Advance Wars: Dual Strike is the first Advanced Wars game to be released on the Nintendo DS. In addition to stylus support it features many new elements unique to Dual Strike, such as fighting battles on two different fronts, and a unique two CO tag battles that allow you to use two different COs against your enemy.
Prologue
Several months have passed since the war in Macro Land. Thanks to Andy, Nell, and the other COs the Black Hole Army was defeated. The People there can finally live in peace.
But in the far-off Continent of Omega Land, trouble was brewing. It is from here that Black Hole launched a massive invasion. The enemy army has replenished its might with remarkable speed under the command of a new leader.
The last great war left so many questions unanswered, and so Orange Star, Blue Moon, Green Earth, and Yellow Comet have joined forces to create the Allied Nations. Determined to free their homeland, they launch a counter-attack...
Table of Contents
Controls
- Skip dialogue and cinema screens; display overhead map
- Display map menu
- Move cursor to next unit
- Display intelligence windows
- Turn page (during map selection)
- Turn page (during map selection)
- Confirm selections; select a unit; display map menu (when terrain or a non-production property is selected)
- Cancel selections; display attack range (when unit is selected); makes units transparent (when terrain is selected)
- Move cursor; make selections
- All touch controls
Game Modes
- Campaign
- Campaign mode is the storyline mode of the game. You can earn points to unlock abilities, COs, maps, color edits and game modes from here. There are two types of Campaigns, hard and normal. Hard campaign awards more points. Up to three separate Campaigns can be saved and in progress at a time. More points are awarded for not using Forces and Tag Breaks.
- War Room
- War Room is where you can test your skills and earn points by trying to emerge victorious from various maps. These maps will involve you facing one or more enemy COs and generally they will have an income advantage over you. You will seldom, if ever, start with predeployed units. The enemy will seldom, but will, start with them. In War Room, you can choose to play as any CO you have currently unlocked.
- Versus Battle
- This is where you can play battles involving up to 8 players, human or computer. You can play as any COs you have unlocked and on any maps you have unlocked. Also, you can choose settings such as the funds/turn that properties bring in, weather settings, whether CO Powers are available, limit the number of days of the game, set a property limit for victory and other options. If FoW is on, then the game will request a keypress before switching to another player's turn to prevent other players from seeing, since all of the gameplay is on one system.
- Survival
- Survival battles come in three different types: Money, Turns and Time. In money mode, a player will need to complete the battle using only a certain amount of money. In turn mode, the player will have a certain number of turns to emerge victorious. In real time mode, a clock will count down and require a player to think and move quickly to complete the goals in the required time.
- Combat
- An entirely different game mode. Here players will fight in real time combat. The rules and gameplay mechanics will, of course, differ greatly from the traditional TBS game.
- Battle Maps
- This is where you can buy maps, COs, game modes (like Edits) and more. Come here often with points and buy everything. Some things may only become purchaseable after certain conditions have been met, like getting an A rank in Normal Campaign Mode.
- History
- History contains various statistics, such as units lost, points earned and many, many more.
- Link
- Here you can link up your DS to another persons and play multiplayer the way it is meant to be played. If only one person has the Advance Wars: Dual Strike cartridge then the gameplay will be somewhat limited.
- Sound Room
- Once Sound Room is unlocked, you can come here to listen to the various music such as CO themes, country themes and other music, a fan favorite.
- Gallery
- Gallery mode contains all of the medals earned as you have progressed through the various ranks.
- Design Room
- Design Room has two subrooms: Map and CO. CO mode allows you to edit the CO colors while Map mode allows you to design custom maps. Black Hole structures cannot be placed here, so no Minicannons or Blackcannons and the such. Helliums can, however, be placed in Map mode.
Naming Abbreviations
Advance Wars has used abbreviations for its units since AW 1 on the GBA. They are generally very easy to figure out and exist only to save space. In addition gamers and message board posters have been using acronyms for commonly used terms. They are listed below in the form given and sorted alphabetically.
- A-Air
- Anti-Air
- AoE
- Area of Effect, attacks that hit all in a given area.
- Artlry
- Artillery
- CO
- Commanding Officer. Also, CO Power meaning the first tier special ability.
- dmg
- Damage
- FoW
- Fog of War
- HP
- Hit Points (less common, Health Points).
- HQ
- Headquarters
- Inftry
- Infantry
- JPN
- Japan or Japanese, using JAP is considered offensive.
- M Gun
- Machine Gun
- OHKO
- One Hit Knock Out, or Instant Kill.
- SCO
- Super Commanding Officer. Usually in the form of SCO Power, meaning the second tier special ability.
- TBS
- Turn Based Strategy (not Turner Broadcasting Station)
- Torps
- Torpedoes