History VideoGame / NintendoWars

** One of the three metrics in determining rank, Power, is based on the number of enemy units destroyed. Because of this, winning a match too quickly, especially on the larger war room maps, can paradoxically result in a lower score if the enemy didn't produce enough units for the player to eliminate. This is particularly likely with an HQ capture victory, as any enemy units left on the field are not credited as destroyed.

** IDS Industries in ''Days of Ruin'' may have been an arms manufacture/research company before the meteors ended the world, but even selling weapons to all sides doesn't explain their extreme reserves of manpower and resources post-apocalypse. Even in a world with automated weapons and vehicle factories (in the localized versions of the story), they stand out as seemingly no limit to their unit production, and like Black Hole, have a resource-cheating factory at the final mission.

* VariableMix: Used extensively during gameplay in ''Re-Boot Camp'':
** The main melody of the current CO's theme drops out while the player is selecting a unit for deployment or checking a unit's statistics.
** During combat animations, the current theme's percussion is replaced with a marching drum.

** '''Re-Boot Camp'' takes this to another level, as Nell gets increasingly annoyed and eventually just [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere leaves]] if you do it enough. Even ''more'' notably, once she peaces out, a generic Orange Star soldier takes her place for any dialogue she'd normally have (such as exiting a map without saving).

** Averted in ''Days of Ruin''.

* JustifiedTutorial: ''Game Boy Wars 3'' to an extent. ''Advance Wars 1'' has Field Training missions for the new "adviser" before the Campaign starts.

* ShootTheDog: In one of the endings of ''Dual Strike'', [[spoiler:Hawke shoots Von Bolt's life-support system because Jake can't bring himself to. Given he also kills Sturm at the end of ''Advance Wars 2'', he seems to be making rather a habit of this. Note that this is averted if Jake chooses to shoot Von Bolt.]] (Also in ''Days of Ruin'', [[spoiler:when Lin leads the final battle against Greyfield/Sigismundo and executes him rather than leave it up to Will/Ed.]])

* MusicalSpoiler: If Admiral Greyfield/Sigismundo's unsettling behaviour (or the very title of the mission in the North American version) didn't clue you into the fact that he's a villain, there's also that a negative jingle plays when he builds a temporary port when he's nominally working alongside you in Mission 13: Greyfield Strikes/Rearguard Action.

* ArtEvolution: The CO portraits went from being rather cartoonish in the first ''Advance Wars'' to fairly realistic by ''Dual Strike''. Olaf and Kanbei by far went through the most dramatic evolution, though the other characters got a fair bit of visual upgrading as well.
** With ''Re-Boot Camp'', the art style has devolved back to the cartoony aesthetic to emphasize the nostalgia from years ago.

** Kanbei can also be seen as this; his units are more powerful, but also more expensive, meaning he'll be slower in getting really powerful units into action.

** As a more conventional example, in the first two ''Advance Wars'', the CPU-controlled armies are not affected by FogOfWar and can attack your units even if none of their units would be able to see them (although they still have to uncover your units hiding in forests before they can attack it — the computer acts as if they don't exist otherwise). Zigzagged in ''Dual Strike'', where the AI still knows where your units are but now has to play by the rules when it comes to attacking them, and completely averted in ''Days of Ruin'' where the enemy is just as affected by Fog of War as you are.
** On a related note, ever notice how the computer will rarely leave its battleship within range of that sub you've had submerged for the past three turns?
** At least somewhat averted in the Re-Boot Camp remake, where the AI now has to play by the rules during Fog of War missions.

** ''Dual Strike'' carries Olaf's anger and distrust of Lash from ''Black Hole Rising'' over - while he does not turn up in the campaign, due to helping to restore his hometown, his hatred of Lash for destroying it in the first place is still in place, as attempting to partner Lash and Olaf up will cause their troop's effective firepower to drop.
** ''Days of Ruin'' explains why your units from one campaign mission don't carry over to the next (factories are automated, and the units produced by them automatically power down when they leave the area. For Infantry and Mechs, their weapons don't work if taken out of the area).

* LampshadeHanging: During one of the optional ''Re-Boot Camp 1+2'' help segments, Nell straight-up tells you to not think about how submerged submarines stop planes from flying over them and vice-versa, they just work that way.

** Lash tends to be viewed by inexperienced players as one of the strongest [=COs=] in ''Black Hole Rising'', as her [=D2D=] powers of getting a 10% boost to her offense for each terrain star her unit has, for no drawback, makes her look very powerful on paper. Her super CO power, Prime Tactics, also looks intimidating, as it doubles her terrain stars, and thus doubling both her attack and defense boosts, while also negating terrain movement penalties, letting her blitz through difficult terrian. The devs even apparently agreed with this view, with Lash being one of the few [=COs=] directly nerfed in ''Dual Strike'' (with her terrain bonuses being reduced to 5% per star). However in practice, her [=D2D=] isn't that strong, as much of the time you're fighting on plains or terrain with no boosts, and saavy opponents can position their units in a way to deny her more potent terrain in meaningful engagements, while her air units are disadvantaged as they can never benefit from her powers. Additionally, Prime Tactics is rather weak for a SCOP, as her units need to be on properties or mountains to actually get a comparable power boost to other [=SCOPs=], made worse by its cost of 7 stars making it one of the more expensive [=SCOPs=] (and then her normal CO power, Terrain Tactics, is nigh-worthless). This results in her being a mediocre CO that heavily relies on maps full of strong terrain, being ranked tier 3 in all ''Advance Wars By Web'' formats, and even then she is barely used by competitive players in tier 3 matches.

* FanservicePack: Both Nell and Sami are a lot bustier than before in ''Reboot Camp''. Perhaps unsurprising given the designs were made by Creator/WayForwardTechnologies, a company with a penchant for busty female protagonists.

* GigglingVillain: Lash, in keeping with her role as a PsychopathicManchild. "Tee hee hee!"

* OffscreenVillainDarkMatter: Black Hole in ''Black Hole Rising'' and particularly ''Dual Strike'' have an uncanny ability to keep fielding bigger and scarier armies even as you repeatedly crush their war effort. The former even has a Factory as the final mission in each nation that cheats normal unit costs. In both games, it's explained as Black Hole plundering each nation's resources, but one wonders how nobody noticed this happening since the very start.

** In ''Battalion Wars'', how to have your other units attack more actively.
** Also, a meta-game based example in ''Days of Ruin'': the Anti-Tank's cost ineffectiveness against infantry.
** And ''Game Boy Wars 3'' has a few Medals as this. Check the GuideDangIt page for more details.

*** Also averted in ''Advance Wars Days of Ruin'' in most cases. Infantry cost 500 more while Mechs are cheaper by 500, Bike Infantry were introduced that cost the same as Mechs, and the leveling up system was introduced, where a unit "levels up" and becomes stronger when it destroys a unit (up to three levels). What really killed the strategy though was the change to how CO Meters charge; in prior games they charged by dealing damage and charged even more for taking damage, and so destroying the opponent's Infantry would just end up charging their CO Meter more than you charge your own. However in DOR, CO Meters now only charge from the damage you deal, and not just that, the rate it charges is now based on the amount of pure HP damage, rather than it being on monetary cost like before. As a result, if you give your opponent a bunch of cbeap units to easily kill like Infantry, they'll just end up maxing their CO meter out and getting a full CO Zone quickly, ensuring a fast demise for the Infantry spammer.

* CastingGag: It's probably not a coincidence that Creator/JoeZieja was chosen to play Sensei, [[VideoGameFireEmblemThreeHouses a leader of the yellow colored nation who specializes in air combat]].

*** If the AI has a seaport under their control, the AI will prioritize building Landers and insist on having at least one at all times even if the AI has no immediate use for them, and should its Landers be destroyed, the AI will immediately build more Landers to replace them if it has enough funds, which can be exploited to make the AI waste its funds on building an expensive unit it has no use for. The AI will also usually not actually use Landers for their intended purpose - transporting units, instead leaving them floating around doing nothing, even after boarding units onto them. The AI's love for Landers was also brought back in ''Re-Boot Camp'' despite it generally improving the AI and fixing other flaws it had in the original games, including actually making use of said Landers.

*** The AI infamously has a seething hatred for the APC and other transport units, where the AI will prioritize attacking transport units no matter what, except for when an important property like their HQ is being captured by Infantry, and sometimes ''not even then''. This was fixed in Advance Wars 2, with transport units becoming low priority targets for the AI. Interestingly, ''Re-Boot Camp brought the AI's disdain for transport units back'', despite generally improving the AI and fixing most of the other flaws mentioned here, presumably because the missions in the first Advance Wars was designed around this specific flaw. Double interestingly, ''Re-Boot Camp'' has this AI flaw for only its version of the first Advance Wars, transport units go back to being low priority targets for the AI in its version of Advance Wars 2.

*** If the AI has a seaport under their control, the AI will insist on having at least one Lander at all times even if the AI has no immediate use for them, and should its Landers be destroyed, the AI will immediately build more Landers to replace them if it has enough funds, which can be expolited to make the AI waste its funds on building an expensive unit it has no use for. The AI will also ''never'' use Landers for their intended purpose: transporting units. An AI locked to an island without transport copters will essentially have no means of getting their ground forces off that island. The AI's love for Landers was also brought back in ''Re-Boot Camp'' despite it generally improving the AI and fixing other flaws it had in the original games and actually making use of said Landers.