Nintendo Wars is a series of military turn-based strategy video games, developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The series debuted in Japan in 1988. It debuted two years prior to its little brother series Fire Emblem, and this interval is true for both Japan and the U.S. Like Fire Emblem, most games in the series were released only in Japan; Advance Wars (2001) was the first to reach the U.S. and European markets. Advance Wars was not released in Japan before the Gameboy Wars Advance 1+2 compilation due to the September 11th attacks.

Gameplay

The player takes the role of Commanding Officer (CO) in the army of a country called Red/Orange Star. In the single-player campaign of Advance Wars 1 and 2, each level consists of a new map and opposing CO to defeat. Victory is achieved when all of the opponent's units have been destroyed, their HQ is captured, or another (usually mentioned) victory condition has been applied.

Players take turns to use their army units, each of which may be used once per turn. Resources available include troops, tanks, artillery, rockets, and many other military units. At the end of each round, players receive money; the amount earned depends on how many cities or bases you currently hold. Money can be spent in factories by building new units. However, each factory can be used for deployment only once per turn. Also, in all installments of the NW series before AW1, the factories had to be near the HQ to be used for deployment.

Multi-player mode is an important part of the Nintendo Wars series. This allows players to compete against friends, each choosing a Commanding Officer to play and country to represent. The Advance Wars series of games along with the far lesser known Game Boy Wars 3 include map editors, giving infinite replayability.

Games

• 1988 Famicom Wars (Famicom)
• 1991 Game Boy Wars (Game Boy)
• 1997 Game Boy Wars Turbo (Game Boy)
• 1998 Game Boy Wars 2 (Game Boy/Game Boy Color)
• 1998 Super Famicom Wars (Super Famicom)
• 2001 Game Boy Wars 3 (Game Boy Color)
• 2001 Advance Wars (Game Boy Advance)
• 2003 Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (Game Boy Advance)

64 Wars (Nintendo 64) was also developed, but cancelled before its release.

Announced at E³ 2004 was (GameCube), which appears to be a real-time third-person strategy game, similar to the PC game BattleZone.