Obviously having completed the first game, I had to set about doing the same for the second. It is, of course, very much more of the same but with some new COs, more involvement of the Black Hole Army right from the start, and a new unit – NeoTanks. Unlike the first game, you don’t play as Orange Star for the majority of the game. You do a few missions as them, then unlock the next area and play as …
After much publicised delays thanks to An Actual War, Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp finally came out. Only it was not long before Tears of the Kingdom so although I got it, Zelda was The Thing as so it was put to one side until that was completed because who can be doing with swapping game cards? Not me. It was with a little trepidation that I went into it. I’d heard horror stories about how terrible the performance of …
Mission 27 – FINAL BATTLETASTIC!! And… it was easy. Too easy. So easy, in fact, I was convinced there was going to be some surprise at the end. Well, there was, but it didn’t involve any more fighting or anything. There were two fronts. I just let Rachel get on with the second front on her own, and she did a good job of seeing it off. That allowed me to concentrate on taking over towers and stuff on the …
Marathon session on this today, whipping through several missions without breaking a sweat. Missions 23 to 26 were actually pretty easy, and I managed to S-Rank them all on my first go on each. One of them was a strange concentric ring arrangement, with a moat then a mountain range separating each “ring”. This made it hard to run supplies around the place, as there were only factories on the outer ring. There was also a volcano in the middle …
Mission 22 was easy! Daunting at first, but when you realise the enemy can’t build any new units (nor can you though), and you’re separated by a pipe, you can damage them heavily before they break through then finish them off once they make it over your side. Which is what I did. And, despite some stupid mistakes on my part (one of which lost me my battleship), I S-Ranked it! BEST.
Mission 21 was a right pain. I’ve done it now (with a rubbish B), and my final attempt (of four or five) did seem a lot easier. There are so many things to keep an eye on – the timer, until you’ve launched all the missiles, enemy infantry getting to silos before you (especially if they’re a fair way away and Black Hole are about to Tag Team you – getting two goes in one), transport ‘copters taking infantry behind …
Bah. I was doing really well, had shot all the missiles at the satellite, and had destroyed the huge cannon thing. I had even managed to make inroads towards the Black Hole base, and was generally winning. I had a small army of Blue Moon Neotanks and artillery en-route to do some damage, and a Blue Moon Battleship was providing backup and cover. And then, I got sloppy and let one Black Hole soldier through to the Blue Moon base …
Mission 20 was a bit bizarre. Black Hole had five Black Crystals (that heal all units around them by 2 each move), but started with a load of assorted units on just 1 point. Of course, each turn they were repaired, so obviously a balance was stuck between blowing up dangerous-when-healthy units before they were repaired, and destroying the crystals to stop units being repaired. Wiped out most of the dangerous units before they really started fighting back, but was …
With Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan out of the way, it’s time to return to Advance Wars: Dual Strike. Mission 19 was easy. Really easy. At first, it seemed impossible, as there were about 20 Oozium thingies all spread out across the map. However, that’s pretty much all that I had to contend with, and they move only one square at a time, and can’t move and attack in the same turn. So, as long as I didn’t get surrounded, it was …
Mission 18. A long narrow map, with two armies under my control – one on the bottom half of the map, one on the top – separated by a mountain range. On the far right (cloaked in Fog of War nastiness) was the Black Hole HQ. It was MUCH easier than I expected it to be, however. They did introduce another enemy unit (Oozium, which eats any ground unit in one go and is virtually indestructable), but it could only …
I won! It took some 40-odd days, but I won! I kept him locked down with a load of ranged units fronted and protected by some Neotanks, and then, after another Tag Team CO Power, stormed in for the kill and sat units on top of his factories. Suddenly, he only had a couple of light tanks and some infantry, although he could still build aerial units (and so built a bomber). It didn’t do any major damage, and was …
Dipped out of Campaign Mode again, to tackle one of the War Room maps. By Day 15 things were already not looking good. At all. I had hardly any units, the enemy had me pinned down, and some of my cities had started to fall. I can’t create any aerial units as they get shot down immediately, and the missile silos I reached didn’t help a great deal. By Day 25 things were even worse, but then my Tag Team …
Mission 18, and it’s another double front mission. At first, it seemed impossible, but thanks to some Stealth Fighters it was soon made much easier. I also got aircraft carriers on this level, which were useful for firing at helicopters as well as for re-supplying my flying units. S-Rank GET!
Took a short break from the main story mode to have a go at one of the War Room maps – Spann. It was after about 15 moves that I realised I’d played that map before – in the original Advance Wars. Took a good 30-odd days to win though, even though I started off with the advantage. C-rank == RUBBISH.
A few more (lengthy but pretty easy) missions, including one against Green Earth and a Megatank (which took some 6 rockets to destroy) and another with some Black Bombs that were under my control. Stupidly, I destroyed two trying to figure out what to do with them, and then the others ran out of fuel. I did get one to detonate near some baddies anyway.
