“So we follow real history, we try to preserve the spirit of the weapons and the arsenals, but everything is deformed rather than duplicated. But professional eyes can see through all that. They can say: ‘Oh, I understand that they are replicating the core aspects of the real weapons’, and they like that.”
This pattern, of preserving the heart but stylising the surface, extends to the game’s story and atmosphere: “It doesn’t mean the contents of the game need to be gritty and realistic. We weren’t trying to create a make-believe war, but we believe it can still be sophisticated. We tried to make sure that people would believe the way people talk to each other and make that feel real, even if the way we show war isn’t realistic.”
For all these efforts to make Advance Wars’ appeal as broad as possible, there were still no plans to release the game outside Japan, just as the previous games in the series had never seen an overseas release. “When I joined Nintendo,” says Nishimura, “I was told that these kinds of games would never be successful abroad, because they were turn-based games, and turn-based games weren’t appreciated outside Japan. But we decided it was because these kind of games were too complicated. People are used to action games and shooting games, and in those all you have to do is press the A button and the B button and you’ll soon understand how to play.
"But for SRPGs, you’ve got to know the rules before you start. So, with Advance Wars, even though there wasn’t a plan to release it outside Japan, we made it really easy to play. We put a really good tutorial in, so people didn’t need to read the manual. And when the US marketing people played it they came to us and said: ‘But this is great! Why can’t we sell it over here?’ And it seems that Advance Wars’ success shifted Nintendo’s attitude over western tastes.” Nishimura, who also worked as director on Fire Emblem, makes it clear that game would never have been released in the west had AW not paved the way.
But all of this work, no matter how meticulous and imaginative, is only the window dressing. What matters about Advance Wars is its clockwork heart, the cogs and gears which would make the game as engrossing to play on the back of an envelope as on an LCD screen. Does it take a great deal of work to balance the game? “Exactly,” says Shimojo. “After all, repetition is the only way to make a good simulation game. I am the person who judges whether or not the balancing is good enough, so I have to play maps over and over and over to be sure. Of course, the problem is that I get accustomed to the game, so it becomes hard to imagine what it must be like for a novice, but my goal is always to come up with the parameters so the largest number of people can enjoy the game. And then I deliver that prototype to the team, so they can confirm if I’ve got it right.”
Nishimura is quick to point out that the process doesn’t end there: “But it’s not only the staff members. Nintendo has its own team monitoring the game. The debugging team, in the course of doing their work, monitor the game very closely and we listen to what they think about the balance. And, if necessary, right up to the end of the project, we can still make adjustments. And then there are other people who check the balance ever more carefully. The fact of the matter is that we keep checking and checking until – well, until after the company is yelling and saying: ‘Stop it, stop it, we really have to launch it now’.” He laughs. “It’s because of that fact that I believe we came up with a high-quality game.”
But for all these efforts, Shimojo is realistic about the impossibility of pleasing all of the people all of the time: “I have worked on hundreds of different maps, and I think I understand which type of person likes which type of map. I know there are people who like to start from a very weak position and gradually become strong and stronger and defeat the enemy. And there are people who want to be powerful from the start, who just want to crush their opponent. I realise that it is impossible to make a map which will appeal to everyone. So I try to make sure everyone will be able to say at some points: ‘Here we go, here’s one of my maps. This is what I was waiting for’.”
More recently, the title has been followed by Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for the DS, but has the series really evolved further, or is Advance Wars itself the perfected expression of Shimojo’s vision of approachable strategy?