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

This next installment in the Advance Wars series tries to reinvent the game franchise with a more modern feel. The war is darker this time around and grittier. All of your favorite COs (playable characters) from the previous games are absent from this title. There are some new unit types and COs work differently. CO powers are still present but work in a new way and are not as potentially game-changing as before. The gameplay is still solid, the strategy feels like chess on steroids (especially when playing in fog of war or on maps where you can purchase reinforcements). The Campaign story is more involved than in previous titles and you may get wrapped up or lost in all the dialogue. Multiplayer is still here and as fun as ever. All in all, a solid title but I say it wasn't broke so why did you think it needed fixing?

Pros:
Solid and addicting gameplay
New armies and unit types

Cons:
Everyone you used to know is gone
The departure from cartoon/anime theme and art robs the game of its magic/likability/appeal
CO powers and boosts have been signifigantly downplayed

~ just like before...only not so much

"Advance Wars: Days of Ruin" is probably the most intricate game I've played on the DS. If you've played the other games you know that the combat is turned based and like "Final Fantasy Tactics" for the PS one. If you haven't played the other games, well you move and attack basically. One thing that stood out to me was the "Days of Ruin" part of the name. The campaign starts off with one man standing in a ruined city with its buildings on the brink of collapse. This first image is rather destroyed by the first aspects of game play I tried. It starts you off with little units, so you can get the hang of the controls. This is nice. However. Once you unlock all the units, or just play free battle, you realize that the game tried way too hard for balance. There are so many units that can all kill each other that you would run your money off the chart if your tried to get them all. This is the games major flaw. Most people, like all my friends that tried the game, will only get a couple of units and build an excessive amount of them. The AI counterpart will then probably build the one unit you can't kill, at all. There also will be many units that are extremely unnecessary, like the missile silos. They have area damage but can't kill any troops, which is unorthodox. It also gets really annoying when you move up some units and the your enemy happens to be sitting there with a rocket, and a tank, and hurts you, then you hurt him, and you just play tag. Some maps have will require a really LONG tag game until you finally inch up little by little and overwhelm and kill him. You'd think that by now there would actually be character animation, but no. The cut scenes have a background and an unchanging picture that represents the character talking. There can only be two on the screen at a time and they talk in bad translated dialog. The units aren't "advanced" either, just, normal present day stuff. Overall, a rent. Not worth the price tag since it resembles "Dual Strike" a lot