War is serious business
As a long time fan of the Advance Wars series, Days of Ruin comes off as kind of the bastard child of the series to me. It certainly doesn't look like your typical Advance Wars game, but after you play it for a bit you'll realize that its gameplay is so Advance Wars. This means that Days of Ruin is a solid strategy game that should appeal to fans of both the genre and the franchise, though the new look alone might not be enough to endear the game to newcomers.
Most of the new vibe comes from the graphical and thematic overhaul. For the first time in the series we have a brand new cast of characters- gone are the happy-go-lucky COs of old, and in come a slew of grim-faced, gritty characters. That's understandable, however, because the game doesn't take place in a world with trees and bunnies and happy things. The world is literally in ruins- a desert wasteland ravaged by a monstrous meteor shower. Which, in all honesty, is well and good enough. A change of pace is always nice, but Intelligent Systems just doesn't seem to nail "gritty" quite as well as they did "happy-go-lucky". It's just a tad too cliche, and the little lightheartedness they do try and sprinkle in doesn't have quite the same effect. Even the soundtrack is darker, and isn't quite as catchy as before.
Fortunately, these changes are purely cosmetic. So long as you're not one to put too much stock in a DS game's audio/visual presentation, you'll find that Days of Ruin still harbors those awesome turn based strategy battles the series is known for. Much of the gameplay remains unchanged, though the new units are easily one of the highlights. All of these units fit really well, and seem to have a valid role to fill. Even many of the old units have been altered, or even straight up removed, and this reshuffling seems to have streamlined the whole flow of the game, which is great. Another big change is that you now have to attach your CO to a unit on the battlefield to get any benefit from them. They have also been greatly reduced in power, which at times makes them feel like more of a distraction than a solid gameplay mechanic to me. In the end though, my only real significant gripe with Days of Ruin is that most of the extra modes of play have been scrapped since Dual Strike. This really hurts the single player lasting power, though this game does in fact support online play. And while it works well enough, I'm not quite convinced that it is a worthy trade-off for the loss of the spectacular features the previous game had.
But like I said, this feature reduction was my only real problem with Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. I may not have cared for the game's lackluster tone, but a simple cosmetic change such as this doesn't take much (if anything) away from the solid strategy found within. The genre is just rarely done this well, and if you are a fan of turn based strategy games or previous Advance Wars games, then you'll find Days of Ruin to be another fantastic entry.
For additional information on my review style and scoring system, click here.