Well I finally had an opportunity to try the must-have gba game, and I was underwhelmed. While a fair game in its own right, its basically just a dumbed down version of the battle isle series from the early 90's. Most limiting is that they use squares and not hexes. While it may be the best strategy game for the GBA, it pales in comparison to the games that were made by avalon hill and bluebyte 5 years ago.

I think it's extremely fun game aside from the evil, evil Fog of War.

The units are well-balanced, nice variety to the missions and there is a ton of content with all of the modes of play.

I thought Advance Wars was quite good and deserves most of the accolades it received. It's not meant to be a hardcore war sim, and is simplified to gear to a broader audience. Therefore, I don't think it's fair to knock it as being inferior to the really detailed PC war simulations.

Advance Wars rules the streets at night.

yup, i picked it up based on the reviews and so far, i think it deserves it. i definitely wasn't expecting any major war simulation or anything. just some fun. frankly, despite the thousands of games for the gba, i'm only interested in like 7 games:

fftactics
advance wars
advance wars 2
golden sun
golden sun 2
tactics ogre
fire emblem (? to be released)

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/235919.asp

Fire Emblem ships on 11/03/03 at least EB says so.

onimusha tactics is GREAT game too

ok, 8 games...

I think it has to do with the fact that Advance Wars is the video game equivalent of crack. Playing it once will make you want to play it more and more. It's insanely addictive. The two Advance War games have occupied my GBA for about 100 times as long as any other game. I have unloaded at least 80 hours into both games (just recently beat AW2 Hard Campaign, and got S's in every War Room level) I don't know what compels me to keep playing, I just know that the games are completely wonderful

I spent over 100 hours on AW2...

they are soooo addictive. I intended to play them only on my commute on the train, but sometimes I find myself continue to play it after I get home (when I could be playing GCN, PS2 or Xbox at home instead!). crazy addictive.

the levels just seem tedious to me. Maybe I should try a netplay game, but the computer AI is so monodiminsional and predictable. I shouldn't be getting an S on 80% of the levels the first time I play it. Winning is easy, it seems I waste all my time roaming around the board searching for units hiding in reefs and forests.

I can win the war room maps by simply building 1 type of unit. Its not that hard to anaylze an oppenents strengths, and build an appropriate countermeasure, especially when the game has so few units.

What aboot Metroid Fuzion?

Then try it in hard mode or try more than the first few levels mister smarty pants

I think someone started an ego thread.