Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is a bold new step for the Advance Wars franchise, shedding the bright colors and cartoon-like plot that defined all previous titles in the series. Instead of colorfully named armies fighting caricatures of villains, Days of Ruin is set in a world decimated by a meteor impact that nearly ruined human civilization. The plot is much more serious and explores both the good and bad sides of human nature; a realistic tone that both reinvents and injects new life into the series.
The game is set in both a completely separate universe and timeline than all previous Advance Wars titles, opting to instead use a completely fresh roster of locations and characters. The plot starts off with a young man named Will digging out from the wreckage that was once his military academy, who no sooner finds himself under attack by a merciless band of raiders. As Will retreats he is rescued by Commander Brenner, the leader of a tattered bunch of military personnel dedicated to scouring the wastes and rescuing survivors. Will joins Brenner’s group to help out where he can, but soon finds out the hard way that without the laws of civilization to guide them humanity is capable of both great and horrible things.
While Days of Ruin brings a few changes to the formula the underlying gameplay itself sticks to the same successful platform used in all previous games in the series. Existing fans won’t be shocked to find that the game is still centered on turn-based strategy, with each side in a conflict trying to outmaneuver one another to capture bases and cities, allowing them to generate more funds per turn and build up their forces. These captured buildings are a never-ending source of income, making winning the map center entirely on outwitting and overpowering your opponent rather than devolving into a slugfest until one side runs out of resources.
Most of the rosters of units the player can command are carryovers from previous games in the series. Factories create units such as various classes of infantry, tanks, and support units such as anti-air, missile, and rocket launchers. Shipyards create sea units such as submarines, landing craft, and battleships while airports construct various planes and helicopters. A slew of new units has been scattered through the roster though, such as motorcycles, aircraft carriers, gunboats, prop planes, seaplanes, and war tanks.
On any map the player controls a Commanding Officer or CO, using preset COs throughout the campaign mode and using any unlocked COs in multiplayer. COs each have different perks in the form of their area of influence and their special power. New to the series is the ability to take your CO and put them in any unit which greatly increases their capabilities in combat. Units that fight close enough to the CO benefit from their influence and gain greater defense, movement range, or other abilities. When enemy units are destroyed by a unit that is in the CO’s influence the CO’s power meter raises a notch, and when filled can be unleashed in the form of a massive perk that affects all of the CO’s units on the map for a full turn.
The campaign mode is stellar by itself, and keeps step with tradition by starting things off with a series of subtle tutorials before ramping up the difficulty. The story is much more involving than the plot found in previous titles, and though the characters are still heavily stylized they are much better grounded in realism this time around. The 26 levels of the campaign will last veteran players more than a few evenings of solid play, and progressing through the campaign unlocks additional COs to use in multiplayer.
Unlike previous titles in the series this one has all multiplayer maps unlocked and ready to play right off the bat. However, map makers will be relieved to learn that the map editor is as easy to use and robust as ever. Players can either battle one another through local wireless to other nearby DS’s but can also elect to fight each other online using Nintendo WFC. Online players can either fight one another through the use of friend codes, or can simply elect to fight a random player one-on-one.
A big issue with the multiplayer however is the cheating found from players who use devices such as Action Replay. Codes used by such devices aren’t detected, and can change the game such as to allow tanks to drive across the ocean or infantry to traverse the entire map and capture a headquarters to end the game in three turns. Not every single match is plagued by cheaters, but it is enough that the use of friend codes for multiplayer is really the only way to go with any reliability.
Days of Ruin is the first Advance Wars game to put both screens on the DS to good use. The bottom screen shows the game map and units while the top screen is used as a context-sensitive display that shows terrain characteristics or unit information. This allows players to simply select a unit and at a glance see what their health, ammo, and fuel levels are as well as information as to their strengths and weaknesses. Either the stylus or the controls themselves can be used, and though longtime fans will likely stick to the buttons the stylus control is accurate and intuitive.
Gone are the bright colors and upbeat theme of previous titles, instead replaced with a glimpse of what the world would look like after facing near absolute devastation. The unit designs are detailed and unmistakable from one another, and when displayed in combat they retain the same unmistakable almost hand drawn art style that has been par the course for the series. The game has numerous music tracks, all of which are used quite well to establish their own theme or mood and are some of the best the platform has offered so far. Sound effects in the game almost take a back seat to everything else, and while the sounds of combat stand out quite well other sounds are subdued enough to not become drilled into the players brain after a single map.
