Analysis of ‘Advance Wars: Dark Conflict’.
I want to make it very clear from the beginning that this ‘Advance Wars: Dark Conflict‘ is the second that I try in the entire saga, being the first that I tried (and that I still have) the first ‘AW’ that came out on the Gameboy Advance, and despite all this, it has barely changed in all this time. Its structure is maintained, but it has undergone a facelift in terms of the aesthetics of the characters, more adult, and its setting, in this case, as the title says, darker.
Obviously, I have to qualify this statement, since, for example, where there has been a remarkable change is in the part of the Commanders (quite a success), as with the inclusion of the long-awaited online mode, which reports a life Almost infinite usefulness. But I will talk about all this and more at length below. What I imagine you’ll want to know ahead of time is whether this new Intelligent Systems creation is as good as it’s cracked up to be.
Let’s see how I say it… YES. However, your bosses and/or teachers will not agree with this resounding statement, since your performance at work/school will drop considerably.
“The world is in ruins. A meteor shower has devastated the planet. The population struggles for subsistence. The end is near. A fine dust saturates the atmosphere and deprives the Earth of the Sun’s rays. Is there a way to save itself?” “No one knows for sure. In the midst of the chaos, there is still some life and hope.”
Thus begins the Foreword of this ‘Dark Conflict’, in which he presents us with a truly bleak picture. In the midst of all this, our protagonist (Ed) appears, who will be rescued by commanders O’Brien (who, in the end, will be his mentor) and Lin, and later they will rescue another survivor with amnesia, baptized with the name of Catleia.
Along our journey we will be joined by more people, including some from the opposite side, we will discover some traitor, we will see some other most obnoxious NPC, and we will see several unexpected turns.
As a curious detail, to say that the American version of the game is called ‘Days of Ruin’, which brought me quite a few headaches months before its release, thinking that they were two different games. But that’s not all, as the names of the characters also change! Did someone say ‘Street Fighter 2’? Crazy…
To level playable it has not changed one iota, except for what the Commanders commented on. We will have land, air and naval units, each one with its pros and cons, just as we will have to pay attention to the variations of the terrain that will affect our movement, visibility and defense, which we will have to know by heart to successfully propose a winning strategy . There are some additions compared to the previous ‘Dual Strike’, such as the motorcycle (ideal for capturing bases due to its great movement capacity) and the Maintenance Tank (in the part of being able to create hangars and ports for air and naval units, respectively), while there are some casualties, such as the ghost fighter (to give you an idea, like an aerial submarine) and the ship that performed the same function as the Maintenance Tank.
The great change produced in this ‘AW:DC’, as I have said, comes from the hand of the Commanders. Now they will be actively part of the battle, that is, being one more unit of our army. This inevitably causes a new approach, since we can choose to keep our Commander with some units in our base, adapting the turtle tactic, or lead the attack, knowing that it will be the unit on which the enemy will focus all their attacks. .
The Commander can be called from any unit, be it land, air or naval, as long as it is done from the headquarters, or from the factories of each type. Once in the fight, we will see that he has a radius of action (some dark and transparent squares around him) that will vary depending on the OJ chosen. In turn, as we eliminate enemy units within that radius of action, the Commander’s power bar will fill up. When it reaches the middle, our radius will increase, and when we reach the second, in addition to growing again, we can use the power of the Commander, which, in general, will increase our offensive and defensive capacity, while others will vary the weather , they will increase their range by indirect fire, etc. Although not all of them have a power bar, but they make up for it with some shitty stats… And what happens if they kill the Commander? Well, nothing, since we can call it again from the corresponding unit factory.
The musical part has pleasantly surprised me. The truth is, I don’t understand some of the media that have called it repetitive and lacking in quality. It’s that they still asked for a “A Change of Seasons” for each character, mission and others… I’m not going to say that all the melodies are at the same level, but in general terms, it goes with a note (pun intended). In addition, each Commander will have a musical style that differs from the rest.
I would especially highlight the one about the commander’s power, very much like Satriani in ‘The Extremist’, both because of the lower pitch (half a tone less), and because of the way he plays with an open note. It’s listening to her and it gives you a high, which doesn’t surprise me that the commander and his troops do so much damage in that state, hehe. Another one I’d like to highlight is Lili’s, since it’s a mix of ‘Streets of Rage’, because of that industrial touch at the end of the song, with ‘Castlevania’, because of that symphonic part.
The other novelty with respect to previous deliveries that I left on the table at the beginning of the analysis, online mode, is undoubtedly one of the biggest incentives in order to win this title. If it is already an extensive title, with 26 missions in story mode, plus 38 challenges, and then normal maps for one, two, three and four players, all without forgetting that there are map editor (it is not a novelty in the saga, but it is always appreciated that they continue to include it), with the addition of the online mode it becomes an immortal game.
And if all this seems little to you, to be naughty you will have the challenge of getting all the medals and medals in the game, which, by way of statistics, range from the hours of play that we have played (at 50 they will give us a medal, in addition to three medals), the number of units that we have built/destroyed, the unions made, getting the ‘S’ rank in all the missions (although ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ will mark you too), the times that we have used the power of the Commander, the eliminated meteorites and a long etcetera.
Official Site | Advance Wars: Dark Conflict
