War 2410 (SNES)

For some reason i'm in good mood. Thus i decide that it's perfect time to play something aggravating. How about an uninspired turn-based strategy game in SNES: War 2410 (1995)? Which is made by Advanced Production Inc. 

It's made by Advanced Production Inc. I can't find proper title screen. So i stitch the 2 opening screens instead make them GIF, because i don't have neither the skill nor mean to do so. Not yet, i hope. From the title you may think this game could be rival of war series, such as Advance War on GBA. Not in quality, as i remember. Before we participate the war on (presumably) 2410 C.E. We have to know the raison d'être, right? Here it is!

So in year 2003 on other dimension, bunch of geneticists found new technology to make perfect soldier. But as in 101 gaming code, anything that scientists create/discover will go horribly wrong. In this case, they create 3 war races: Orcs, Cromes (which are androids), and M.A.R.S.. Instead for humanity's benefit as they intended to, they battle for world conquest. Can you imagine that Orcs are man-made? Moreover they're supposed to serve human? Of course, you can't. Because that's all absurd beyond any fantasy sense. While "the androids go wild" thing is familiar enough thanks to Terminator movies. What could M.A.R.S stands for? My guess: Mad Amok Rabid Soldiers. That sounds little less dangerous than Orcs. I mean very little. 

 

It's up to the human army to sort with the ruckus for humanity. They are, of course commanded by the player.

The army demonstrate their prowess by blasting some enemy war vehicle while the one near the screen keeps shooting whatever malicious thing on your right. Quite assuring, huh?

 

The army names is Global Defense Alliance. Quite generic name. Hey, i can quite see Indonesia Islands. But it seems Java island (which where i live) has been sunk by one of the evil races. I'll get them for it! So i hit "start game".

First mission: obliterate any orc. Even though they're my favorite race in Warcraft 3 and Warhammer 40K. If they're the one who responsible for sinking my island, i won't give them mercy. Not even slightest. Also giving mercy only for the weak. They know that.

 

Like war series, War 2410  is turn-based war strategy game. So the basics: move your units, tell them to attack enemy's unit if within their range, then end your turn. A unit has one chance of moving and attacking. The order of action doesn't matter. "A" button to bring this basic menu which consists of: Battle to tell the your unit that under double-rectangular cursor, to attack; Move to tell it to move (obviously); End to end your turn; and terrain effect info. You can see that the forest terrain effect: 30%. That means any unit that within it will receive 30% less damage. Also you can see that my force which in green color, are outnumbered by 1 unit. And there's no mean neither to repair damaged unit nor replace the deceased ones. So there's minimum amount of error tolerance to accomplish the mission. That's why i said this game is aggravating. 

 

Pressing the "select button" on my unit, brings me this info: power bar (which is hit points), mobility, icon picture, the complete looks of it, unit's name, etc. The data looks very detail. Can we see the enemy's unit with the same method? Of course we can.   

 

That looks orc allright. Fortunately, (my) human troop have the same stats with orc troop. Being outnumbered is bad enough. I don't want to be outclassed as well. You may conclude that the different between player's units and enemy's units: only in visual and color. And you're right. So if you expected some serious different between the races. You should drop that thought ASAP!

Here's the battle's going on. My medium tanks shoot theirs then they shoot mine. What do you mean they're not medium tank? Everyone know that medium tank has tank tread on its back part and 2 steering wheels on its front part. As both sides in same terrain and same type of unit, we're doing balanced damage trade. Which's quite okay. The health bar changes happen after all units in the battle, fired.

 

In this case, enemy's units are heavy tank. Which sounds stupid decision of me to send medium tanks to get after heavy tanks. But the key to win the mission: destroy enemy's heavy tanks and preserve ours. Why? because heavy tank is (so far) the only unit that can engage other unit from 3 tiles range instead of 1 and it won't get counterattack when attack (unless by other heavy tank). If you have played one of war series, you may think that the heavy tank is indirect-attacker type of unit. But unlike in one of war series (Advance War 2 for example on my experience), heavy tanks can and will counterattack anything (to be more precise any ground units) that attack it. So here's one of flaw in War 2410's mechanism compares to war series.

 

And this is "how not to win the game with satisfying result" by me. First, troops are the weakest units in term of attacking power and durability. Yes, they're as good as cannon fodder but remember that player always in outnumbered starting condition. So any unit including the weakest can be valuable asset to keep. Second, the most obvious is the enemy units are in advantageous terrain while my troops are in plain terrain which offer 0% damage protection.   

In the end, i manage to preserve 2 units of mine. The enemy only has troop but it's turtling in that city which has hefty damage protection. Can i win?    

 

Naturally. As long as i have the heavy tanks, those troops get bombarded over and over again until they're dead. You think the troops will be brave enough to engage my heavy tank. No. They're content enough to be behind the wall while they can't do nothing else except something that they can do if their doom is nigh like playing poker or polishing their gun until shinny like 24 carat diamond.  

 

For completing the mission, i'm awarded with sword medal. But sword is barely useful in this kind of war. Oh, i get it. My superiors think that i'm bit better than totally useless cadets who are given the same mission with same units. The cheeky sods. 

 

Next enemy is from M.A.R.S race. Aren't you curious how they look? I know you are.

 

Pressing 'B' button will bring this radar to see all of units in the map. This feature becomes more useful on later missions  where the maps getting larger than before.     

Once again, my units are outnumbered by theirs. 10 to 11. But at least, i got light attack vehicle (which is weak yet highly mobile) and commando (which is upgraded version of troop) to command. The buggy car icon represents said light attack vehicle. While the commando is represented with troop icon that has larger shoulder pad. Intuitive! [regular sarcasm]

 

Here's the M.A.R.S commandos look like. They're attacking my light attack vehicles. Light attack vehicles are weak in attack power and defense power. But since they're in forest terrain while enemy's commandos in plain terrain. I called this win. Minor, though.

Ok this is really stupidity on enemy strategy. It sent its troops to engage tanks that are in city terrain. It just wastes its unit there. Good for me. You may think "Hey they look like human". And you're correct. Once this mission over, i will make suggestion to our superiors to repaint our armor and vehicle into their color. So our force can infiltrate into their rank unsuspected and crush them from inside. I'm genius!

 

Once again, the enemies just turtling in city in the end. At least they're tank instead of troops. Then the A.I has better strategy mind than the previous ones or the opposite? I let you decide.

 

My brilliant idea got rejected. They said it's too stupid to try. The idiot generals. At least they're satisfied enough with my performance so far thus i become Lieutenant.

 

This time i will against cromes, the rouge androids. And i got another option to win: occupy their base. I'm not hoping for significant change in gameplay, though. Care to guess what cromes look like?

 

If you guessed that the cromes are robots with cannon for their arm. You deserve congratulatory prize like biscuit or cheese cracker. You earned it. Now that i think about it. All of mechanical design in this game have childish design. Take another example of those medium tanks. They have spoiler like what Tamiya cars have and that useless spikes on their front. Also the sound effects of the battle are not far from "Pew! Pew!" or "Blep! Blep!". Very funny.

It's all coming back to me about how to win the game efficiently back when i was playing it for the first time ± 8 years ago. That is: park your units in strategic terrain tile (preferably with adjacent tiles that are plain type) and just wait for enemy units to combat one after another. The A.I quite often decide to send troop to engage my units in un-strategic terrain like in previous screenshots. And here's another flaw design of War 2410's gameplay: counter is very over-powered. In Advance War 2, counter less effective because the units have internal number and the attackers always strike first. While Heroes of Might and Magic 3 limits the number of counter a unit can do that's only once. Except for Royal Griffins, because they're selfish rude that's their specialty. There's no such thing in War 2410, counter can be done infinitely and it will be more effective if attacked unit is in more strategic terrain than the attacker.   

The attack and defense stats seem considerable on battle strategy. Only in theory. In practice, they're ignorable. Because like i said before: counter attack can be done unlimitedly except when being siege by heavy tanks. But, wait! Actually, enemy's defense stat is quite considered for heavy tank's target priority. 2 keyword to success the mission in this game: unit positioning and heavy tanks.    

 

Parking your units and let them counter attack any enemy is easy part of the battle. The hard part comes when enemy's heavy tanks join the fray. You have to somehow lure them so your units can engage them ASAP. Or maybe you can ignore the luring part because it's quite impractical. Casualties can't be avoided in process. But once the enemy lost their heavy tanks, the battle is as good as player's.

 

I should show you about the visual display of attack/move range. The darkened part of the map is said range. In this case this is my heavy tank's attack range. Those tanks that are turtling in base, are within it. Fire!

 

Because of the turtling tanks, i won this mission with enemy's total annihilation like previous mission. So dull. Nice base's interior, though.

 

Next mission i have couple of transport vehicles to command. They transport infantry not supply that i have to protect, luckily. On this mission, we learn that pressing "Y" button will unload infantry within selected transport. You can use them to make those slow infantry go to frontline faster. That's more variety in gameplay. Good!

 

You see that the transport vehicle has lame attack capability but that doesn't stop A.I to send their APV to engage mine. This is the lamest battle ever, yet most memorable.

Yes, it's another screenshot of my units engage enemy's heavy tanks. What i want to show you: how connected that pattern on the tarmac road. Beautiful, ain't it?

 

Here comes the tiring part, dragging those heavy tanks to enemy's turtling tank. Unlike in previous mission where there's only 1, here there's 2 and they're located in north-east corner and south-east corner. That's quadruple the level of tediousness. No. Make it sextuple as they have to go through those forests first. Did i not mention that heavy tank's mobility is low? Because it's. I wish those APV can transport the heavy tanks to hurry the freak up. That won't work. I know. As they're already destroyed from those battle. Oh, well.

For completing the mission, i got the skulls medal. Awesome! I almost looks like Dhalsim when wearing it. For next mission: i must deal with Orcs army in two side: West and East. And there's no new unit. So i quit. If you like to play the game, you can enter this password. So you can continue where i left.

 

You should know from beginning that War 2410 (1995) makes me very weary. Is it unplayable? Certainly not. Nonetheless, tedious. War 2410 really wants to be rival of War series but fails quite miserably. Mostly in gameplay design: the counter attacks and heavy tanks, resulting in very crude strategy to efficiently accomplish the missions. The infantry are reasonable to have less mobility capability. The Devs should make them able to traverse rough terrain more easily, to balance things out. But there're air units on next couple mission from where i quit and things getting more interesting. And there's also anti-air tank later in game. If you have huge patience to play it. On the bright side, the gameplay are simple and easy to understand in a jiff. And there's no sense of stalling on game flaw. It flows well but in slow pace. Turtling isn't rewarding/worthy (as demonstrated by A.I). Which is the opposite of Advance War 2. That's the only better aspect than said War game .The music sounds grating which appropriate with the nuance and how rough the gameplay is. It's quite worthy in my playlist. The presentation and story are quite good. Leaving aside the childish design of the vehicles, the graphic design are pretty good. The A.I stupidity is the main factor that makes the game playable. In my opinion, the most interesting part of the game: new units and battle animation.

To sums things up, i can't recommend you to play War 2410 (1995) because it's tedious to play. Especially if you're War series fans. My judgment could be (considered) unfair. Because i really dislike any strategy game with limited units to command, such as Myth: Fallen Lord or Command and Conquer in DOS. On the other hand if you're fancy that kind of strategy game and have patience as big as basketball field, it worth a shot. Dismissed!