Wars (series)

The Wars series, also known as Famicom Wars (ファミコンウォーズ, Famikon Wōzu) in Japan, Advance Wars in the West, and occasionally Nintendo Wars as a whole, is a series of military turn-based 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, earlier installments of 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 10, 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, developed by Kuju Entertainment, was released for the Nintendo GameCube in Japan under the title "Totsugeki!! Famicom Wars", where it is considered a spin-off from the main series. 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. In the most recent title, Days of Ruin (Dark Conflict) in Europe, it is replaced by a nation called Rubinelle (Laurentia in the European release). 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 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]

Japan-Exclusive Titles

The original Famicom Wars game consists of two armies, Red Star (which became Orange Star in later international versions, possibly to avoid associations with Communism) and Blue Moon fighting over square grid-based maps. The two armies could either be controlled by human players, or a human player could play against an AI opponent.^[3] The Game Boy Wars series featured a game system 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. Game Boy Wars also features a different opposing army called White Moon. Otherwise, the rules 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]

International Titles

The Advance Wars games introduced several new elements. The most notable 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 unit 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 allowed link-play using link cables. Online multiplayer was originally planned for Dual Strike, but was only later implemented in Days of Ruin.^[9][10] Battalion Wars 2 introduced online multiplayer over the Wii's Wi-Fi connection. The game had 3 modes and 16 maps to play on. The multiplayer section was well received but was criticized for not supporting voice chat.^[11]

Games

References

External links

• The Wars Wiki - An independently-hosted wiki for the Wars series
• "Nintendo Wars and spinoffs" screenshots and statistics

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