ADVANCE WARS DARK CONFLICT NINTENDO SERIES

You can now see in areas around where units have gone through.This unit can be created in factories, and features a flare rocket, which can be used to illuminate an area of 2 squares around the place where it lands, including hiding places. A new ground unit, the flare, was introduced.This object lights up an area of 5 squares around it during Fog of War, visible for all players. The fire pillar was introduced in this game.Cities and factories are hiding places in this game.In Dark Conflict, the AI now respects unit visibility range, meaning it can now be ambushed. You could only hide your units from it by placing them in forests. In previous games, the AI could see just like normal on Fog of War. The AI no longer has unlimited vision.When filled up to max, the CO Power can be used, activating it and extending the zone to the entire map on the turn it is used. When units win engagements while inside this zone, the CO's meter fills up. This unit is automatically given max level, and has an area around it where nearby units can get CO-dependent passive bonuses. The new CO Power system revolves around CO units, units where the CO is onboard. The new system does away with Super CO Powers, and instead has a single CO Power and introduces CO zones and CO units. Notably, it features a reworked from-the-ground-up CO Power system. Changes in some units, as well as new units.The story is a notable departure from the previous games, in that it attempted to have a story in the first place, whereas the previous games took themselves less seriously in this aspect, deciding instead to parody war in their campaigns.Ĭompared to the GBA games and Dual Strike, Advance Wars: Dark Conflict changed around a lot of the mechanics. The story follows the legion's adventure through the wasteland. He soon makes contact with bandits, but is rescued by the Independent Legion, former soldiers of the Laurentian Army, commanded by O'Brian, who is determined to not lose hope in humanity in the face of this situation, and assist survivors of the meteors in any way he can. However, this war is interrupted when the Earth is blanketed in meteors, killing off the majority of living species.Įd, a Laurentian Army cadet, wakes up to a desolated city, with no signs of life anywhere. The game takes place on an alternative Earth, where two superpowers, Zephyria and Laurentia, have been at war for a long time. The tosser.Advance Wars: Dark Conflict is a turn-based strategy videogame for the Nintendo DS released in 2008. It just works so much better than before - it means different COs do have different uses in the field but it doesn't mean you'll feel cheated when that last boss bloke off the last one does his superpower when you're about to win. Subtle positive effects on the battlefield are go, and giganto waves that destroy half of your units in one fell swoop are no-go. Tweaks like how CO powers are no longer fucking ridiculous. Tweaks to near-perfection are welcome when they work like these do.

ADVANCE WARS DARK CONFLICT NINTENDO SERIES

Seeing as it isn't.īut this is still no bad thing, as it's still Advance Wars: one of the finest series in handheld history. None of it feels like a hamfisted attempt to breathe new life into proceedings, but none of it feels especially new. A few new units thrown into the mix, a few old ones surgically removed - flare units to light up distant fog of war, anti-tank cannons to kablooey tanks, Neo Tanks and Mega Tanks amalgamated into the War Tank etc. There are other notable changes to the formula - just about enough for this to be released as a bona fide sequel - but mainly they do feel like balancing fixes. Bishop takes pawn five, BISHOP GETS NUKED. This is chess with tanks, people, just as it always has been. Things are a bit less bright - the dialogue is still stomach-churningly bad, the storyline is best left ignored and the characters are handily regimented into 'I AM GOOD' and 'I AM NOT GOOD' categories, just in case you didn't understand they're a bit of a bastard from how they want to destroy the world/steal things/hurt puppies/launch ballistic missile strikes on unarmoured ground troops.īut it's still Advance Wars, so none of that crap actually matters. Such a huge difference this makes too, what with it changing. So the big thing with the new Advance Wars: Dark Conflict is that it's taken on a darker tone, presenting things in a more serious light than before and eschewing the Tellytubbies-style presentation of the past conflicts. AW masquerades behind this sheen of cutesy and happy-go-lucky warfare, but it's so upsetting to think of these poor pawns: conscripted into a service they probably don't fully understand, fighting people for reasons they don't know and dying on foreign soils, never to see their loved ones again.īut it's still so bloody good on the train.

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