One of the best turn-based strategy games on GBA. Long campaign, solid AI, brilliant CO system. An absolute must-play for the console.
Your verdict
Category
Turn-Based Strategy1 player7+
Description
Turn-based strategy game developed by Intelligent Systems on GBA. Published by Nintendo, released in Europe in January 2002. Players command armies with different Commanding Officers having unique abilities across varied tactical maps. Features a 20-mission campaign, War Room mode, link cable multiplayer and a map editor. Regarded as a benchmark of the genre.
Advance Wars review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
3/5
Story
★★★★★
"Solid"
Intelligent Systems dresses war as toys: stubby tanks, rounded aircraft, units set on brightly coloured tiles where each army owns a shade identifiable at a glance. The commander portraits, drawn in an expressive animation style, cheerfully contradict the subject and give the conflict the air of a methodical playground.
Each commander brings a theme of their own, looping through their entire turn, which turns the soundtrack into a permanent indicator of who is playing: a spirited march for one, a heavy martial motif for another, an almost childlike jingle elsewhere. The bright synthetic timbres stay clear on headphones and on the console speaker alike.
Gameplay
"Masterful"
Moving units across a grid has never felt this lucid: every map is a little puzzle where terrain, reinforcements and the choice of commanding officers all carry equal weight. The flawless readability and tactical depth pair perfectly with stop-and-go sessions. A genre benchmark that still replays without a single wrinkle today.
Fun
"Pleasant"
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Capturing a factory, deploying the right unit and then encircling the enemy army tile by tile sets up a crystal-clear tactical thinking whose turns you chain without pause. Every map poses a fresh military puzzle and unlocks CO powers and side challenges. The difficulty sometimes spikes sharply, but this balance of readability and depth remains a genre benchmark that stays endlessly captivating.
Difficulty
"Difficult"
Lifespan
"Massive"
Clearing the twenty campaign missions is only the beginning, since the real lifespan blossoms in War Room mode, the unlockable maps and the replay value each Commanding Officer brings. Optimising your tactics for a perfect rating, mastering the map editor and dueling a friend over link cable multiply the hours without ever growing stale. That strategic depth is exactly why it endures as a timeless benchmark.
First Western entry in Intelligent Systems' Wars saga, whose original American release scheduled for mid September 2001 was pushed back after September 11, which turned it for years into a retrospectively loaded object. Western run was broad, but demand stays propped up by the scarcity of later sequels and by the title's cult status. The original cardboard box without the Virtual Console pin remains the target piece for Wars completists.
Is Advance Wars still worth playing in 2026?
More than twenty years after release, Advance Wars still feels strategically fresh. The Commanding Officers system delivers genuine tactical variability, the campaign skillfully reveals new units over time and the difficulty climbs with exemplary pacing. Its pixel perfect readability on a small screen remains a model of clarity. The pass and play multiplayer is still a fine entry point into the subgenre. For anyone who loves demanding turn based strategy, this remains both a gateway and a benchmark today.
