Happy Tuesday, everyone. Today I will be talking about another game I was fortunate enough to get during my trip to Japan: Famicom Wars.
If you ever owned a Game Boy Advance, there’s a possibility you’re familiar with Advance Wars, a turn-based strategy game made by the Big N that some consider one of, if not the best, game on the handheld system. If not, then you may remember Advance Wars: Dual Strike if you ever owned a Nintendo DS. I only briefly played Advance Wars when I was a child, so I can’t comment on it.
Believe it or not, Advance Wars wasn’t the first installment in Nintendo’s Wars series. There were six other Wars game in the series that did not come out in North America; two on Game Boy, two on Game Boy Color, one on Super Famicom, and, of course, one on Famicom.
Developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo, Famicom Wars was the first installment in the series, released in 1988 and receiving glowing praise in the years to follow. Some actually consider Famicom Wars to be the spiritual predecessor to the Fire Emblem games (which also didn’t get North American releases until 2002 on the GBA). Both games were developed by Intelligent Systems and share almost the exact same gameplay elements, minus an obvious change in setting. Let’s see how their first outing into the turn-based genre fared.
First, the graphics are fine for the Famicom. It’s possible to tell what everything is, even when it’s scaled down for the sake of seeing the entire map. As for the music, it’s pretty good. There are a few catchy tunes in this game, which is a good thing when you’re spending hours trying to plan things out on the map.
In the gameplay, you have the option of playing one of two armies: Red Star or Blue Moon. What’s the difference? Red Star starts on the left side of the map and Blue Moon starts on the right. You start at your army’s barracks at your end of the map and you can purchase infantryman, mechs, and tanks. Infantrymen can move three spaces at a time and is the weakest of the three. Mechs launch rockets but can only move two spaces. Tanks are the strongest and can move five spaces per turn.
When playing alone, you can also select your opponent’s IQ at either 100 or 200. This sets the difficulty level. One will be smarter than the other, therefore making the game harder.
As you move through the map, you can occupy towns. You have to send soldiers into a town three times in order to take over, and once they are, it’s a step closer to you winning the game. However, if you are attacked and you lose, the town will become the opponent’s. If either team’s barracks are taken over completely, the opposing team automatically wins. Because the barracks are always on the other end of the map, each game can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours, depending on if you’re playing against the computer or another person.
As you approach opposing infantrymen and tanks, you will be given the option to fight them. Each set of infantrymen and tanks is made up of ten with no way to recover any. Once each infantryman and tank is destroyed in combat, the set displayed on the map will disappear. You’d better plan carefully, because as said before, each class has its own level of strength. If you try to put a full set of infantrymen against a full set of tanks, it likely won’t work out well for you.
Also, you actually have ammo in this game. If you run out of ammo, you will not be able to attack anyone. This means if your opponent attacks the infantrymen that have no ammo, they will have no means of defense. So again, you’d better choose wisely when fighting your opponent.
Each turn, you can buy a set of infantrymen, mechs, and tanks from the barracks. The more towns you occupy, the more money you will receive each turn to buy reinforcements. However, once they’re bought, they cannot move until the next turn.
Does Famicom Wars have any flaws? Of course it does. You can’t see your opponent’s stats, only your own. Because of this, you have to memorize who on the map has a disadvantage against you so you can attack them without a problem. The larger an army, the more difficult this will be, especially if you’re like me and have a terrible memory. I can’t tell you how many times I accidentally attacked a full set while playing for review. Also, when playing with a friend, you have to share one controller and pass it to each other depending on whose turn it is. Why couldn’t you just use the second controller?
Why was this not released in the west? Well, turn-based games weren’t very popular in the west at the time, and the Cold War was still going on. I guess that’s pretty self-explanatory.
So that’s Famicom Wars, a fantastic war simulator that’s just as fun to play alone as it is with people. It is a bit more expensive, going for around $10-$20 on the internet, but it’s worth grabbing if you love turn-based strategy and if you’re interested in looking to Advance Wars’ roots. Also, for the record, watch the commercial for Famicom Wars–it’s pretty funny.
Rating: 9/10