Misc fun stuff

This is a section for all the things I find interesting about this series that I can't really find a good spot to put, so they're going here!

Famicom Wars references

Advance Wars LOVES to make references to its roots. I've covered some of this in the CO page, with Colins being a reference to Billy Gates from Super Famicom Wars, but there's a lot more, especially in Re-Boot Camp.

• A grand majority of the war room maps come from Famicom Wars
• A lot of musical references, especially in Re-Boot camp! Advance Wars didn't really have any other menu music, so the main campain's theme is the map selection theme from Famicom Wars. The gallery theme is also the main menu theme from famicom wars, and the Advance Wars Epilogue theme is actually Billy Gate's theme from Super Famicom Wars.
• In Re-Boot camp again, Hachi mentions that Nell's mom looks exactly like her, and even has a beauty mark in the exact same spot. This is a refernce to Caroline in Super Famicom wars, who not only looks like Nell, but also has a chance to deal extra lucky damage. He also says she has a little sister, which is referring to Rachel in Dual Strike.
• Colin's background as a child from rich parents and his D2D seems to come from Billy Gates, a CO in Super Famicom Wars. I kinda HC him as his and Sasha's eccentric uncle who tried to convince them not to go to war but failed.
• Hachi is outright implied to be Yuan Delta, the commander of Red Star in Famicom Wars who's looking for a successor. Considering he's now living life as a shopkeep, I guess he found one in Nell.
• Hachi is also friends with sensei, who's said to be a fierce commander back in his day. This, added with the fact he's literally named Yamamoto in the Japanese version implies that he is, indeed, Yamamoto from Super Famicom Wars.

Easter Eggs and Secrets

• If you go into design map mode and try to place an object where it can't go at least 100 times, Nell will show up and go "You seem to like doing that. Keep it up." If you continue in Re-Boot Camp, Nell will continue to get fustrated until she decides to call it quits, and an Orange Star soldier will take her place until you quit the mode.
• Holding both L and R buttons when entering design map in AW or AW2 will generate a map with the kanji for nintendo drawn out in mountains and forests. Doing the same thing in Dual strike will make a giant map that says ADVANCE WARS instead. Be careful, because it's kinda tricky in Dual Strike!
• If you have a copy of either AW or AW2, you could insert it into the GBA slot on your DS (if your DS has one) and unlock some goodies in Dual Strike, like art or maps that are in the shape of Nell's sprite!
• Not exactly an easter egg or a secret, but it's funny enough I'll put it here. In the original Advance Wars 2, one of the blue moon missions, Two-Week Test, can be completed by simply doing nothing, as the main goal of the mission is to simply survive for two weeks, and a quirk of Lash's AI is that she prioritises high terrain for her larger units, so she'll park a tank on your HQ and refuse to move it. Because of this, she can't win by HQ capture, and she can't win by rout either, since you haven't deployed any units that can be destroyed. You can see this in action here. This was fixed in Re-Boot Camp, however. (Note: Lash does mention at the end of the mission that if she continues she'll "gain more casualties," implying that she somehow lost troops even though you didn't attack them.)
• Dual strike introduced the gimmick of ranking up COs as you played them. So what's the reward for getting a CO to rank 10? You get a special casual outfit for their sprite! I've put some of my favourites down below!

Art Gallery

Ryo Hirada, main artist for the series, posts a lot of concept art he's done for the series on his Twitter, so I'd like to show some off!