Turn, turn, turn.
I was some way into Black Hole Rising.
Day 9 I think, and I made a mistake that cost the whole battle.
Brilliantly, I knew it at the time, as well.
I knew I’d been too eager to advance.
Heading off for the front line, I left a newly captured airport undefended.
But deeper, somehow, I also knew that I had just blown the entire thing.
Somehow I knew I had screwed it up, which is the mark of a good tactics game.
The mark of a great tactics game, though?
Advance Wars 1 + 2: Reboot Camp review
I was.
It was a mixture of: next time I’ll do this then that then this!
Gone is the chunky pixel art, replaced by sheeny 3D models of glossy tanks and gormless soldiers.
That sheeniness gives an even greater toylike quality to the bombers and warships.
it’s possible for you to see the paint on the diecast bodies.
So, Advance Wars on Switch still has its visual pleasures.
It’s been great to return to these places, to see the familiar land masses again.
For me, though, it’s the best place to learn the intricacies of this deeply elegant game.
Terrain comes into play, altering movement range and also pushing your defensive odds up and down.
Units will always obey the rock-paper-scissors dynamic that allows you to hunt for the winning match-ups.
Resources will always unlock new units in the same order.
Even the AI can be trusted to have the same odd quirks that you’re able to game.
It worried me at first.
Advance Wars is about restrictions and logic, but it’s also about autonomy and player expression.
In some ways it comes together to make me feel a bit cleverer than I normally am.
Are the campaigns entirely the same this time around?
That shop is not as sinister as I had initially feared.
I need to be honest and awkward and embarrassing for a moment here at the end.
It’s ridiculous, maybe: I don’t feel remotely conflicted about chess.
But I’ll also admit I’ve started to feel slightly conflicted in a murkier way about Advance Wars.
Advance Wars is nothing like war, and even I know that.
I would never take a stab at pretend anything else was true.
Maybe, of course, I’m not giving the game enough credit.
Or, to put it another way, am I critiquing the game when I should be critiquing myself?
This might be another layer of its design.
When are things ever simple?
