Famicom Wars was already a solid foundation for Advance Wars

destructoid.com:

I’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of Advance Wars 1+2 Re-boot Camp since its announcement. I’ve loved the series since I first played it on Game Boy Advance back in 2001. At the time, I had no idea that the games date back to the Famicom, and, for some reason, Advance Wars was just the first we got in North America. When I started collecting for the Famicom, it was one of the first games I looked for.

I wound up with Daisenryaku due to a strangely worded listing. The collector’s market was kind of weird back then.

I did eventually land what I was looking for. I had the privilege of trying it out with a friend of mine who also loves the series. As it turned out, there was some to be had. Nothing that hasn’t been antiquated by later games in the series, but fun nonetheless.

I want to talk about the box art to Famicom Wars because it’s one of the strangest I’ve ever seen. Forget about bearded fellows playing the banjo or horrible Sega Master System covers, Famicom Wars decided to promote itself using a row of sweaty boot camp trainees screaming at the camera. I honestly cannot fathom the discussions that went on around the use of it. Was Nintendo happy? Was the development team happy? Did the company that put this together ever find work again?

Those sweaty men don’t feature within the game. Instead, it’s the same bizarre light-hearted approach to war that we’re used to from the series. Okay, there’s no dialogue, so we don’t get COs patting each other on the back for the great battle that resulted in untold collateral damage and lives lots, but it’s still presented in an off-puttingly goofy fashion. Forget the horrors of war, just focus on the strategy.

Perhaps predictably, Famicom Wars is the formula distilled