man remember advance wars no one's talking about advance war oh okay never mind everyone's talking about advanced horse but it's for a good reason advance wars is an incredible tactics game super easy to play hard to master and filled floor to ceiling with all the charm and character you can fit in a game about endless war they're probably fine so much of that charm comes from the game's excellent character design and sprite work on both the commanding cos and the units every co has a cartoonish personality and memorable design that adds a ton of character and ties into their play styles sami's urban rambo vibe hints at her strong infantry and capture power max's ridiculous spongebob anchor arms signal he's a brute force close range type olaf's clearly not gonna let some snow stand in his way especially not his japanese iteration grit is tall lanky and laid back just like his preferred unit range yeah that works the character designs work as a shorthand reminder for their personal gameplay strengths after years of not touching the series i jumped back in a few months ago and it was easy to get up the speed advance wars brings the charm of the battlefield through its sprite work and animations the sprites for each unit are clear at a glance and between unit types have enough differences to stay interesting every sprite uses excellent iconography with distinct silhouettes and shapes even when units are pretty similar the mech silhouette is broken up with a big bazooka crossbar to separate from the standard infantry and designates its purpose as a slower anti-tank unit the little tank is two-thirds the size of the medium tank and can zip around the map quicker from the long thin double-barreled anti-air in the tiny recon car to every plane and the alien-looking neotanks every unit in the game has some distinct feature that distinguishes it visually add in just a hint of bouncy animation on the map screen and your forces are brought to life without a law of extra work the battle animations do some heavy lifting too a massive chunk of the game is unit on unit violence so putting fun animations in there helps break up any monotony that could have crept in over a half hour long battle the fights are all based on hp and percentages and the animations liven up something that could have been very dry math aside from the infantry each faction has a few unique unit designs that appear only in these battle animations either different uniforms or even different types of planes and tanks often based on real world military equipment but it's not all that much different here that could be improved upon but who would make their own version of advance wars no one the segment's over wait that's not right NUMBER_TOKEN's war groove is the sort of fan driven fed up with waiting spiritual successor you love to see right next to stardew valley and freedom planet it's just advanced wars but with a unique setting and NUMBER_TOKEN years worth of stylistic and gameplay improvements and meticulous attention to detail in the game's art and animation the whole game is set in a medievalish fantasy setting but each faction is of a slightly different flavor the classic european medieval cherry stone the undead armies of falheim the nature aligned florin and the japanese and clockworks heavensong the focus
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