Nintendo gave its long-running strategy series quite the makeover with Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. It paid off with the gaming press, garnering an average review score of 8.4. But consumers have been slow to warm to the title. So far Days of Ruin has sold around 90,000 copies according to VG Chartz, which is rather low for a first-party Nintendo game. Of course, turn-based strategy isn't the most popular genre in the world, and there wasn't exactly an advertising blitz leading up to its launch.
In any case, we really like the game, and we recently caught up with its developers to ask about some of the changes they made to the series. Questions were submitted to Hitoshi Yamagami (Production Group Manager, Nintendo Software Planning and Development Dept.), Masaki Tawara (Production Director, Nintendo Software Planning and Development Dept.), and Kazuhiro Yoshikawa (Production Assistant Director, Nintendo Software Planning and Development Dept.), then fed through a Bionic Translation Organism. Here are the results:
IGN: What was the initial inspiration to overhaul the look and feel of Advance Wars?
That's easy, we wanted to surprise people. That's it. We thought if we could just get people to feel like they could enjoy Advance Wars in a setting like the one we have now, then even veteran fans of the series would get a fresh, new vibe from it. We also thought the not-so-distant future science fiction feel might give the folks who aren't big fans of war settings a different image of the game. So in summary, we were searching for a way to both work with the traditional Advance Wars' system while giving gamers something new and exciting. We felt the creation of this world was the best way to meet these goals. The result of this is that the feel of the game changed to match the new world view.
However, this is not a repudiation of the series' history. This is an evolution necessary to enjoy a more tactical game suited to the world we created. We really implore everyone to enjoy this fusion of Advance Wars and near-future science fiction.
Previous Advance Wars were rated E for Everyone, but Days of Ruin was upgraged to E10+ for Everyone 10 and Up.IGN: Did you ever fear a backlash from fans of such a long-running series?
Our challenge is to always fight against that fear. The fear that players are going to move away.
But we have to keep on the offensive! A lot of players will move away if there's not enough innovation. This time around we challenged ourselves to come up with gameplay and a story that would undermine such a revolt against change. And we did it! Plus, we did it while remaining true to the simple and quick-tempo simulation concept that defines the Advance Wars series. Advance Wars is always up for a good challenge!
IGN: Why did you decide to remove the shop and the system of spending points to unlock new maps?
Sorry about that. There may be some players out there who enjoyed the unlocking system who are still dissatisfied. We understand there were fans who truly did enjoy the unlocking system. However, we spent an awfully long time thinking about this. That is to say, we heard from a lot of people who were unhappy because the unlocking system prevented them from enjoying the full variety of maps in the game. We came to the decision that the unlocking system didn't fit the play style of a lot of current gamers. People nowadays are really busy. There are players who can't set aside a lot time to play games. Imagine people like this who hear something interesting about an unlockable map and then are told they won't be able to get that map for another 20 hours. That would be pretty disappointing, right? I can hear them all now, "I don't have that kind of time!"
In the first place, the unlocking system was designed and implemented to get players to put a lot of time into playing Advance Wars. But if you think about it, there are other ways to get people to invest time in the game. The problem remains that if you make maps something that need to be unlocked, you're limiting players who don't have a lot of time to a limited amount of maps they want to play. With this in mind, we made this Advance Wars a game with other areas for players to sink time into and with maps something that can be opened and played on at any time. Once you purchase the game, you're free to battle on any map you please right away. With think this will get players who may have stayed away from the series due to the time commitment it required to pick it up and give it a try. We're confident that this is a very friendly change to the system.
IGN: Several standard Advance Wars featured were removed for Days of Ruin, and several new ones were added. Any reason why we couldn't have the old with the new?
We left what we felt was necessary for this setting and system and added what we felt was lacking. Then we got rid of anything that was unnecessary in terms of this setting.
The result was that this installment is different than previous installments -- it's more focused on strategy. This we think is safe to say where the fun in this game starts. Just adding different elements would only make it more difficult to realize what's really good about this game. When a series reaches a certain size, you don't ruin the game balance by trimming away the fat, but rather it allows you to find new gameplay opportunities.
IGN: Can we expect to see these characters again in the next Advance Wars?
That has not been determined yet. However, if Days of Ruin proves to be popular and people would like to see a continuation of the story or the return of the character we think we would have to make such a title. The more people who share their feelings and thoughts on this, the happier we'll be.