Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

This game is one of the best turn-based strategy games I have ever played. Compared to the previous game (Advance Wars: Dual Strike), this new one changes the mood and the storyline and adds a few new gameplay aspects, but it otherwise doesn't mess with what made the previous game so great.

The difficulty can get a little overwhelming sometimes, but there is a new option to receive tactics hints in the main story campaign maps (you can't get hints in the training maps, though). However, if you don't want to "cheat" - or you're just that good - it's easy to skip the hints and just plow through the campaign maps until you beat them without help.

The CO powers are used differently and they no longer make a huge difference in the outcome of a battle. Also, to use them you have to put your CO in a unit and use that unit to build up your CO power. Any other unit near the CO's unit gets a power and defense boost. Strangely, if the CO's unit dies, the battle isn't over - you just loose all your CO power and have to put your CO in a new unit and start the CO meter from zero.

The only aspect of the new game that isn't either the same or better than the previous one is the addition of a zoom feature. By hitting R or tapping a tab at the top of the screen you can zoom in on the action. However, there is never any reason to do this - the regular view works just fine and the zoom feature is too close and makes the battle overview harder to see. What's annoying is when you are trying to select a unit at the top of the screen and you accidentally hit the zoom tab. It's a pointless add-on that seems like just an excuse to show the units in more graphical detail - which for a game like this is utterly useless and would have been better left out.

Overall, I think this game is as good as the previous one. With the addition of an on-line mode (which I haven't tried yet) and a few new units, it may actually be better. I highly recommend playing it.