Battalion Wars 2

The final two missions were actually pretty easy once I had the right game plan. There are some missions that throw things at you so quickly, it's a struggle to keep up, but these were of the sort where - when I took my time and made surgical attacks and counterattacks with the proper unit types - victory came with ease. This is one of the greatest satisfactions in Battalion Wars, and is evoked powerfully in the final battle, with troops from several nations all marching against Kaiser Vlad's "armed and fully operational battlestation!"

In the original Battalion Wars, earning high grades on missions unlocked bonus missions. In BWii, getting all 'A' grades in a campaign unlocks background info on units, and getting all 'S' grades unlocks concept art galleries; but there are no bonus missions in the campaign. There are bonus missions in each of the online modes, unlocked just by playing a number of matches of the corresponding type.

Visually BWii is really impressive, with the same sort of rounded, cartoonish graphical style as the first, but with more 2007-style detail and glow effects. The sound effects are really good, and it even makes gratuitous use of the remote's built-in speaker, with controller tones indicating reload times and command feedback. The story is pretty lame, but has some cool pre-rendered cutscenes.

All told, with the new units, rebalanced game mechanics (friendly fire no longer harms your own troops - a factor that resulted in my defeat many times in the original), Wii controls, and online multiplayer (which I'll glog more about when I can actually play it), BWii represents exactly what the sequel to Battalion Wars was supposed to be. It doesn't break the mold of its predecessor, but it does fulfill the incremental upgrade requirements very well.

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