player is allowed to choose between one of the COs native to the continent they were playing on. There are also maps where the player has no choice over the COs to be used. In the Hard Campaign, however, the player could select from any CO that they have unlocked.
Most of the new COs, as well as most of the previously existing ones, are unavailable for use initially and must be unlocked by buying them in the Battle Maps mode after completing the various continents of the campaign modes, among other conditions.
A new addition to COs in Black Hole Rising is the new Super CO Powers which each CO now possessed. Instead of having a CO Meter like a bar, each CO had a CO Meter now made up of stars. Once all of the small stars are filled, the CO can trigger their CO Power. If all of the stars are filled, the CO could activate the new Super CO Powers, which are more powerful than the normal CO Powers. For example, Olaf's CO Power causes snow to fall, and his Super CO Power adds to that by causing damage to all enemy units. CO Powers, when triggered, take away all of the filled small stars, as well as one additional star if there is extra. Thus, a CO may be able to use a CO Power and still have a partially filled CO Meter, whereas a Super CO Power would empty the CO Meter completely.
[edit] Units and terrain features
One of the features of Black Hole Rising is the new Neotank unit, a direct-combat unit that is more expensive to produce than a Medium Tank but has higher firepower, slightly better defense, more fuel, and can move further. While the Neotank is initially available for use outside Campaign mode, in the Campaign mode it must be unlocked for each army to use by finding and completing secret missions.
The terrain of Black Hole Rising, aside from a slight visual alteration, remain the same. There are two new terrain features. The first is the Missile Silo. When an Infantry or Mech unit moves onto a silo, the player can launch the missile at any point on the map. After selecting the Launch command, a diamond-shape cursor will appear, and all units within the cursor will take 3 HP of damage. Units cannot be destroyed by a missile.
The other new terrain feature is the Pipeline, along with the Pipe Seams, which act as walls on the battlefield. Pipelines are often arranged to enclose key areas of a map to intensify the nature of a conflict, but they can also come with seams in their structure that can be destroyed, and flat land appears in the seam’s place which allows units to pass through.
Lastly, appearing only in the campaign mode are geographical features that specifically affect the gameplay of Campaign missions, often becoming the focus of these missions. These include Black Cannons that automatically fire upon any non-Black Hole unit in their range at the start of each turn; minicannons, smaller versions of the Black Cannons; giant factories that can freely produce Black Hole units and are always the focus of the final mission on each continent; an erupting volcano in one Campaign map that drops damaging debris onto the battlefield in a set pattern; and in the final mission, a giant death ray that fires every seven days damaging every non-Black Hole unit in its path.
[edit] Multiplayer and other features
The maps available in Versus Mode and the War Room are expanded versions of the collection of 114 maps in Advance Wars. There are 22 new maps, 10 of which are in the War Room (which add up to 30 maps when taken together with the 20 existing War Room maps from the previous game). All of the new maps must be bought in the Battle Maps mode (while all of the existing maps are unlocked from the start).
The Battle Maps mode is unchanged in function and purpose. The points earned in Campaign and War Room are redeemed here for maps and COs to be used in Versus Mode. Other things that can be bought include new color palettes to change the appearance of each CO, a Sound Room, and an Image Gallery.
[edit] Story
While the Allied Nations were still recovering from the war in Cosmo Land, the Black Hole Army has already recovered and is launching a new attack on Macro with a large force for an invasion. Lash has also invented several new war weapons that are put to liberal use in this invasion.
The Black Hole Army has also recruited four new Commanding Officers (COs). Sturm, with an ominous new look, commands each Black Hole CO to invade and capture each of the four countries owned by the four other armies from the original game: Flak is assigned to take Orange Star, Lash for Blue Moon, Adder for Yellow Comet, and Hawke for Green Earth. The four armies must now work together to drive Black Hole out of their world once and for all.
Near the end of the campaign, when the Black Hole COs have been driven from the nations of Wars World, the COs meet up in Black Hole's base of operations, where they fight Sturm one last time. The final battle takes place in front of the Death Ray, a powerful new weapon guarding the entrance to a missile, which, in 30 days, will destroy half of Wars World.
When the Death Ray is destroyed, the COs disarm the missile and corner Sturm, who attempts to blow up the base and kill everyone by self destructing. Andy steps forward to stop Sturm. Just as it looks like Andy will be killed, Hawke, second only to Sturm himself, betrays his leader by killing him with Black Storm, his CO Superpower. Afterwards, Hawke takes over as leader of Black Hole, and with Flak, Lash, and Adder, leaves Macro Land with the few troops he has left.
[edit] Reception
Reviews for the game have generally been very positive. GameSpot awarded the game 9.1 out of 10, calling it a "successful sequel to one of the GBA's best games". IGN gave the game 9 out of 10, praising it as an "incredibly deep and addictive turn-based strategy game". On Game Rankings it has an average score of 90%, and is ranked as the 13th best game on the Game Boy Advance.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Official Nintendo website
- Official Intelligent Systems website
- Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising at MobyGames
[edit] Notes
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