Cognition Dissemination: What Happened to Advance Wars?

You’re aware that Fire Emblem: Awakening released in Japan in April of this year, and that it’s coming to America and Europe in February and April 2013, respectively, right? Of course you are. The franchise had been in the doldrums for a good while, especially outside Japan. Shadow Dragon on DS was considered divisive due to some odd decisions and comparatively archaic design (it was a remake of an old game), and while Heroes of Light and Shadow was good, it never left Japan (though it has been given a fan translation). But Awakening seems to be the installment that brings balance back to the IP, at least for Japan. Hopefully it finds its audience in the west.

But what about Advance Wars? The franchise served as an alternative companion to the FE series on Game Boy Advance, focusing on a more modern, anime-inspired war-torn setting. The focus of the games was still on strategy, taking place on the same kind of 2D grid as the FE games, though losing a unit on the battlefield wasn’t quite as critical. It also, interestingly enough, stayed more consistent than the FE games in terms of releases in migrating from GBA to DS; though the FE games also had two Gamecube installments from the same developer.

But “more consistent” doesn’t mean things were completely consistent, and this isn’t referring to the Battalion Wars games from Kuju Entertainment. The first three games had a serious-but-lighthearted tone, but Days of Ruin had a very heavy and depressing one. Though some dedicated fans still purchased and enjoyed it, the game didn’t sell well in the west. Worse, the AW never took off in Japan, and after delaying it for so long, Nintendo didn’t bother to release DoR in that territory. We haven’t heard a peep about the franchise since that game released nearly five years ago, so concerns about the franchise’s whereabouts are warranted.

But what are its chances of a comeback? It’s also not surprising that Nintendo’s been extremely focused on their home country in Japan, as it’s currently making them the most money. The Japanese yen has been strong in the last few years, but the US dollar and European currencies have been weak — the former being the worse of the two. You can’t blame them (among other Japanese companies) for focusing more on their home market, but it still blows when we’re left out of business decisions and game localizations.

That’s quite a change in tone…

And AW fits right into that criteria. It, depressingly enough, makes no logical sense for Nintendo to green light an AW game that will undoubtedly cost more to develop on 3DS — or even more on Wii U. And these days, they’ll make less money on each copy sold outside Japan than they would on the GBA and DS days. Also, the 3DS sadly isn’t doing anywhere near as well in the west as it’s doing in Japan; and while it’s tough to determine where Wii U will be in the market — and it’s far too early to write it off completely — it’s having a sluggish start. Why have Intelligent Systems make more games in that franchise when they could do something that’ll be far more profitable, especially in their home territory. Given how Awakening sold in Japan, they’d sooner green light another Fire Emblem game.

IS was recently very busy with the aforementioned Awakening, Pushmo (and sequel Crashmo), and Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Right now, though, the only upcoming game they have is Game & Wario for Wii U, which releases early next year. The best thing remaining fans of the franchise can do is hope and pray that one of their upcoming games is an AW title, but the chances of it coming back are depressingly low.

Well, unless they decided to reboot and retool it so its tone is more in-line with current Japanese tastes. But that may not be a good thing.