The game takes place on a fictional continent, where two nations, Orange Star and Blue Moon, have been fighting each other for years.

The conflict enters a new stage when an Orange Star commanding officer named Andy is accused of attacking the armies of two other nations, Yellow Comet and Green Earth, without reason, resulting in a worldwide war.

[citation needed] In order to alleviate this, the developers made the mechanics easy to understand, adding in an in-depth tutorial that did not require players to read the manual.

Designer Kentaro Nishimura commented that the game's success shifted Nintendo's attitude over Western tastes [citation needed], and that same success is frequently credited [citation needed] as a driving force for Nintendo bringing another Intelligent Systems franchise, Fire Emblem, outside of Japan beginning with the seventh installment.

Advance Wars has been re-released for the Wii U Virtual Console simultaneously in Europe and North America on April 3, 2014.

Two to four armies, each headed by a CO (commanding officer), take turns building and commanding units on grid-based maps, while attacking enemy units, moving positions, holding ground, or capturing enemy/neutral properties (cities, ports, airports, bases, or HQ).

[1] The different types of terrain include: roads, plains, woods, bases, HQs (Headquarters), ports, cities, airports, the sea, reefs, shoals, rivers, and mountains.

COs also have a Power Meter which fills up by defeating enemy units or when on the receiving end of a brutal offensive attack.

[1] For example, Nell gives a Critical Strike bonus to her units and Olaf makes it snow, limiting the movement range of his opponent.

Depending on which CO is chosen by the player to advise, there are times when a mission is split into a choice of two or three, where the maps and dialog could be different.

When the Orange Star Army's intention was to just pass through the other two countries, Green Earth and Yellow Comet, the countries' COs like Kanbei of Yellow Comet assume a threat of an invasion and declare battles against the Orange Star Army in their land.

Using a CO doppelganger clone of Andy, Sturm stirred up war among the four countries in order to confuse, weaken, and eventually conquer them.

Director Makoto Shimojo commented that the early stages of development often feature Intelligent Systems coming up with unique game mechanics for it, and upon presenting to Nintendo, typically being told that it was "too sophisticated" or "not balanced for a general audience".

He gave examples which included a developer who was a fan of shooters designing the movement system to work in a way that allows players to control their units "down to the perfect centimeter", as well as a developer who was a fan of rhythm games adding a rhythm to how the units move.

As a result, they followed real history in developing these aspects, though making deformed versions of these weapons rather than duplications.

[11] The mechanic of unlocking maps was introduced into the game as a means of getting gamers to play the game for longer, but in an interview discussing why the feature was removed in the future title Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, a developer commented that it prevented people who were too busy to spend the time unlocking levels, and that there were better ways to keep players interested.

In order to alleviate this, the developers made the mechanics easy to understand, adding in an in-depth tutorial that did not require players to read the manual.

Designer Kentaro Nishimura commented that "Advance Wars' success shifted Nintendo's attitude over western tastes".

He added that without Advance Wars, Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, a game that he also designed, would never have been released outside Japan.

Upon release, the game received a score of 92/100 according to the review aggregation website Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim".

[26] Nintendo Power awarded the game a perfect 5 star rating, stating that "Advance Wars treads on new ground, taking the strategy genre to a place where gamers of all tastes will be gung-ho for it".

[24] The Electric Playground called the game "a deep, quite cartoony and consummately Japanese turn-based wargame with depth, character and replayability to burn".

[22] Total Video Games noted: "For a handheld, the AI of your computer-controlled opponents is surprisingly diverse and complex".

It was nominated for the publication's annual "Biggest Surprise" prize among console games, but lost to Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.