Apes Warfare

Compared to Warside, this game clears it in basically every category. Better maps, better pacing, more fun overall. The gameplay loop is super addictive. Matches move fast, there's a lot of unit variety, and it hits that classic Advance Wars feeling while still adding enough new mechanics to keep it fresh. It also does something well unlike AW: the campaign maps are actually well designed. You usually feel like you're solving a tactical problem instead of just smashing units into a wall until the AI does something stupid. Graphics are solid too. The environments and effects look great, animations are smooth, and battles feel satisfying. The only weird part is the humans, who look like they escaped from a 2007 Flash animation. That said, some stuff is annoying. Having to unlock things like multiplayer and the map editor through progression is dumb. Those should just be available immediately. And the powers are hilariously unbalanced. "Fly Swatter" is absolutely disgusting. Taking 5 HP AND instantly killing weakened units is already crazy, but the fact that infantry damaged by it can't be healed makes it feel braindead. Some units need to be rebalanced. There's no reason the roc…

Having scarcely followed Apes Warfare's development from afar since Mang's video covering the alpha build—and having missed the early access window due to time constraints—I went in fairly blind. My expectations were shaped mostly by Mangs latest stream and some conversations with one of the polite developers. From what I gathered, the community heavily influenced the game's development. Feedback from both Advance Wars veterans and casual players helped shape its overall balance. Given that the game was created by a fairly small team with a tight budget, it's important to scale ones expectations accordingly as it don't have as much content as an mainline Advance Wars entry. I was encouraged to play on the dev branch to enjoy some fixes before the first post-launch patch went public. Over the course of a week I played through the entire campaign and have to say: it's really good! The game is quite pedagogical, offering a few "boot camp" missions before letting you loose on standard levels to master what you've learned. I even had my nieces who had never played a strategy game before give it a try. They had a ton of fun and loved the visuals! [b] The good: [/b] - It plays l…

a nice Advanced-Wars-Esque game, I enjoyed the campaign and found it fun to play. It does have some weak points which i will go through, but I had fun regardless. Pros: - Wide variety of units to play with. Many unique unit ideas and interactions. Having area of Effect units are very interesting and make wall-breaking much easier. - Mixes up the interactions by having most units able to hit other units, even if its ineffective. This can help whittle down strong units. - Variety of weather conditions that mix up the map and allow the taking of unusual positions. - A decent soundtrack with decent variety. Most sound tracks are paired together so you will always have the same player turn vs enemy turn duo. I found myself thinking these tunes to myself during down time/ on walks. - The story is passible, it makes some sense. - Runs well, and the Ai is at least ok at putting up a fight. Cons: - Ai can see through fog/cheats in fog outside of hiding spaces. Makes some missions a pain. - No Day-to-Day abilities from the Co's, making all fights mirror matches. Ok since powers vary, but can be repetitive for a lot of the game. - You cant see what the power charge…

I wanted to like this game! Honestly! But I swear, every advance wars clone that I've tried out recently always has some catch that just ruins it. This doesn't work offline. It's an always online game. For a game that the developers say is "Designed for comfortable turn based play on Steam Deck and other handheld devices", they apparently forgot that handhelds are portable, and don't always connect to the internet. I've tested both on my laptop and my steam deck. If I'm connected to the internet, it launches. If not, I only get a black screen and no game. I don't care about multiplayer. I just want to play singleplayer. The only time a game like this should be phoning home to a server is when the "Multiplayer" button, "Report Bug" button, etc, are hit, and not a moment before. This game was looking promising too, for the 40 min of play I did get in at least. I thought the balance change of removing the tire wheel type movement penalty balanced with reducing rocket range could be interesting, but I guess I won't know. Honestly, maybe I treated Warside too harshly. At least that game works offline and has had several bug fixes since its release.

It's overall a fun TBS to play through the campaign, but for me it doesn't have much replay value beyond that. Pros & Cons: + unit animations are well done + core gameplay feels fluent and combat is fun - visibility of units on terrain is often lackluster, especially on properties. its often hard to spot all your units or to see which ones already moved. = its in most regards very close to advance wars, which is clearly the main inspiration here + naval design, while using very few units (only 3 that fight), is overall much better than in AW, mostly because of low cost - some new mechanics (mines, whirlpools) dont work at all and are just annoying - also the new "weathers" are goofy and illogical (units moving on lava) --- commanders and their superpowers are generic, it is only about the units and COs don't exist beyond the icon. + overall quite a few units are well designed and worth using... - ...but there are also some that are just pretty much never worth using or you need them but they are heavily overpriced for what they do (e.g. sniper, carrier respectively) = splash damage units are very fun to use in PvE but highly imbalanced in PvP + seeing global rank in campaign is co…

It is an Advance War clone but without day to day powers and unique CO powers. It is still fun and has some humorous dialog.