When pondering the motive of my favorite 2nd party developer, it seemed difficult to understand why the game’s attitude was revamped. The previous three installments in the series were incredible additions to the world of turn based strategy, each keeping to a tried and true format yet adding extra additions to make the game fresh for veterans and in my opinion, the lighthearted story was perfect for the game (existent yet non-obstructive to the gameplay). By the time Dual Strike came out, hardcore fans of the series were in heaven with the amount of modes, characters, maps, missions, additions (skills, new units) and overall by how much gameplay there was to be had within this one game (I personally have logged 183+ hours into Dual Strike alone). Dual Strike was a game that appealed to hardcore fans in the same way that Super Smash Bros. Brawl appeals to Nintendo fans by giving gamers enough gameplay to keep them busy for years (though Brawl also appeals to fans in many other ways).
So the question still resonated in my mind: Why would Intelligent Systems decide to change the format if fans like myself were completely happy with the old one? The answer is that Advance Wars: Dual Strike did not sell very well, which is a huge shame to me. I personally hate it when a developer puts their heart and soul into a title and it fails to sell well on the mass market. Take F-Zero GX for instance; the game was by all accounts a masterpiece on the GameCube but unfortunately, the legion of casual gamers didn’t seem to agree and were not interested in buying the game (neither F-Zero GX nor Advance Wars: D.S. appear on the list of top selling videogames for their respective consoles).
So despite my thoughts about the format change and the appeal to the mainstream market, I nevertheless garnered my excitement for the game and attempted to review it on as unbiased of a playing field as possible. Thus the major question that comes to mind this time around is “Can Intelligent Systems succeed in making Advance Wars: Days of Ruin fun for both the mass market and the hardcore gamer?
