The Gamer's Quarter

[sarsamis]

I hate the story, I hate the new style, I'm indifferent towards the music, I miss the old CO's, I miss getting money and unlocking things because it gave me incentive to play the war room a lot, I miss the pseudo 3D perspective, and I miss the pleasing animations and themes that accompanied stuff like days passing and victories and all that...

BUT I do like some of the new units, I appreciate the fact that the CO abilities aren't as powerful anymore (at least that's my impression of it thus far), and I like the ability to make those temp airports.

That's all I really have to say atm. Truth be told that I've only played for around an hour and half of that time was on a single war room mission. I just felt like making a thread to see what you all had to say. Perhaps even get some froth going to play it extensively if your opinions on it are mostly positive.

[Harveyjames]

The style is pretty important to Advance wars. Black Hole rising was so perfect, and Dual Strike only looked slightly different but it was enough for me to not want to play it.

This new one looks super-generic! What!

[Intentionally Wrong]

I hear Dual Strike balances the COs a lot. I think I approve of that, but since it's the only one I've played I don't really have a basis for comparison.

[sarsamis]

I hate it when Nintendo tries to act like they're hard core.

[kirkjerk]

I had to give up Dual Strike. There was this one gimmicky level where you had to face a TON of almost dead enemy, but there were recharging stations. I just couldn't figured out if I hadn't leveled up enough, or just was insufficiently clever.
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[fish]

fuck that new style.

FUCK IT.
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[sarsamis]

[dmauro]

I'm really enjoying this one. They abandoned the mode7 fake 3D bullshit (and replaced it with the handy zoom out), added new units (the dusters are a nice alternate to the expensive fighter jet, and the anti-tank units are really neat), changed some mechanics for the better: you don't move your unit until after you decide what you want to do (wait, fire, etc), which saves a lot of fuel, and during fog of war forests and cities stay illuminated during any turn in which a piece even passed by them (you no longer have to park next to them) and if an infantry unit passed over a mountain you get the visibility bonus for that as well for the rest of your turn.

I'm not very far, so I haven't even seen how the COs affect the game, but I never really liked that aspect (and I very much disliked the double CO abilities in DS), so I'm interested in what I read about putting your CO in a unit for an AoE bonus.

This is the game that I was hoping for when I got Dual Strike instead. I would just as soon just keep playing AW2 over and over, but the gba screen is a lot smaller :/

[Lackey]

Does anyone else find it weird that these games are ostensibly all about warfare but done in this cutesy-japanese-gleeful-funtimes-children-shooting-eachother aesthetic? I hope the commanders say things like "Yay, now lets put the stragglers to the bayonet!" just for extra dissonance.
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[Slonie]

[Harveyjames]

[Harveyjames]

ALSO you have to love the contrast between Japan's actual conduct in real world wars and this emasculated simulation of war with awesome child commanding officers.

'ALRIGHT! Let's put the prisoners into camps, cut off their arms and legs and then subject them to depraved and twisted experiments! Then rape all the women, cut their stomachs open and pull the babies from their screaming bodies! After that we'll have ice cream!!'

[Redeye]

[Harveyjames]

That could be a between-levels minigame! You could use the DS stylus to hack and slash your way through 100 prisoners of war while your rival attempts to do the same!

[Redeye]

[Harveyjames]

Yeah, or you unlock swell new outfits for Andy, Sami and Nell.

[Hospital Zone]

[Hospital Zone]

To the game's credit, the battles and tactics were polished out, and found a balance that the last two titles lacked. CO powers are a less devastating, but still help for a push while in a crunch. Also, there's a slight risk involved in raising power, which makes raising power harder to do. The new units are nice additions, I agree. I just discovered sea-planes, which are built by Carriers. They're pretty bad-ass, but I can't remember if they are new to the series or not. Wi-fi battles could be pretty alright with this system. It's a little more leveled overall, so I think the game designers were going the right way there. At least, I haven't found any glaring overpowered tactics yet.
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[Harveyjames]

YEAH

You know, it was mostly kids who were saying 'BOO HOO Wind Waker looks like a kid's game, and I'm nearly NINE YEARS OLD!!' so I wouldn't be surprised if the 'darker' look is actually designed to appeal to kids, or was arrived at as a result of focus grouping the game with kids. I think most adults would prefer the previous style. It's just cooler. It was actually a pretty unique drawing style, I can't think of any manga or anime that looked like that.

[Hospital Zone]

Yeah, I definitely liked the GBA versions best for their art styles. I can agree that they probably went this way to look bad-ass for kids, rather than adults. When I think of the standard cartoon formula we see being made these days, (looking "tough", with a big helping of ADD) I guess this isn't really a surprise. And while I loved the old games, most people I showed them to couldn't get past the graphics and find what I saw as their enjoyable aspects. Their excuses were always, "too kiddy, this looks like crap." It might be kiddy, but it was unique, and I liked it for that reason, even if it did make war hauntingly happy.

But this, this makes me wish for the good old days of when we had multinational barbecues.
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he was the first to realize there was no future in farming

[Harveyjames]

People who dismiss games for being 'kiddy' are scared people will think they are children

Real men (HELLO) have no such qualms

[Hospital Zone]

Heck yeah, I can deal with 'for kids' aesthetics if something else is going on underneath.

I got a little further into the game, and found that they were trying to go for a story that was closer to the realism of war. But everyone usually turns out (surprise!) to be okay, villains seem intrinsically and naively bad, and motivations of the heroes keep coming back to regular advance wars optimism, which undercuts how the same characters want to "put their enemies down like the dogs they are."

"That's how war is Will, you're just a kid and don't understand... Now this is what you do with a Bomber."

Every other character looks ready for a big rave. No one is dressed for either a war (except maybe Brenner) or an Advance Wars game. A stylistic mess, that's what I feel like I'm playing through.
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[digi]

A suprisingly pleasant exception to that trend is [I think] Phantom Hourglass. That game got me into it with just enough of the super-deformed chibi stuff balanced against monsters that look appoachably intimidating, complete with large puffs of purple smoke around the really badass baddies!

Apart from that, though, yeah. I wonder if Nintendo has Squenix specifically in mind while they draft up this stuff. Trying to directly compete with the style of their DS offerings, like the FF remakess or that Subarashiki Kono Sekai thing [which is most definitely straddling the kids/teenagers/kids who desperately want to be teenagers line].
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[Harveyjames]

[Shapermc]

[digi]

I'd love to see a Kingdom Hearts styled Ghibli/Pokemon crossover.


/not
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[Harveyjames]