Review: Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is a loving recreation of strategy classics

videogameschronicle.com:

When game developers choose to remake or remaster a beloved series – as happens more frequently than ever these days – they inevitably walk a tightrope between pleasing ever-scrutinising fans, and modernising for today’s audience.

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp – developed by California-based Wayforward – very nearly nails this balance. The remake of the 2001 and 2003 Game Boy Advance titles feels like a love letter to the original strategy games, with just the right amount of thoughtful recreation and faithful authenticity.

We would’ve liked to have seen more improvements in specific areas, but otherwise this is a brilliant package that keeps – and in many cases improves on – what made the original strategy games so great two decades ago.

For the uninitiated, Nintendo’s Wars games have been around for over 30 years, but it wasn’t until 2001 that the series made it to the West with the series’ seminal Game Boy Advance debut.

Because the franchise had been honed across multiple instalments prior to this in the form of the Japan-only Famicom Wars, Super Famicom Wars and Game Boy Wars, developer Intelligent Systems was able to cherry-pick the best parts from over a decade of iteration to form the series’ ultimate instalment.

At the time, Advance Wars was beloved for its meticulous balance and wonderful presentation, both of which helped it stand out in its genre – especially away from a PC, where strategy had little representation at the time.

Thankfully, that remains the case in the 2023 version. In its generous package – which includes multiplayer, a map maker, challenges, and both campaigns from Advance Wars 1 and 2, Wayforward has done a brilliant job of maintaining what made the original Advance Wars great.

The game’s lengthy