Weapon of the Week: Neotank

What's a neotank? Only the most sophisticated weapon ever conceived! And it's spherical! SPHERICAL!

In terms of a straight-up strategy game, the closest you’re getting from Nintendo would be their Wars series. Stretching back all the way to the Famicom (the Japanese equivalent to the NES), Nintendo’s Wars series involves the player (or players) producing an army to control and eventually conquer the map. The series did not see an international release until 2001 with Advance Wars. The international releases introduced several new mechanics, such as CO Powers, abilities that could turn the tide of battle, and weather conditions.

The Advance Wars games gives the player tons of units to work with. From the tank, which serves as your army’s backbone, to the bomber, which spells doom for pretty much any land unit, every unit has a use. Each game introduces new units to play around with. Advance Wars Dual Strike, for example, introduced the piperunner, an artillery unit with great range but can only move on pipes. The subject of today’s post is the new unit introduced in Advance Wars 2: the neotank.

The neotank is a superweapon developed by the villainous Black Hole. While expensive to deploy, the neotanks pack a powerful blast that can obliterate most land units. While it was outclassed by the megatank in Dual Strike, it still has several legs up over it; it's much more mobile, has more ammo, and much more fuel. The neotank is a unit with few downsides that can steamroll most land units thrown at it.

The neotank is the best land unit of both Advance Wars 2 and Dual Strike, and it’s a shame it didn’t make it into Days of Ruin. Next time, we’ll look at a rodent’s favorite thieving tool. Until then, see ya.