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Long do I yearn for the days of my youth where I found my feet firmly planted in Advance War’s Macro Land, surveying the fields after another hard-fought victory. Max at my right hand would sorrowfully mourn the loss of the allied fallen, while Andy at my left would excitedly proclaim that this is the perfect time to celebrate the victory with a BBQ! Those were good days.
War of the Human Tanks is a strange mixture of this aspect of Advance Wars, with a little bit of Fire Emblem and your favorite quirky anime thrown in for good measure. It features a rag-tag regiment of military leaders who are loyal to the once-mighty “Empire.” Shoutaro, the “General from Hell” is their leader, a lazy boy who likes to watch anime. Then there’s Chiyoko, his little sister, who is an upbeat wiz mechanic. Next is the easily panicked Heshiko, a commander unit (more on that in a bit) that was modified by Chiyoko to be better than the standard battery. Last in the crew is Satou, a stiff by-the-rules lieutenant who is constantly upset at her regiment’s lack of structure and attention to detail. These characters on their own aren’t anything new, but they’re well-written enough to be amusing, especially when interacting with the lore of the world.
You see, WotHT is a world where machine-like humans are built to fight wars. Instead of being the traditional Japanese story of “What makes humans human?” or “Do machines that might as well be human deserve human rights?” the story and characters for the most part treat the Human Tanks sort of like lab mice–expendable and individually valueless–in spite of the fact that the Human Tanks actually possess emotions (albeit flighty and easily changed), are capable of intelligent speech and are completely adorable.
It’s this fact that brings one of the game’s greatest appeals–the Human Tanks are essentially an army of adorable little chibis whose greatest goal is to die on the battlefield before their battery runs out–they are after all, worth less than a human. Pochi Shock Tanks charge eagerly to an enemy to fulfill their purpose–to explode and die. In spite of being one of the deadliest human tanks, Infinite-Range Artillery battery “Masamune” detonates after combat, simply because it is her time to die. Heshiko, an extremely skilled Commander Unit is given no rank or congratulations for her efforts because “Human Tanks don’t deserve a rank.” It may sound a bit cruel, but it’s all played up for humor. They’re so lemming-like that you can’t help but laugh; it’s similar to the humor created by the Minions from Despicable Me.
The gameplay itself isn’t too bad either–when you’re not clicking through text-boxes, you fight with your army on a hexagonal grid covered by fog-of-war. Your goal is to build your choice of Human Tanks from what you have available, choose their upgrades if you wish through the use of modules, place them on the map and then do your best to kill off the enemy with minimal losses, since the more of your army you keep alive, the less money you have to spend rebuilding them in the next mission. It’s simple enough to understand within a couple minutes, but contains enough choice of strategy that you can play to your favored style. I built my strategy off of intel, with many Mike (recon) units, and several Kana (artillery) units, but I could easily see how you could build an Asahi (close-range-assault) team, or maybe even a team completely made up of the self-destructing Pochis.
The game does have its flaws however. The beginning “cinematic” that plays out when you start a new game is completely confusing and frustrating to follow. Then, the following text-sequence that takes place at the beginning of the first level is also very disorienting, as the game doesn’t relay its setting, goal, or characters very well to the player–it just all sort of gets thrown at you like you were supposed to know what’s going on. Additionally, each level plays out like an anime episode since they all end with the credits rolling and a theme song. While this was clearly intentional, it confused me the first time I saw it, since any time you see the credits in most other video games, it means you’re at the end of the game. After you see them roll at the end of the second level though, it’s apparent what’s going on and so it’s not a big deal. Overall, if you can make it through the first ten minutes or so, you’ll understand enough to follow what’s going on, and from thereon it’s light-hearted fun.
I will definitely be revisiting this game in the future, and I look forward to seeing where the happy-go-lucky generals and quirky suicidal Human Tanks takes me. Intelligent Systems may never make another Advance Wars game, but this isn’t a bad replacement for the time being.
