I have A on everything with a few B's and a good amount of S's, even an S on the last level and no I dont remember how I did it. :D
But this is the thread if you're looking for help. Gamefucks has ONE faq for this game for an S rank walkthrough that can be confusing at times and for some reason doesn't always work for for me plus I hate using Gamefucks, so here we are.
Right now i'm looking at Titans of Tundra in the Western Frontier. Getting an A here was easy but the S has so many variables at play that it gets frustrating fast. So has anyone gotten an S there? If so, how?
As far as Time and Technique go, I have no idea. But 'Power' is the % of enemies you killed on the level. Kill all the enemies, get 100% Power. Technique I believe is as simple as knowing what to send at what, in other words sending tanks after flame vets or grunts after bazooka vets will increase your %, but send flame vets after tanks or vehicles after bazooka vets and that % will drop. It's quite possible that both time and technique start 100% and only change if you mess up in your tactical ideas or take too long.
I cant believe how this game has fallen under everyone's radar. People are like "What!? something NEW!? and DIFFERENT!? Egads!" and it amazes me. The people who do own the game are a hardcore bunch but I just cant get over how few of us there are.
I seriously hope this game gets the honors it deserves eventually. But without proper sales numbers, it wont get ever a sequel. If they do make a sequel, I hope they leave the WW1 story and move in to pure fantasy (it can still be based on existing battles or wars), I want battles on other planets! Weird gravity, different tech, you name it. You could even offer up a space battle using the game's engine as it is now. But most importantly I want HUNDREDS of guys on screen, maybe even an old fashioned sword battle... Hmm, BW with a comedic Lord of the Rings style? or Rome? The CO's could be Zeus, Athena, etc. :D
Also, I put together on paper a mix of Final Fantasy Tactics and Battalion Wars and came up with a real time FFT including the old charge-style of magic attacks (imagine having to defend your mages while they cast spells using BW's gameplay). It would be fucking awesome.
But alas, there is no interest in this game. *is cry*
I'm interested, but not $50 interested...
Well I saw a video and wasn't really interested. It just looked like a typical squad based game.
What is the game actually like?
Pikmin with guns and tanks.
well, i'm pretty sure you've played the Advance Wars series or atleast one of them?
Take that formula of rock - scissors - paper that AW has with the same highly tactical methods of turn based strategy combat and interbreed it with Pikmin as a real-time way of playing the game.
I'll set up a scenario to give you an idea:
You begin with 5 grunts, 2 bazookas and a light recon vehicle. You'll have one or two objectives which can be dynamic and change during the mission, some can even be ignored (secondaries), but not if you want high scores and often times, you'll find POW's who will help you out and add to your battalion's army.
Let's say you're in a valley and you need to get to a small mountain range with a fortified enemy position. At key locations all around the entire stage are troops and other battalions waiting to take down anyone who gets near. They have the same abilities as you do, grunts, bazookas, etc but will throw some vehicles your way that at first may seem impossible, such as heavy tanks against your small battalion.
All members of your battalion have infinite ammo/fuel and a classic health bar. Many of your battalion members and vehicles also have secondary weapon fire, such as auto-aiming machine guns on the tanks or being able to charge up your bazooka shot making it travel further and hit harder.
Grunts - Newbies, carry a rifle, die quickly. Best in numbers against enemy rifle grunts, bazooka vets, missle vets, etc. Just dont send them after vehicles.
Bazooka vets - Fire a large shell that explodes on impact, these guys are made for taking down vehicles and heavy defenses such as machine gun nests. You can send them after enemy soldiers but in those cases its best to send them with grunts. Enemy grunts and flame vets can take down Bazooka vets quickly, as well as machine gun nests.
Light recon - a jeep with two machine guns, one is auto in the rear and the other the player can aim and fire. Great for taking down stray grunts or helping out in a pinch during enemy grunt battles or flame vets, but keep them away from enemy vehicles and bazooka troops. MG nests dont really bother it either and because it's fast, it's a great way to draw fire. It's real purpose though is to do as the name suggests, it's a scout vehicle. Drive in fast, lock on your target, charge your troops and then drive out of there to your next location. But more on that later.
So there's your battalion in the middle of the valley, all lined up and ready to go. You can switch to any member instantly by either selecting them in the 'Cambot Bar' (on screen HUD for keeping tabs on the current status of members) or by locking on to them and pressing Z. The lock on is exactly like Metroid Prime, free-aim with R, hold L to lock on, once locked, move with control stick. It's very fluid, just like MP.
With any member or vehicle, firing weapons is done by pressing A. B will give your members a jump (you can dodge while locked on, direction plus B) or while in a vehicle give you extra traction. X is your Follow/Sentry button. In your Combat Bar you can select the 'all' icon and tell your entire battalion to follow you or guard, or tell individuals. When in sentry mode they'll attack anything that gets near them and you'll be using this alot. But the most used command is Charge. It has two functions; Lock on to an enemy and hit Y and whoever is selected will then charge at the enemy and attack it. if there's no enemies you can tell them to charge to a location and, when the arrive, will automatically enter sentry mode.
The Combat Bar is navigated through the C-Stick and at first will be used to mostly select entire groups at once. But as you get used to it, selecting individuals will get easier and soon you'll be a competent general placing troops and specialized vehicles in key locations.
When you press start, you'll see a classic grid lined map as if you're looking at the original Advance Wars. In this map you can see the enemy positions, their health and what type they are. Later on, as you get used to letting your troops manage themselves you'll end up with a battalion spread out across the entire level. Using the map, you can quickly find them, move your crosshair over them and hit Z to instantly teleport to that location. This is great for attacking on two or more fronts.
So now you see the lay of the land and where the enemies are, you'll also see silver stars and gold stars. These are your secondary and main objectives which will change and evolve with each mission. You can also easily see the stars on your in-game radar, which will show enemies as red blips and friendlies as green or yellow (yellow means they're NPCs).
So now, against the odds, you have to figure out how you're going to take control of the mountain range and get through the awaiting enemy battalions. A neat way of 'sacking' an area is through the use of flag poles. Each flag pole can take 5 guys; the less guys you attach to a flag pole the slower the flag will be raised. Once it's raised, that area is sacked and you can move on. Though sometimes raising the flag can mean the last objective and ending the level.
To imagine the gameplay, just take Jet Force Gemini's single player mechanics and apply it to a Pikmin-like mechanic where you have a small army of different types of people and vehicles. Except you never play as one character, you're constantly switching between them all. Everything is real time and feels great. Each character or vehicle you jump in to presents its own strengths and weaknesses. Firing missles at copters, unloading 50 grunts on the beach, driving a battalion of tanks through roads filled with traps - it all plays and reacts like you'd expect it to. Very realistic physics with some cartoon-elements for fun such as driving a tank off a canyon and landing with a thud.
it PLAYS like a third person shooter, really. Except you're in command of a battalion and face huge obsticles that can only be won through tactical combat, knowing where and how to strike. But the striking is all done like a third person shooter and it's fucking addictive and fun as all hell. :D
You can probably blow through the game in a few days. But that's not the point. There are 4 bonus missions in each 'land' that can only be unlocked by reaching certain % for each land.. but that's not really the point either. The real game lies in the S ranks in figuring out how to achieve them. You'll play a level 15 times and finally beat it with a C - now figure out how to get a B, and so on. As you figure it out you feel like a genius. I've danced many a victory dance playing this game. There's dozens upon dozens of levels and each one (after the first four) become progressivley more advanced and require better tactics. Many of the later missions will require days to figure out and that's where the beauty of the game is. I haven't played a video game in years that actually demands days and days of practice to finish with an S. Finally, a truly challenging game.
It's made by Kuju, a British developer who litteraly wanted to bring Advance Wars to the console in a real time format and they definitely delivered and then some. There's alot of humor and banter in your squads, they'll even talk smack to your enemies. The story itself is awesome as it is basically an iconic version of World War 1. At the very least, it deserves your time, so rent it, borrow it, steal it, etc and try it out. If you enjoy Pikmin or other Real Time Strategy or even turn based strategy games you will enjoy Battalion Wars. It is Nintendo quality stuff and it NEEDS more recognition then it's getting, everyone on this board should be playing it.
It will feel weird at first, there's no other game like it. But once you bite in, you keep finding more and more and every level of progression you make feels like a reward, especially once you start dealing with huge battalions that are capable of destroying most countries or of course the air battles. The game is all the fun and action of a shooter with all the depth and tactical combat of a strategy game. it is a MUST for anyone who owns a Gamecube.
Just one comment about this game, all the stuff about 'why did they change the franchise name', etc... just isn't true... it's still Wars World. Now yes, it is true that they didn't call this 'Cube Wars' or something, it's 'Battalion Wars' (forget the Japanese title, but it wasn't 'Gamecube Wars'...)... so they didn't name it properly properly, but it's still a name that clearly places it in the same universe... the only problem is that people seem to think that the rightful name of the series is "Advance Wars".
It's definitely the same universe though Battalion Wars has more comedy.
Sometimes when you see a grunt die they'll drop a Gameboy. Or while I was exploring a string of tropical islands one of my assault vets said "Who put the lime in the coconut!?" and one of my favorite moments is where the CO said 'Congratulations, this is a major victory for freedom and democracy!" and everyone in my battalion around 25 members all reloaded at the same time. :D It's extremely british in that sense, like how the they talk smack in Worms.
Interesting... So... it's a squad based shooter?
I'll need to play it myself I suspect.
Yup. :D
But just imagine Pikmin in a military setting and you'll have the basics. Instead of using your c-stick to push 'red pikmin' to attack fiery enemies, imagine being able to lock on to the fiery enemy from a far, tell the red piks to charge, and sit back as they tear the enemy apart while you can send other piks out to other locations until the field is yours. Each type of pik has special abilities, same with BW; you only send red piks after fiery enemies, you only send blue piks after watery enemies, or white piks afters poisonous ones. Same principal here except your pikmin have automatic weapons and military grade explosives... and tanks, jeeps, bombers, jet fighters etc :D
Once you play past the first few training missions you'll see what I mean; Pikmin with guns and tanks.
I got it two months ago (think I mentioned it somewhere here), but haven't gotten around to playing it much...
Reading Lazy's thoughts on the game makes me interested in this. I might pick it up myself one day when I'm unpoor.
I bet you can find it uber cheap somewhere. I would get the original now instead of jumping directly in to the sequel on Wii.
I got S on everything, beat the absolute shit out of the game, my times on some missions i'm pretty sure are world records and i'm STILL PLAYING IT :D One thing that's become great fun is just ambushing enemy battalions with JUST a light recon and getting everyone (in the entire level) to chase you back in to a trap you got waiting for them. Like a small dip or valley with all your troops and tanks on high ground. I call it the Trash Compactor. :D
This might be wishful thinking, but I'm hoping that BWii has a map editor like in AW:DS for making your own single and mulltiplayer maps. And I also hope Blackbombs and oozium 238 are in the game too... doubt it, but yunno, wishful thinking.
I will say this for the Wars series. The multiplayer is actually fun. Fire Emblem has some of the worst multiplayer I've ever seen. I really don't get it. You just send in units one after another against the enemy, and well, you already KNOW who's going to win if there's a major level difference, and if there's not, it's more luck than anything else. Why they couldn't just basically use a multiplayer map and an actual strategy multiplayer... well it's annoying really. Just give both sides generic units and turn on that fog of war, plus a huge map and you have the potential for really long matches.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance however, they did something unique that's actually fun, co-op missions.
Yup, definitely smart on squeenix's end to op for co-op and it was one of the main reasons I played FFTA so much. But BWii not only has co-op, but also head to head splitscreen battalion wars and doubly confirmed ONLINE battalion wars. Who knows? 4 different teams on a giant board with an epic war ensuing online? Troops in the forest, tanks on bridges, battleships in the harbor and jets ASPLODE ABOVE YOU!