Does anyone else think the Advance Wars remakes should have included enemy range highlighting?

[ragnarok_approaches123]

Starting with Fire Emblem: Awakening, you can highlight the attack and staff ranges of all enemy units in pink by pressing a button and highlight the ranges of a particular enemy unit in red by moving the cursor on it and pressing a button. This feature has proven to be so useful, fans backported it into previous entries. It makes the games so much more playable because you don't have to constantly check and remember enemy ranges.

The problem is it is notably absent in Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. They added a feature to restart your turn which I refuse to use because I consider it a form of cheating. Highlighting enemy attack ranges would make the games easier but not in a way which I consider to be cheating. It's a UI improvement.

Correction: highlighting all enemy attack ranges was first implemented in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.

 

[Technoturnovers]

Unless I have alzheimer's or something, I'm 99% sure that this is something you can already do by pressing A with your cursor over an enemy unit. Also, I don't really see why restart turn should be considered cheating, with the exception of using it in fog of war to cheese out enemy locations and whatnot- accidentally fucking up and misclicking can be HILARIOUSLY punishing otherwise.

 

[ragnarok_approaches123]

Unless I have alzheimer's or something, I'm 99% sure that this is something you can already do by pressing A with your cursor over an enemy unit.

The game lets you view but not highlight enemy attack ranges. Once you release the button you lose sight of the unit's attack range.

Also, I don't really see why restart turn should be considered cheating, with the exception of using it in fog of war to cheese out enemy locations and whatnot- accidentally fucking up and misclicking can be HILARIOUSLY punishing otherwise.

The feature allows you to turn back time. You can attack an enemy then reset the turn if you get a low luck roll. On top of this, you should think before you commit to moving a unit. I disagree with the time reversal features, as they are currently implemented, in Fire Emblem too.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

I mean, you could just not use the time-reversion mechanic in Echoes/Three Houses/Engage, and it's inherently got limited uses anyway to avoid complete abuse of this power, but...yeah, they could've added a option when creating a new save whether you want time-reversion or not. Just like how there's a choice between Classic and Casual (or for Awakening, Newcomer), to choose whether you want permadeath or not.

Anyway, that's not the question asked; as for enemy range highlighting, the devs really should have added that; it's an amazing QoL feature, and actually allows for increased strategical decisions - instead of having to memorise the ranges, only to mess up and unintentionally park infantry in view of a medium tank, or stop your expensive battleship in a bomber's range, you could see the tank's or bomber's range and work around it.
Sure, it might be more impressive when you do truly memorise enemy ranges, and can play without this buffer, but having the buffer prevents mistakes and mental slips and stuff - when you need reassurance you're making a 'right' choice, it's there as a potential safeguard.

 

[ragnarok_approaches123]

I mean, you could just not use the time-reversion mechanic in Echoes/Three Houses/Engage, and it's inherently got limited uses anyway to avoid complete abuse of this power, but...yeah, they could've added a option when creating a new save whether you want time-reversion or not. Just like how there's a choice between Classic and Casual (or for Awakening, Newcomer), to choose whether you want permadeath or not.

This is off-topic but I think time reversal in Fire Emblem is a good mechanic which has been poorly implemented. The games give you too many uses per chapter, no option to turn it off and no reward for not using it.

Before Echoes, one mistake or one unlucky critical hit on classic mode was fucking infuriating. Getting 10 uses per chapter lets you act without thinking and reverse all your mistakes.

 

[Scarlet]

This is off-topic but I think time reversal in Fire Emblem is a good mechanic which has been poorly implemented. The games give you too many uses per chapter, no option to turn it off and no reward for not using it.

Before Echoes, one mistake or one unlucky critical hit on classic mode was fucking infuriating. Getting 10 uses per chapter lets you act without thinking and reverse all your mistakes.

Continuing off topic, I always thought the optimal middle ground on this issue was the mid-chapter save tiles in Shadow Dragon. Basically every chapter has one or two map tiles that, when rested on, allow you to save the game mid-chapter and reload from it as many times as you want. Because they're just map tiles, you can choose to take them whenever you want, or leave a unit next to it to grab it when you've made more meaningful progress.

It felt like a risk/reward level of strategy instead of the failsafe the rewind feature amounts to.

On the actual topic of the thread... Yeah it's rough coming back to this and not having the modern commodities. It's definitely not the end of the world, but it's something I'd have liked to see. I could guess they maybe chose not to because of the rate new units enter the field, and how large that enemy range could end up being? Again a good middle ground here would have been just allowing you to select units and keep any selected units' ranges on the map.