I’ve got a bunch of gifs in this one. That’s because this installment is about the character animations.

Advance Wars 1 2 Reboot Camp nintendo switch video game andy talk dialogue animation gif

Advance Wars 1 2 Reboot Camp nintendo switch video game nell talk dialogue animation gif

Do these animations bother you? They bother me. Will I turn off battle animations? Normally I keep battle animations on until I beat the story line. Might happen a lot sooner this time. I talked about this in the last installment of ‘a guy complains about a game, featuring Advance Wars.’ The graphics are pretty lifeless. Bringing them to life through animation doesn’t make it much better.

It took me a while to understand what it is I don't like in these graphics. These CO animations look great.

Advance Wars 1 2 Reboot Camp nintendo switch video game Sami double time co power animation gif

The original games merely had a static image and some speed lines for a bit of pizazz.

Advance Wars Game Boy Advance GBA video game Sami double time co power animation gif

The issue is the rubbery movement of standing characters and their faces. Their is a a weird, unnatural bounciness that make the animation have a very flash animation look to the proceedings.

Something about the animation looks way too smooth and uninteresting. It feels like they took the key animation images from the original and used an AI algorithm to upscale and animate them. There is no technique or fluidity to their movements. When you see the full character animation during CO Powers. The redrawn sprites definitely don't look hand drawn. The characters look so smooth and inoffensive, like they should be the excited faces on a corporate power point presentation when we discuss 1.2% growth over the next two sales quarters.

Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp gameplay gif battle animations

When there are fully realized animated games like Cuphead, it's kind of sad to see these simple animations look so hands off and lifeless.

Combine that with the generic, asset store looking maps and the whole thing has a total mobile game vibe to it. Man, you know what, Just put the game out on mobile too. I bet it will play better on mobile with touch controls (like the classic DS versions). I bet you would havedone that already if there was a way to microtransaction it into oblivion like any quality mobile game. Imagine paying a dollar every time you want to get a neotank out of your factory and not being outraged by it. That's the world Nintendo wants. That's the world video game companies fight to see one day.

The original buildings used to have a funky cartoonish angle that gave them a tiny bit of style to a standard building like the ones in the new game. I think they focused on the wrong things when recreating the art in the art from the original game. It’s a little of a let down that the maps couldn’t be more naturally vibrant. The switch isn’t that powerful, but I think it’s a little more high tech than a GBA I hope. Why isn’t there more than one style of mountains or forest. How come the forest tiles don’t combine and morph into a more connected set of tiles. Having to see the same set of five trees, and the same single top mountain in this day and age is a hefty let down.

When looking at this game on the big screen, the lack of variety in the maps and troops is more glaring. Having a few different looks to the tiles, buildings, or anything else on the map would have been a good opportunity to set this game apart, and give the maps a more organic feel to them. Oh well.

I do like the sandbox container that the maps sit in though., and the tanks, aircraft and other vehicles of war match it with a matchbox toy look. It’s a good thing so much of the game you’ll be looking at a bunch of vehicles all over the map. It’s unfortunate that besides the all new character animations during CO powers, this is the only praise I have for the art and animation in this game.

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Now that I think of it. I'm blaming Nintendo on this one. How much did they pay WayForward to bring this game to life. I'm harping on the bad graphics but then I remember playing through River City Girls, which is full of rich, fun, pixel animations. If Arc System Works can shell out a little dough and/or time to WayForward, then why not Nintendo?

I am forced to wonder if a higher up over at WayForward was looking at another remake (or demake) to pay the bills, and happened to be a fan of Advance Wars. Meaning that WayForward came to Nintendo with this idea.

That doesn't make sense either though. From what I've seen so far, this doesn't really feel like a passion project from WayForward's side either. They haven't hyped it up, or done interviews about this release, even as they discuss multiple other upcoming projects since this games announcement.

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Is Nintendo telling WayForward to stay silent on the game until a new release day gets announced? It’s not a great look. This game has basically disappeared, and if it doesn’t drop on September 9th like I’m predicting, then I don’t think the game is coming out at all. I’m making two predictions in that sentence.

Advance Wars 1 2 Reboot Camp nintendo switch video game sturm co power animation gif

I really hope there is an option to go back to OG pixel mode, but I doubt it. Enlarging and smoothing out those pixels is too much work.

If the game still isn’t out, I’m going to dig into the real meat of this rerelease, the online multiplayer, of which I have doubts. It’s also the most technical and gameplay focused thing to complain about, which is why I didn’t get into it yet.