Intelligent Systems

Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp First Impressions

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

As much as I like the Fire Emblem franchise, there’s always been a part of me that was mad that it blew up and took the attention away from Advance Wars. Advance Wars was the first of Intelligent Systems’ strategy games that I had played, and many lunch periods and study halls were spent passing a single Game Boy Advance around a table, taking turns in intense multiplayer matches. It did get a few sequels, but ever since Fire Emblem Awakening’s success, it’s seemed that Nintendo felt that Fire Emblem was enough for the turn-based strategy niche and turned its back on Advance Wars. But now, after a fifteen year gap from the previous entry, Days of Ruin on the Nintendo DS, we finally have a new Advance Wars release.

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Fire Emblem Awakening Check-in: Week 7 FINALE

~ Andrew Lokken ~ Leave a comment

I wasn’t expecting to finish playing through Fire Emblem Awakening before writing this episode, but I had gotten really into the game after last week’s and kind of just kept playing it. Quite a bit happened this time, a couple children from the future showed up, the true villain revealed himself, and we saw the end credits. But, before we get to all that, let’s go over some numbers one last time. My final play time is 21 hours, 46 minutes, and 15 seconds, and Ivan Ooze ended the game as a level 5 Grandmaster. Continue reading →

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia First Impressions

~ Andrew Lokken ~ 4 Comments

I’ve mentioned a few times in other blog posts that I have very little experience with Fire Emblem. In fact, Fire Emblem Heroes is easily the Fire Emblem game that I’ve spent the most amount of time with. I did play a little bit of Awakening, however. Anyway, I’ve been interested in the new game, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, since it was unveiled in a Nintendo Direct back in January. Now I’ve played a few hours of it. So, what do I think? Continue reading →