Battalion Wars II is the sequel to the sleeper hit original on the Nintendo Gamecube. Nintendo’s action-heavy take on real-time strategy returns on the Nintendo Wii with not only Wii-specific controls, but also an emphasis on multiplayer, a feature which the first title lacked entirely. But does this game still put up a fight?

The story begins acouple hundred years in the past. In a very Lord of the Rings-type opening, the sinister Iron Legion has come close to complete domination of the world, preparing to launch their final assault under command of Lord Ferrok. But the Solar Empire has other plans. In a final desperate attempt at saving the world from tyranny, a lone soldier must carry a powerful staff to the heart of the Legion’s base and end Ferrok’s reign of evil. This would be your tutorial mission. Fast-forward to the present day, and rumors are being spread throughout the nations of a secret super-weapon developed by numerous countries. Under fear and suspicion of one another, the countries of the world fall into war once again. But all-the-while, some suspect that another force is at work here. A figure hiding in the shadows, pulling the strings with an unknown agenda. The story isn’t the greatest, but it’s definitely solid, and it helps accompany the action of the single player campaign. One of the most interesting things of the story is how, like Warcraft III, each campaign changes the faction which you play as. This allows you to see the story from everyone’s perspective, and keeps you guessing as to who is really good, and who is really evil.

The game may be classified as a strategy game, but it is most certainly stategy “lite”, most likely to make the game a bit easier on first-timers. Unlike other RTS titles which offer top-down perspectives of the action, you view the field from a third-person perspective positioned behind a specific unit which you control directly via the control stick. However, like a squad-based game, you are usually given a group of soldiers and vehicles which follow your commands. These include ‘follow’, ’stay’, ‘attack’, or ‘defend’. All of which are handled via the A-button. You really aren’t given complete control over your entire battalion in terms of sending troops in separate ways, completing multiple objectives, attacking targets on opposite ends of the map, or generating units like other RTS titles. Instead, you usually have a clear objective which includes “make it to this location”, “defend this flag for a certain amount of time”, “protect these units”, etc. Most of the strategy includes holding back vulnerable units as a special class runs ahead, takes care of the baddies, and gives the all-clear. However, the game does break up the action quite nicely with occasional missions which may involve simply leading a submarine to rescue a couple of frigates, sending you alone riding around in a Recon vehicle (which is an exhilarating blast), or ending with along stand-off with an endless horde of enemy units.

Classes, as in most RTS titles, play a big role in the strategy. Tanks are mostly invulnerable to Flame Vets or Grunts, but can be destroyed by Mortars and Bazooka Vets. All your aircraft can be effortlessly brought down by Anti-Air units, Flame Vets can easily tear through crowds, and you’ll want to keep all infantry away from MG Towers. There’s a whole lot more, but this is to simply give you an idea that there are plenty of factors to consider when progressing through each mission. The game eases you through the process of learning how to play by beginning you with only a handful of soldiers. But through the well-paced campaign, you slowly learn to use each new type of unit easily and effectively. In no time, you’ll realize that you’ll be able to cycle through the 6 unit-types mid-fight with ease, effectively managing dozens of units. As previously mentioned, you can control aircraft for the first time. The same goes for sea-based combat. With land, sea, and air units, the total roster of unit-types adds up to 22 classes. While some units may control similarly, most of them have very unique control schemes, strengths, and weaknesses. What is somewhat unfortunate is that many of the 6 races’ units are shared. There really aren’t any which make one distinguishable from the other, making you learn different play-styles. It all really ends up being which colour you like the best.

Unfortunately, the controls aren’t perfect. Using the Wii remote to point and shoot (B-trigger) feels just fine. However, the turning feels a bit slower than you may like it to. You have the options of switching between two bounding boxes to adjust your sensitivity, but they don’t actually feel too different, and no direct sensitivity setting is disappointing. You can lock onto specific enemy units and circle around them with the Z-trigger like in Metroid Prime, but pressing the A-button will give the order to your battalion, or whichever specific units you have selected, to attack that target. The D-pad is used to cycle through your available unit classes which are listed on the bottom of the screen, and holding the A-button will allow you to switch control to the unit selected. But locking on to that specific unit with the Z-trigger works as well. Also, the C-trigger is used to slightly adjust the camera to give a wider view, which can be helpful sometimes.

Now here’s where the real control problems start coming in. Since the Wii-remote really has no available buttons left (I’ll explain the 1 and 2-buttons soon), jumping has unfortunately been mapped to the nunchuk. The nunchuk has never been known for being very responsive for its motion-sensing capabilities, and this is no exception. To jump upwards, you flick the attachment upwards. When running to the side, flicking the nunchuk will cause you to roll in that direction. Thankfully, jumping isn’t used too much, but rolling is certainly a skill you’ll want to be able to use easily. However when controlling a submarine, simply flicking the nunchuk will cause the ship to dive into or out of the water, which feels fine. It’s simply the directional shaking which causes problems. Flying fighter-jets is also fairly tricky. No matter what you do, your plane will continue to fly forwards. Tilting the control stick forwards or backwards simply raises or lowers your speed. Turning is handled entirely by tilting the Wii-remote. The controls take some time to get used to for some, but as previously mentioned, the campaign does manage to stay well-paced enough so that you can learn these skills fairly quickly.

The game’s single player campaign spans about 20 missions over 5 campaigns. Some are most-certainly a breeze, and even some of the more difficult ones can take really no more than 15 minutes to complete. But that’s not to say that there won’t be some missions which you will continuously need to try again. At the end of each stage, you are graded on how well you performed. The standings are split into three sections which include Power, Speed, and Technique. Power simply judges how many units you destroyed, Speed judges your overall completion time, and Technique judges the quality and quantity of your soldiers by mission’s end. Each category is graded out of 100%, and all these tally up to which rank of medal you receive. These include C, B, A, and S for Superb. This marking system really ends up helping teach you where you’re lacking, and telling you what goal you should try and reach for 100%. Receiving S’s or A’s will help you unlock various content in the game like concept art, and extra missions for the multiplayer modes. This adds a little bit to the lasting appeal, but not by too much as a competent player will most likely already have a lot of A’s.

Battalion Wars II’s visuals may look cute and simple, but instead, the game can prove to be quite challenging and deep. There are certainly some technical things to be said which certainly make this feel like a Wii game, like the absolutely gorgeous water, the great lighting, and the fact that despite so much chaos is going on on-screen, the frame rate doesn’t really seem to dip at all. However, due to some occasionally blurry textures, and some weak collision detection on some rare instances, the game can seem to sometimes feel like a Gamecube game. The overall art-style is quite unique, and a big part of where the game’s charm comes in. Each race has a very distinctive style and flair, and is instantly recognizable, all-the-while poking fun at the stereotypes found in each country. The Solar Empire is instantly related to Japan, the Western Frontier to the U.S., the Anglo Isles to England, the Tundran Territories to Russia, and Xylvanian forces to more of a socialist, totalitarian soft of style. The style is very Pixar-like, and while it may be cartoon-like, it manages to stay grim enough that it isn’t necessarily cute, and still has some edge to it. In-game, the game looks fabulous as you run through lush jungles, jagged cliffs, and storm beaches. The animations are smooth and quite cool-looking. However, in the cinematics that play before and after each campaign, you’ll be wondering how some of these got passed to the final product. Some of the characters in the campaign videos are either voiced out of sync, are far too animated, or really look like plastic dolls with awful looking mouths etc. The action shots look great, but some of the still-talking ones are questionable. However, there is still a great sense of mood and atmosphere throughout each video and mission. The only other visual gripe is the camera. Sometimes it can get too hectic, making it unclear as to what’s going on. As a result, the camera makes it difficult sometimes to really follow every factor of the battle.

The audio is a big deal in this game too. The entire game is voice-acted, which includes every character. Most of the dialogue is perfectly audible when it plays over-top the mission going on, sometimes revealing tips, tricks, or further developing the story. Either way, however, listening to the audio during a mission is quite necessary for victory. Unfortunately, some of the voice-acting can really end up pushing the annoying barrier with some character accents becoming far more irritating than anything. The sound quality isn’t bad at all. All the explosions can be heard, everything is clear, even the Wii-remote’s speaker is used. All this accompanied by a wonderfully put-together soundtrack.

One thing the first game lacked was multiplayer. But Battalion Wars II really makes up for that with online multiplayer via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The online splits into three game modes. These include Co-op where you and another online player try completing a task as you both control different factions. Skirmish is basically about completely wiping all of your opponents with the floor. The final is Assault where you are meant to fulfill a specific objective by the time-limit. All these missions have about 6 levels for each, with about half which still need to be unlocked. But there are still problems here. One of which is the fact that you can’t simply say “I want to be the Solar Empire!” and then join a random match to see how good you are. Instead, you are given only a handful of pre-planned scenarios which already have pre-determined factions involved. You can choose your preference in these, but, there isn’t room to just pick a map, pick a race, and fight. The game also lacks voice-chat in Co-op, lacking most of the ability to create a strategy or formulate any kind of plan. Now the 1 and 2-buttons are used in Co-op. Pressing 1 will tell your friend to protect your unit, while pressing 1 while locked onto a target will mean “attack this target!” Your partner simply has to press 2 then to confirm their new objective. This works okay, but voice-chat would be been much more preferred. But the online itself simply runs great. It’s smooth, it’s fairly quick, and fairly easy to use.

Battalion Wars II doesn’t add too much on top of what was there on the Gamecube game, an this ends up being its inherent flaw. But with the inclusion of online multiplayer, it’s a very well-rounded package. The single player is fairly short, but there’s plenty to come back to to win a higher medal. The multiplayer may be very tightly structured, but it’s still fun to do. Visually, the game takes a few steps up from the Gamecube game, the story is slightly improved, and the soundtrack is just great. It’s charming, it’s funny, and despite that it’s far more action-based than most RTS titles, it’s a solid action game. Battalion Wars II is a really good game, but it falls just short of greatness by not taking enough risks to move it beyond what the original had already done.

SCORE: 8.0/10