Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp: an enjoyable remake tempered by disappointing visuals
Despite some misgivings, this is still an easy game to recommend.
Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp for Switch updates one of the greatest ever turn-based strategy games with 3D visuals and online multiplayer. While the revamped look won't be to everyone's tastes, developer WayForward has nailed its recreation of the original mechanics while adding plenty of quality-of-live improvements. It's addictive, challenging stuff, but is this everything an Advance Wars game could have been on Switch - and how does the remake compare to the Game Boy Advance original in terms of visuals and performance? We've been testing the game to find out.
If you had a Game Boy Advance in the early 2000s, chances are you played Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2, two nearly perfect titles that made excellent use of the hardware available. Every button served a function, every pixel on the screen was used for gorgeous 2D sprite work and local multiplayer was even possible via link-up cable. It's a pure, almost timeless top-down strategy game where every unit has a counter, from infantry and vehicles to aircraft and ships, and terrain types, weather and visibility are all crucial to victory. And while Advance Wars marks the zenith of the series, it began with Famicom Wars in 1988, explaining the strength and polish of the GBA titles that were the first to be released in the West.
22 years after that first GBA release, we have a complete remake for Switch in Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp. The new game includes the campaigns from both games, a complete map editor, a host of multiplayer modes and in-game shop to buy maps, music and more. Perhaps most eye-catching though is a beautiful opening animation, which replaces the sprite-based opener of the originals with flowing 24fps animation, like the game's cover art come to life. Likewise, cel-shaded avatars appear during the partially voiced dialogue and fully animated special moves play out in battle. These additions are a real highlight, an evolution of the series' original artwork - but this perhaps also sets an expectation for the visuals in gameplay that doesn't match what we actually get.
Before we get to the criticisms, let's talk on the tech fundamentals here. This is a Unity Engine title, and unfortunately that translates into imperfect performance on Switch like other recent Unity releases on the platform. You get an incorrectly frame-paced 30fps on the standard bird's eye view and a wavering 30-50fps during battle sequences. At least you do get sharp visuals in exchange, with up to 1080p native while docked and a native 720p for portable play.
So it's not a great showing technically, but thankfully the charm of the game - and its turn-based nature - means that at least it doesn't affect playability, with a slight judder evident but nothing more egregious.
Putting frame-rates and resolutions aside there's perhaps a bigger gripe here: namely that the original 2D sprites give way to modern 3D visuals. The GBA original ran at 240x160, but developer Intelligent Systems took an economical view of what was possible and the pixel art still looks decent on modern 4K TVs. The new 3D visuals in contrast are best described as functional. They lack the charm of the 2D original's, and also don't match the style of its own animated opening cut-scene and cel-shaded avatars. The units and map are rendered with conventional 3D lighting and shading techniques. There's a basic specular mapping pass for the metals on tanks, rather than cel-shaded materials in line with the character art. Also, circles stand in for shadows underneath each unit, while infantry models lack any ambient shading to speak of, creating a flat appearance. It's not a catastrophe, but it's certainly underwhelming.
Fundamentally that's the only real issue I have here. In the reboot's defence, the new visuals are at least clear, colourful, and easily legible at a distance. It's a logical designchoice that works in service of the gameplay. The move to a fully 3D-modelled map also gives players more options, with four levels of zoom compared to the static view of the GBA originals. On Switch, the visual scale, from up-close views with bokeh depth of field at the cursor's periphery to a distant view that reveals the wooden edges of a table-top. Both are nice visual touches and contribute to making the game genuinely easier to navigate.
Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give the remake is that the gameplay is still golden. Through the move to Unity, through the visual upheaval, nothing is lost where it really matters. The on-boarding with its tutorials is still well handled. Step by step, you're invited to a world of warring nations, where every snippet of knowledge pays off later on. Every new mechanic, be it the ability to see beyond the fog of war by standing on mountain tiles, or knowing how weather states like rain and blizzards change your mobility, has an impact. The ruleset is firm but always fair. It's a genuine challenge and finding a route to victory at times feels like solving a puzzle, especially if you're trying to attain the highest ranks in each level. Best of all? The map editor mode stays in place from the original GBA release, making this, in theory, infinitely replayable with three other friends in local play or online.
Against all odds, then, the Advance Wars 1+2 reboot is still an easy game to recommend, despite its uneven performance and misgivings about its visual style. The gameplay loop of the original remains intact and quality of life changes like the ability to zoom, or fast-forward through spells of action with a right trigger press are handy. The UI is clearer, too, handily revealing which targets are in attacking range ahead of the movement phase.
From most angles then, WayForward has put together a supremely playable take on the Advance Wars blueprint for Nintendo Switch. My only last thought here is a shame there's actually no new Switch-only entry to the series announced yet. A Switch Wars, if you will. Either way, while Advance War's revival on Switch does lack the visual charm of the Game Boy Advance original, to its credit, the game really does play just as well - if not better than ever before. And perhaps that's what is most important in the end.