I remember the days when my friends and I would sneak into someone’s room in our school dormitory, passing around a lone GameBoy Advance SP as we took turns playing Advance Wars. We would continue doing this during some of our Physics lecture classes during our first year in college, where we would meekly pass around the GameBoy to each other, and play our turns while trying to hide it behind our backpacks and notebooks. Looking back, I’m sure our stealthy efforts in those classes were in vain, and our Physics lecturer just tolerated us (thanks, Sir Dildy) and never reprimanded us for not paying our full attention in class. But we’d continue our games in the hallway as the entire class duration wasn’t enough for our four-way battle royale playing as Orange Star, Yellow Comet, Blue Moon, and Green Earth.
Fast-forward to today, and we do have the Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp to relive the old days, but there are always new titles coming out that take inspiration from the classics, trying to recapture the fun that we had in our youth while trying to not bank on nostalgia too much. I could say that I’ve become a turn-based strategy wargaming enjoyed myself, even venturing into tabletop territory more recently. But even though I’ve played great games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, and Wartales, there’s always an itch that can only be scratched by a proper Advance Wars session. Unfortunately, not a lot of games can replicate Advance Wars’ charm and personality that complimented its story and gameplay.
Enter Warside: the Advance Wars-inspired turn-based strategy game by developer LAVABIRD and publisher First Break Labs. What you get in this package is a tactical game that scratches the Advance Wars itch. It leaves you wanting for more, both because the Warside Demo available now on Steam provides a good sampler of its gameplay, but also because Warside still lacks some characteristics that made Advance Wars a classic.
Warside understands what makes Advance Wars’ gameplay so fun and satisfying
LAVABIRD definitely hit the nail on the head with the gameplay. It not only successfully replicated the Advance Wars turn-based infantry-centric wargaming formula, the devs also did great in adding their own ideas into the game and implementing them neatly. Fans of Advance Wars will see a lot of familiar units in Warside, but the several new ones look the part and feel at home with the rest of the cast.
Just like in Advance Wars, Warside tasks players to control units of different types to occupy buildings and defeat enemy units in a grid-based map. Most missions require players to simply eliminate all opposing units, while some missions have additional twists. Players get funds that they can use to train new units from factories (for war machines) and barracks (for infantrymen,) with the player earning more funds per turn the more buildings they control.
Mastery of the game’s rock-paper-scissors relationship between infantry, machinery, and artillery will make up most of a player’s decision making in their battles. Victory lies in good positioning, proper turn ordering, and ability to exploit units’ weaknesses effectively. Each victory feels well-earned, especially for missions with additional challenges like restricting your army to a limited number of units.
Right now, the Warside Demo gives players access to four campaign missions, which most serve as a tutorial, and access to multiplayer gameplay. I haven’t tried multiplayer yet, but based on my experience, that’s where most of the fun there is to be had. Once an active community develops behind this game, or even just a small-knit one with close friends who play together, Warside will definitely start taking over game nights.
A few issues I found with the gameplay can easily be addressed by the developers before the game’s 2025 release date. Warside’s AI doesn’t feel polished yet as I encountered enemies that ostensibly attack head-first without regard of unit weaknesses, as well as a general inability to prioritize the right targets for a tactical advantage. The lack of UI and HUD information that clearly states the description, strengths, and weaknesses of units may also make it hard for newer players to fully grasp the game’s concepts in the beginning.
… But lacks the charm to make it as memorable as its inspiration.
What Warside has in spades in terms of gameplay, it lacks in terms of charm and personality. While Advance Wars is definitely within the GOAT conversation within the genre, it’s great not just because of its gameplay. Many fans love Andy and the rest of the CO cast of the Advance Wars franchise because they gave the games much personality, vibrancy, and memorable stories. The uniqueness of the COs also synergized greatly with their in-game powers, which gave players a lot of reasons to play as them.
Warside’s characters, on the other hand, are charisma vacuums. The main characters feel like generic soldiers with uninteresting backgrounds. Apart from wanting their own side to win in the war, these characters don’t feel like they have anything else to go by in terms of motivations in achieving their goals. Hopefully, the campaign will show us more fleshed out characters when the game comes out, but the demo fails in presenting characters with depth.
The writing of the dialogue doesn’t help the characters, too, as they are given the most generic, most cliché conversations that are rehashes of war story tropes that we’ve seen time and time again.
The inoffensive characters and uninspired writing made it feel easy to just breeze through the story and to focus more on the gameplay. I don’t feel any sort of affinity with the characters nor the story so far, and makes it hard for me to identify with any of the factions currently available.
Another component of Advance Wars’ soul was its upbeat and exciting music, both during battle and in its menus. Warside’s music right now feels generic and disconnected to the tone and feel of the rest of the game. It appears that Warside is currently using licensed or royalty-free music as its OST, so hopefully the final product would have more original arrangements for us to listen to. Thankfully, the game’s sound effects fit the animations perfectly well.
The closest Warside gets in replicating Advance Wars’ charm is in its visuals. I feel that Advance Wars lost all of its soul when we got the second DS game when the world became ruined and everything became gritty. Warside at least gives us visuals that closely resemble the original Advance Wars. The animations are also perfect for the tone and cadence of the game, although both the sprites and animations draw dangerously too close to its inspiration. Not because it could be misconstrued as a mimic, but because it prevents Warside to have a visual identity of its own.
Conclusion: Warside Demo makes me want to play more of it with friends
Warside Demo is a very good tester for players to get a good feel of what the game would become once it launches. It doesn’t shy away from borrowing mechanics and even visuals from its inspiration, and what we get is a game that feels like a natural extension of its spiritual predecessor. However, Warside may have captured the form, but severely lacks the spirit, of Advance Wars. There are great battles to be had here, both in single-player and against friends, but there are no gripping stories to be seen in the horizon.
If you want to try out Warside Demo for yourself, head over on Steam and download it to your library. The game will be released in full on January 28, 2025, and is slated to release on PC via Steam, as well as on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and of course, the Nintendo Switch.