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Advance Wars is a strategy game released for Game Boy Advance on September 10, 2001, developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. This is the first opus of a series that continues on Nintendo DS with Advance Wars: Dark Conflict.

The player takes control of a novice commander of the Orange Star army. He will learn the basics of strategist work being helped by Nell, a young general woman who will introduce the player to the art of war in the early battles against the Blue Moon army and the commander Olaf. The first clashes are part of a tutorial that leads the player to victory. It was only after the arrival of Grit, the right hand man of Olaf that is specialized in indirect attacks, that the player have to be clever in order to defeat the army of Blue Moon and the combined forces of Olaf and Grit. Throughout the game, the player will be joined by several generals, such as Andy a young mechanic, Max a strong soldier or Sami an expert in infantry. All these generals have a special ability. In addition to Blue Moon, the armies of Green Earth and Yellow Comet will get in the way of Orange Star, before the real threat makes its apparition.

In terms of gameplay, Advance Wars is a turn-based tactical game. You deploy your troops, and then you have to try to conquer as many buildings as possible in order to create units to meet the objective of the mission. The units will move case by case and has a radius of mobility and attack which varies from one type of unit to another. The air units can cover a greater distance of travel. The anti-aircraft units can reach targets far away, and cause significant damages to air units. And so on. At the beginning of each campaign the player can choose one or several generals, who have powers that can be triggered during battles.

In the same vein as the Fire Emblem series, Advance Wars is a very good tactical game that provides a great challenge. There is also a multiplayer mode that allows confrontations up to 4 players.

Advance Wars reviews