Earth vs Mars

Solid Advance Wars clone.

It's a fun little game to play when you have a bit of downtime and want to play something that you can pick-up and drop at any point. In no particular order, here is an itemized list of what I enjoyed and what I thought could use improvement: The Good: ⦁ The game is easy to understand and the campaign does a good job easing you into all of the mechanics and what the units can do. ⦁ The extreme mode difficulty never felt entirely unfair and I had to reset a few times in a few missions. It certain feels like a puzzle to solve in some missions. Definitely enjoyed that. ⦁ Every unit has a role to play and they all fit their roles very well. I never found any unit to be useless. Even basic infantry remain relevant throughout the whole campaign. ⦁ I felt the variety in the types of missions you do were good. It's not always capture HQ or wipe out all units. ⦁ The spliced units were cool idea. They get quite strong late into the campaign but never become the backbone of your army. It's hard to describe, but power level of the spliced units always feels right. Never overpowered, but never outright useless. ⦁ Subsequently, the unique abilities you get for spliced units are generally available often and can have major ramifications in the battle. E.g., the cow's Herd Mentality ability allows adjacent units to play another turn. This really changes up how you play the game. ⦁ The main antagonist, Zarb, has that typical, megalomaniac, Martian supervillain trope and for a game like this, it works very well. ⦁ Despite the overall art direction, the maps look very nice. ⦁ I have yet to encounter a single bug/issue in this game. The QA was top-notch. ⦁ You can close the game mid-mission and load your game again with the battle in the same state. Like I mentioned before, easy game to pick and drop at your leisure. The Bad: ⦁ Very subjective, but the Clash of Clans-like art style is not for me. ⦁ The game UI is competent and clear, but feels extremely uninspired. ⦁ The campaign mode's attempt at humor and character development is certainly there, but feels basic. I did not find myself growing attached to any of the characters. In fact, I was more concerned with my spliced units. I always felt bad when I had to flush one. ⦁ Some of the unit models felt a little too uninspired. The greatest offenders on the Earth side were the tank and Goliath. It is basically tank and jumbo tank. They function very similarly, but it would've been cooler to me if they had some entirely different model. Something like an IFV and tank rather than tank and big tank. The same goes for Mars with their lasertank and ultratank. ⦁ The unit abilities feel somewhat like an after-thought. They are certainly powerful, but given how long their cooldowns and how they start on cooldown immediately, I never truly felt like the ability upgrades were that impactful. That's not to say they are useless; not at all, however you can't rely on them to win battles. Heavy infantry bazooka shot, I am looking at you. Final thought: One last thing I'd like to add is perhaps this game could actually be made into a mobile game. It certainly feels like it could be done with a few UI changes. I would definitely like to play this while I am on the go.