Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising is a turn-based strategy video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It was released in North America and PAL regions in 2003. It is the second game in the Advance Wars sub-series of Nintendo Wars. It is preceded by Advance Wars and followed by Advance Wars: Dual Strike. Despite being developed in the region, the original Japanese release was canceled, but the game was later released in the region alongside the original Advance Wars as part of a compilation cartridge called Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 in 2004. The game was released on the Wii U's Virtual Console in North America and Europe in 2015. At E3 2021, Nintendo announced that Black Hole Rising, alongside the original Advance Wars, would be remade and released together for the Nintendo Switch by WayForward in another compilation titled Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp.

Black Hole Rising is nearly identical to the previous game in terms of core gameplay; there was only a small change in overall graphical style and some small content additions. The storyline of this game continues from the previous game, Advance Wars. Black Hole has quickly recovered from its defeat in Cosmo Land, and has gathered forces to invade Macro Land under the command of Sturm, the same commander who led the invasion of Cosmo Land. The protagonists, the Allied Nations, cooperate once again to drive the Black Hole forces out of Macro Land once and for all.

Campaign mode

The Campaign mode in Black Hole Rising differs from its predecessor Advance Wars in that the mission selection is non-linear. The campaign takes place over the game's five continents, each focusing on one of the five countries in the game. When the campaign is completed, the player is given an overall rank, rewarding higher ranks with more unlockable content in the in-game shop.

thumb|left|In this War Room map featuring Pipelines and Missile Silos, the Infantry on the left is launching a missile that will damage all units within the cursor on the right. The Orange Star army also has two of this game's new unit, the Neotank.

Other modes

Many of Black Hole Risings additional modes remains unchanged from its predecessor. In War Room Players are put in maps wherein they must defeat enemies who are usually given an advantage at the start. Versus mode allows the players to use either a pre-existing map or a user-created map and set up a game with customized settings. Versus mode can be used to create games played against the computer AI or other players by using hotseat gameplay. Multiplayer games with more than one game console is possible with Link mode, and requires the use of a Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable. Two new terrain features were introduced: the Missile Silo and the Pipeline (along with its breakable Pipe Seams). Black Hole Rising changed the format of the CO Meter to use small and large stars, although it essentially still functions as a fillable meter. A regular CO Power is still available by filling the small stars, but a more powerful Super CO Power, introduced in Black Hole Rising, can be triggered by filling the large stars as well. Super Mario Club was to conduct testing, and Nintendo would publish the game. As Advance Wars was not released in Japan, Black Hole Rising was also unreleased in Japan, despite the fact the games were developed there. Later, before the launch of Advance Wars: Dual Strike, the games were released in Japan on a single cartridge, Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 for the Game Boy Advance as well as the GBA game for the Wii U Virtual Console, which contained both of the games. The Japanese release had minor graphical differences, mostly in the portraits of the commanding officers.

When screenshots of the game were released in April of that year, it was seen that the original graphic style of Advance Wars would stay unchanged, and one could guess that changes would mostly be cosmetic. When a demo of the game was released at E3, it was clear that the gameplay would stay nearly identical to its predecessor Advance Wars, though new content would be added. IGN journalist Craig Harris commented after E3 2003 that "Black Hole Rising doesn't have an overwhelming sense of newness".

Reception

Black Hole Rising received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

IGN praised it as "one of the finest games to hit the Game Boy Advance". 1Up.com praised the core gameplay of the series, stating that "The game has changed just enough to please loyal fans, and when you've got a formula that makes for such a compelling gaming experience, why mess with it?" During the AIAS' 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Black Hole Rising was nominated for Handheld Game of the Year.

Notes

References

  • Advance Wars 1+2 Japanese official website
  • Official Intelligent Systems website