Advance Wars

Genre: Turn-based tactics

Developer: Intelligent Systems

Publisher: Nintendo

Strategy games used to annoy me to the core when I was little. As a child, I found it inconceivable that someone would actually want to play a game where the player needs to think before every step he or she takes. I got Advance Wars as a present from my dad, along with four other cartridges for my Game Boy Advance.  Needless to say, it lay there collecting dust until I finished the other games I had received. What started with an allure towards its charming graphics and simple gameplay, quickly turned into obsession for the game.

Advance Wars is a game with tremendous approachability. The game pits you in as a rookie tactical advisor for the Nation of Orange Star, who is at war against the nation of Blue Moon. You are tasked to select the next move on the battlefield, each of which can have a profound impact on the map you play on. You will initially be playing through the training stage which contains 14 different missions, and then move on to the "Campaign" mode. Here, you will play through the war-ridden continent of Alara, where you will be able to play up to 30 unique missions. The bulk of the charm in the game revolves around the amazingly written characters. The Commanding Officers (CO's) all have their unique characteristics and powers on the battlefield. The first you will play with is Andy, who is average in all departments but his power "Hyper Repair" increases the health for all units by two stamina points. Another CO, Eagle has superior air units and can utilize his power "Lightning Strike" to attack twice in one turn. 

What makes Advance Wars truly amazing is the depth of mechanics in the seemingly simple premise. There are thousands of possibilities you could win a war on a single map, and that is just with one commanding officer. The unique powers and the stat dispersions of the CO units make it fun and addictive to the point that it becomes really difficult to put down once you get the hang of it. Even thought Advance Wars got popular through its Game Boy Advance release in 2001, the series debuted as "Famicom Wars" in Japan in 1988. There are sequels to this game on the GBA and the Nintendo DS, all of which pack more than a few hundred hours of strategic fun.