This game is a great little surprise. It kinda comes out of no where... a turn-based strategy game with no license? Although a demi-franchise in Japan (where anything can become a demi-franchise, it seems), the Game Boy Wars series never made it to our shores... Until Advance Wars, a title that was one of the earliest announced GBA games to my recollection. During that four week period last winter when every game had the word "Advance" in the title.

So, turn-based strategy? That's a genre that went out with the computerized version of Risk. Everything today is real-time, so fans of this game's bigger real-time brothers (StarCraft, Diablo 2) may just ignore Advance Wars. Truth be told, I had the same notion. To my mind, "turn-based" equals "slow." What I had forgotten is how the turn-based structure adds majesty and careful consideration to the game... as opposed to the hurry-up-and-win mentality of a fast moving game like StarCraft.