Few people had faith when Kuju developed Battalion Wars for GameCube, but on Wii the franchise already shows itself solid, even with an online mode. Battalion is a kind of action version from the Advance Wars series, with the same strategy, just without turns.

You still have to fight enemy units with the right measures, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t go all Rambo on them. The sequel exceeds the original, but it’s still far from perfection.

Just like Advance Wars 2 evolved from the first, Battalion shows not only one army, but five smaller stories, or campaigns, from several armies, incluind Western Frontier, from the past game, just like others that weren’t playable, like Thundra and Solar Empire, as well as the new Anglo Isle and the legendary Iron Legion on a Flashback, also present in some other campaigns.

The game is a little longer than its predecessor, but not much, what really adds longevity to it is a higher dificult level, and just like the previous, the missions rank, that now show the details where you have to get better and where you were insuficient to get a better grade.

The Wii Remote is used to point directly at the screen and shoot, but that doesn’t make a lot of difference cause of the strategic nature of the title. It will be very common to have distant cameras and having trouble accessing units to give orders, specially in the skies.

Entering on an invasive way, the Nunchuk comes to take away from the player hands some controls (or would it be putting on player hands?), like jumping and dodging, both being activated by gestures. The worst is, without any doubt, shaking up to capture flags, handle defense turrets or submerging with a submarine. It happens all the time to get a wrong interpretation that is activated by accident, without sensibility options.

Managing your units by pointing at the screen like when the game was introduced, didn’t make to the final product, instead, we’re back to the GameCube like controls, just with the D-Pad, selecting units and giving orders. It was probably for the best, since with the Wii Remote controlling your vision, it wouldn’t be fast enough to handle everything in the middle of war.

The biggest addition is not on the revolutionary control, but the inclusion of the naval units that were left out from the last game, just like factories, barracks and hqs, that don’t add as much to the strategy as we might think, since your don’t manage resources, they are basically respawn points to destroyed units.

That makes the game a little easier, in the sense that you can still complete a mission if you lose a specific unit, but can build it back. However, don’t get fooled, Battalion Wars is pretty cruel with checkpoints, and you always have to repeat the whole mission after a defeat, which obiously gets frustrating.

With the inclusion of naval units, also comes a better treatment to the water, that is really beautiful, with some impressive reflexion and distortions effects. The levels look alike the GameCube version, technically speaking, but they evolved a lot on art, making a better job at separating the cultures involved on war. Another great evolution comes from the bump-mapped vehicles, with more details, while sometimes the wheels come with some strange animations.

The music is basically what we got from the last version, it fits the action while it also gives room for sound effects like guns and generaldestruction. Some of the voices from characters were changed, and some of those were just too radical, like Brigadier Betty, that mutated from a happy cheerleader to Sigourney Weaver in Alien! Some characters from the old game that didn’t make to the main story do show up at the online mode.

Online by the way has three modes, two competitive and one cooperative. Coop is not exactly what you’d expect, you can’t play the main game with a friend, it’s just four new missions where each player manages a small army that it’s vital for each other survival.

The fun part is improvising and ranks, like the ones in the main story, meaning that you can enjoy replaying the same missions to get better rates. The lack of comunication actually makes it better, cause excessive planning makes the game slow and tedious.

The competitive modes have more scenarios, six in Assault and six on Skirmish. In all game modes you can unlock more content by simply completing some matchs.

Battalion Wars II evolved from GameCube, but it wasn’t exactly unexpected. Basically, they just included things that should be in the last version, like naval units and multiplayer, fortunately, online on Wii, but still not all that nice.

The strategic part ended up a little short to what it might have been, specially on online modes. The main story can keep you playing for a while, but the online mode will eventually be forgotten. It’s worth by its quality, enjoy the most you can now, while it’s still hot.