Advance Wars is a franchise that has been around since the turn of the millennium, but its history stretches even further back than that. The first game in the “Wars” series, Famicom Wars, launched all the way back in 1988 exclusively in Japan. It planted the seeds for developer Intelligent Systems shifting towards tactics games, something that would bear fruit in 1990 with the birth of another beloved tactics franchise: Fire Emblem.
Several Japan exclusive sequels would be released in the region for the Game Boy and Super Famicom (the latter of which features iconic Nintendo characters such as Billy Gates and Hetler; not a joke). When it came time to move to the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo wanted to make a splash with this franchise in the West. They told Intelligent Systems that tactics games weren’t popular outside of Japan due to their complicated nature, so they responded by creating a comprehensive tutorial that ran you through each of the game’s basic mechanics firsthand.
Advance Wars launched in North America first on September 10th, 2001 and saw widespread success. The Japanese version was already planned for release on October 12th, but was ultimately cancelled outright. This was primarily attributed to the events of the following day, and given the game’s colorful “war is fun” attitude and the fact that you have to “crush down” towers in the game in order to capture them, it would’ve hit way too close to home with sensitivities around the world still high.
The game’s direct sequel, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, released in North America in June 2003, with Europe and Australia getting it a few months later. And like the first game, the Japanese release of Advance Wars 2 was also cancelled in the region, likely due to how similar it was to the first game and wanting to avoid negative associations at the time. It wouldn’t be until November of 2004, almost a year and a half after the original release, that Japan would finally receive the first two games via a 2-in-1 compilation cartridge. The third installment, Advance Wars Dual Strike for the DS, was the only one in the series to actually release on time in all regions. In fact, it launched in Japan first before seeing a North American launch, which is the only time in the series this will happen.
The fourth and final entry in the series, Advance Wars Days of Ruin, is… a weird one. It featured a massive tone and artstyle shift for the series, something many Japanese franchises in the mid-to-late 2000s (including Zelda) were trying to do. The reasoning for this shift was twofold: 1) fans were complaining that the series was getting stale, and 2) Western sales of the Advance Wars games eclipsed those of Japanese sales. The game again launched in North America first in January 2008, with Europe and Australia in the coming weeks. But the Japanese version saw multiple unexplained delays before being cancelled altogether, just like the first two games. Japan wouldn’t see a release of Days of Ruin until almost 6 years later in October of 2013, where it was distributed as a 3DS downloadable title to Club Nintendo members. And seeing as the 3DS eShop is no longer around, Japan has no official way to play the latest and arguably greatest entry in the franchise.
But just when you thought this story was over, we have one last surprise. With Intelligent Systems seeing incredible success with the Fire Emblem series, it left little room for a potential Advance Wars sequel. In fact, the devs went on record stating that if they were to continue the series, they would have to find a way to incorporate Fire Emblem’s social elements in some way. But that wouldn’t be the case. At E3 2021, Nintendo proudly announced that classic Advance Wars was coming back on Nintendo Switch, courtesy of a partnership with American indie studio WayForward. Originally slated for a December 2021 release, it was initially pushed back to April 2022 for added polish. Okay makes sense, and being sandwiched between two major Pokemon titles (BDSP and Legends Arceus) wasn’t helping either. But no Japanese release date anywhere, mysteriously enough.
But then just one month before launch, in March of 2022, Nintendo announced that Advance Wars would be indefinitely postponed due to the newly ignited war between Russia and Ukraine. And with how much more developed broadcasting tools are now compared to 2001, every media outlet from across the political spectrum was paying attention to it. There was simply no escaping it in the news. And given that Advance Wars opens with an enemy faction [clearly parodying Russia](https://youtu.be/wBZLUhiA1JE) invading a smaller sovereign nation, it’s clear that Nintendo didn’t want any bad press to hurt potential sales. And so the game would end up being delayed for an entire extra year, finally releasing everywhere but Japan in April of 2023.
So that’s the cursed release history of Advance Wars in a nutshell. Whether or not Nintendo will continue the series will depend on 1) if the remakes sell well, and 2) if any real world events conspire to stop it again. And with no Japanese release in sight for the remakes, it doesn’t seem like the Wars series will ever find the same success in its home country like it did in the 80s and 90s. And that’s assuming that Nintendo and Intelligent Systems bother to give any more attention away from their infinitely more successful ventures with the Fire Emblem franchise at this rate. But at least it’s here, and fans new and old can finally revisit an absolute gem of a series one more time.
by Asad_Farooqui
24 Comments
Advanced Wars: Dual Strike was the first DS game I ever played. I remember always seeing it at the library, so I decided to get it one day after I bought a DS with my Bday money. Pretty sure I had it checked out for about ~2 months. At my library you could only have video games for a week, so every Saturday morning I would go down there and ask if anyone placed a hold on it, inevitably noone did, and then I’d recheck it out. Popular games like Mario Kart or hoops 3-on-3 always had crazy wait times (I vaguely remember MK having like 50 holds lol), so I never bothered with those and just kept AW: DS. Great game. I should probably get the new one for switch.
I fucking love Days of Ruin, I played it all the time on my M3 back in my poor college kid days when I couldn’t afford video games. I’ve wanted a cart for years now, and I’ve been listening to the soundtrack a lot again lately. I’m on eBay right now because I can’t ever find a copy in the retro gaming stores around me and I want one. I don’t think a Switch port is happening at least not anytime soon.
DS was such an incredible handheld. Dual Strike, Castlevania, Mario Kart, Chinatown Wars, Elite Beat Agents. I must have spent hours making custom maps in Dual Strike and trying to unlock the alternate outfits.
I don’t have much hope, but it would be cool if they brought the DS versions to the Switch or it’s successor. The re-release on Switch has been pretty good, and I enjoy Advance Wars quite a bit.
>In fact, the devs went on record stating that if they were to continue the series, they would have to find a way to incorporate Fire Emblem’s social elements in some way.
[This has burned itself into my brain.](https://www.eurogamer.net/whats-keeping-nintendo-from-making-a-new-advance-wars)
>Nintendo’s Hitoshi Yamagami – who worked as producer on three Advance Wars titles, including the last entry, 2008’s Days of Ruin – said he’d be keen to return to the series. The problem, though, is how it could assimilate one of Fire Emblem’s most popular features – the relationship-building that takes place on the battlefield.
>”**Personally, I’d love to do Advance Wars, but since it’s harder to create relationships between its characters compared to Fire Emblem, I don’t have a clear idea of what kind of setting it could have**,” Yamagami told Eurogamer.
I get the potential bad press, but I always equated this game to playing with army men toys.
Nintendo be like: “Guys, guys, guys, can you guys stop going to war for five minutes? We are trying to release games here!”
Lol well thank fuck Nintendo moved away from IS when they tried to shoehorn the awful new FE social mechanics into Advance Wars. That shit ruined FE for me, I’m glad Advance Wars staved it off.
The only thing that I was surprised by is that there were DS titles in the Advance Wars series, which I had never heard of!
Days of Ruin doesn’t feel like an Advance Wars game. Since Advance Wars is part of the “Wars” series and not its own thing, why couldn’t they call it “DS Wars: Days of Ruin?” Nothing was carried over from the older games, so why is it still associated with Advance Wars?
Nice write-up! I had forgotten the “first” entry was released on Sept 10th in NA. Series definitely seems cursed. I’m actually on my first playthrough of Langrisser II (Genesis repro cart) and love this type of strategy game—back when everyone was vying for a piece of the turn-based pie.
Dual Strike was my intro to advance wars and it did not disappoint. I enjoy FE games, but not nearly as much as I love AW. I Hope this series will get future installments. I’m really digging Re-Bootcamp
I wish Nintendo would translate and bring the older entries to NSO, could help to generate interest in the series and could push sales for the remake
Its will never not be funny how this series went being released only in Japan, to releasing everywhere except in Japan.
I can totally relate! My library never had the games I wanted, so I just read books about them instead.
I can totally relate! My library never had the games I wanted, so I just read books about them instead.
What about the two Battalion Wars games on Gamecube and Wii?
Opd
I bet my life savings that the next Advance Wars game will be released 1 day before World War III is declared.
I guess you could say Advance Wars had a hold on you…literally. Glad it was worth the library fines!
What the shit is going on with the library cards? Am I missing something?
Huh, I never realized the Advance Wars games sold a lot better in the US than in Japan (or that a couple of them *never released in Japan* in their original forms, only as part of a later re-release.) Weird.
None of the libraries around me seemingly let you rent video games, but that’s … interesting.
That being said, I’m also glad that the first two games got remastered for the Switch. I’m hoping that sales are good enough. Also the dormancy of the series did allow various Indie companies to make their own take on Advance Wars, one well known one being Wargroove (which I find to be a pretty good take, albeit with some flaws).
The Switch remake feels cheap. Something is off.