War isn't hell
The story is simple, you represent a young commander who must protect his army, the Orange Star, from an attack from many other armies. Sounds simple yet the way is hard.
There are many stuff to learn in Advance Wars just to pass the first zone. You'll have many machines and soldiers to control, rifle users, bazooka users, tanks, planes and even ships, all are in the game. Yet what's so good about it it's that every single vehicle is different than another with its own cons and pros. Big tanks does more damage but they can't move so far and they need energy for the container vehicles in order to keep moving. Planes are mobile and soldiers won't be able to hit them. However, some special units that able to crush those planes of the ground. There are many vehicles you need to learn how to use them all just to move to the next zone.
The goal in Advance wars is those units, crush the enemy's units and either crush them all or you can just conquer the HQ of your enemy. You can also conquer the enemy's building in order to use them for your own good to cure your soldiers and more. Or course the zones themselves are original and there will be many changes, more rivers, bridges, only water battles and even dark battles which you have to use a Ricon unit to lit the rest of the place. Not only that there are 150 different zones\maps in the game, you can create your own. Wow...
There is many to do in this game except for the regular and very long campaign mode. There's training, missions, link plays, create-a-map and many more goodies that'll make you busy on this tiny cartidge. It's better for you to first train because you should memorize all of the main basics of this game, you miss a class and you can lose very fast. Although it's not strong on it's plot but this game gives you enough motivation to keep going.
Speaking of graphics it's fine for the GBA. It looks like a basic strategy game and nothing phenomenal. Most gamers will fine it's simple and simple unimpressive. The thing although it's the game's weak spot, it doesn't really disturb the game.
While the sound effects are realistic most of the times, especially the gunshots, the music is leaning on the spar side and it's getting tedious and tiresome as your progress in the game. They could've at least pay more attention to it.
Not only it has a huge single player game, to make the experience even more lasting, it has also multiplayer options. You can fight in your own created map, other maps, even do some co-operative missions this game excels on almost everything.
Bottom line, this game is extremely well done and you'll get addicted very fast. You can't go wrong with this game, unless you really hate this genre you should at least rent, other should consider buying it and fast.