The fourth Advance Wars title fails to deliver in many aspects. Unlike the previous three entries, this title takes a grim approach in both art and story. Although that may sound fantastic at first, the gravity of disappointment soon takes you by force when you decide to play it. The dialogue is nothing short of mundane. Not to mention that the characters accentuate the blandness of the story with their uninteresting background/story. Seriously, if they’re going to change the cartoony style of the prior games, they should incorporate the theme with every aspect of the game. That’s not to say that this game is horrible. I actually like how the units are presented during battle scenes. It still feels cartoony but starkly in contrast with the apocalyptic setting. The strongest part of the game is the music. They did a terrific job by assigning themes befitting each character’s appearance and personality. Sadly, it doesn’t make the characters any more interesting. The gameplay is pretty much the same, but some fans won’t like the way CO powers are presented/executed. I for one preferred the prior entries’ way of triggering CO powers. Battles can be quite fun and mercurial. You’ll have to use your wits if you want to win your battles. Brains over brawns. There are some similarities to the Fire Emblem games if you were to compare the latter’s triangle system to this game’s weakness system. Anti air units will destroy your planes whereas bombers can annihilate land units. There is definitely fun to be had in terms of gameplay. If only the story and characters weren’t so…trite, I could recommend this to anybody. Anyways, I’d really only recommend this to lenient and hardcore Advance War fans. Avoid it by all means if you’re looking for a captivating strategy game. Change isn’t always good.

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