Okay, since Advance Wars is delayed, again, I still have time to write this article, and then postpone it, because I wouldn't want to offend anybody in these troubling times.

Advance Wars isn't going to be very good. Set those expectations down, I don't want anyone getting hurt. It will be good, it’ll be fine, but it’s not going to be anything more than a standard remaster, unless, on the far off chance that the online really gets popping off.

I know Intelligent Systems ain't got no time for anything anymore except Fire Emblem and offending Nintendo fans with new Paper Mario games, but they used to be about so much more. I just want to talk about Advance Wars though.

Unfortunately you can't have tanks marrying airplanes, (or at least it would be a very complex series of issues to implement and somehow explain) so Fire Emblem took off while Advance Wars quickly fell into obscurity, with only die hard fans like me mentioning it every so often when discussing Nintendo's long list of IPs they need to put back into rotation.

So the game is handed off to WayForward, but their only responsibility is to update all the things, not add any things at all. This game is not new, it's a reboot. Can't just make some new maps? I can make some new maps! The game has a map editor! Probably for the best though that we don't try to get too fancy. This game is not developed by Intelligent Systems, the original studio behind the GBA (and DS) Advance Wars titles. Instead, this remake of the first two games is being developed by WayForward. So I think this is going to be a straightforward remake.

Fuck F-Zero, I would have said a year or so ago and on back. I want Nintendo to bring Advance Wars and Mario Strikers back from the dead. Now that we've got Advance Wars 1+2: ReBoot Camp (I am only writing the absurdly full title of this game once per article) and Super Mario Blast Ball (or something, better double check before I finalize this post).

So now I say, Where the Fuck is F-Zero?

But now I find myself saying, where the fuck is Advance Wars again. I didn't mean to cuss this much in this article, Nintendo, get your fans (like me) under control. Irresponsible.

With the last delay, I had a feeling it was due to the online implementation. I have a lot to say about the announced online play, but I have to gather my thoughts on that a little more. The main gripe I saw from the initial announcement was the art style. I have something to say on that too eventually. The delay brought some more things, though I'm not sure if they were added during the delay time. We get a fast forward button, which is fine, but like mentioning the animation skip button, it is a great option, but it doesn't scream, what a fun game to spend time in.

I am excited for the voice acting though. I've gotten way too used to full voice acting in games these days, and I am glad that was used for this game. If this was developed in house at Nintendo, I can't imagine voice acting would be anywhere on the priority list of this game. I will probably skip a lot of the talking anyway, because I always read quicker than the spoken word, and I'm quite familiar with the story lines of these games.

The thing that is annoying about this second delay, is I know Nintendo has the finished game, and just set it on a shelf to collect dust for the next year. I sincerely doubt that Nintendo would shell out any more money to any more bells and whistles on this title. This thought was completely confirmed too, when that one Advance Wars fan from the UK got the game to her Switch for a few days. If I were her I'd be telling my grandchildren that story many years from now...

Anyway, that little story confirmed that the game is ready to go, up on the server, and they just got to push the Advance Wars button for this all to be over.

I don't think Nintendo plans to mention this game at all in their usual June Nintendo Direct.

I expect a silent drop on September 9th, to underscore the release of Splatoon. So Splatoon gets the news, and Advance Wars ducks into the eShop to try to snag some downloads from curious shoppers downloading the new Splatoon.

Why would Nintendo release two games at the same time, when one is going to vastly overshadow the other. How about you ask Nintendo? The company that released Advance Wars Dual Strike on the same day as three separate versions of the multi-million selling Nintendogs. I wonder why AWDS undersold expectations hmmm…

I have more to say, a lot more to say. This is Advance Wars after all, and with no release date in site I can go on and on about my issues with a game that isn't even released yet, like a total asshole. But the game was released already, because this is a remake, and I played Advance Wars through and through, (not so much Advance Wars 2, but I did play a good lot of that too) so yeah, I'm going to keep going, in a future blog post.