is a

wargame A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...

developed by

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

and

Intelligent Systems is a Japanese video game developer best known for developing games with Nintendo and the ''Fire Emblem'', ''Paper Mario (series), Paper Mario'', ''WarioWare'', and ''Wars (series), Wars'' video game series. Originally, the company was headqua ...

and published by Nintendo for the Famicom. It was released on August 12, 1988 in Japan. It was later re-released on

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Unix ...

. It is the first game in the ''

Wars War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

'' series.

Gameplay

Players take control of one of two warring

nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those ...

s, Red Star and Blue Moon, as they seek to establish turn-based dominance over each other. After selecting which stage to start the game and setting which, if either, player will be controlled by a person, the Red Star army is given the first turn. The objective in each stage is to either capture the enemy's headquarters or destroy all remaining enemy units in one turn. During each turn, the player is given a certain amount of funds which can be used to build units in factories, seaports, and airports under their command; additional funds are earned by conquering cities near their headquarters. Each unit has their own speciality and unique abilities, with ten land units (including two foot soldier units), four air units, and two sea units. Some units have heavier firepower than others, while others provide support to allies. Only foot soldier units are capable of conquering cities, which can then be used to repair or refuel damaged units. There are 15 maps available at the start of the game, with two secret ending maps dependent on which nation the player fights for when playing against the computer.

Development

Development of ''Famicom Wars'' began as

changed its direction from creating hardware to developing simulation games.

Reception and legacy

On release, ''

Famicom Tsūshin formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' (now ''Famitsu'') scored the Famicom version of the game a 33 out of 40. The 1989 "All Soft Catalog" issue of ''Famicom Tsūshin'' included ''Famicom Wars'' in its list of the best games of all time, giving it the Best Simulation and Best Commercial

awards An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An award ...

. The original ''Famicom Wars'' was followed by a series of sequels which were released only in Japan as well, which includes ''

Game Boy Wars is a wargame developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy in Japan only in 1991. It is a portable follow-up to the 1988 Family Computer wargame ''Famicom Wars'', making it the second game in Nintendo's ...

'' in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

and ''

Super Famicom Wars is a Wargame (video games), wargame developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Famicom. It was released on August 12, 1988 in Japan. It was later re-released on Virtual Console. It is the first game in the '' ...

'' in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, both which were developed by

and

, as opposed to a sub-series of sequels to the original ''Game Boy Wars'', which were developed and published by

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo ...

. The series eventually made its international debut with '' Advance Wars'', released for the Game Boy Advance in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

. The maps from both ''Famicom Wars'' and ''

'' were later included in '' Advance Wars'' and its sequels. A group of six soldiers from the game appears in the Wii game ''

Captain Rainbow is an Action-adventure game, action-adventure video game developed by Skip Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Wii. The game was released exclusively in Japan on August 28, 2008. The game puts players in the role of Nick, an ordinary guy, who ...

''. The soldiers aspire to win the

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

gold medal.

''Super Famicom Wars''

''Super Famicom Wars'' is an enhanced remake of ''Famicom Wars'' developed by

and released for the Super Famicom on May 1, 1998 exclusively via the

Nintendo Power ''Nintendo Power'' was a video game news and strategy magazine from Nintendo of America, first published in July/August 1988 as Nintendo's official print magazine for North America. The magazine's publication was initially done monthly by Ninten ...

service in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the original Famicom version. Improvements over the original ''Famicom Wars'' include the inclusion of 8 new types of units in addition to the 16 original units, a faster decision-making process for the CPU, the introduction of Reconnaissance Mode (also known as "Fog of War" mode in later localizations, in which enemy units are invisible during the player's turn when they're not in proximity to the player's units) and the maximum amount of deployed units being increased from 48 to 60 units. In addition to the original campaign between the Red Star and Blue Moon armies, there's a new campaign also consisting of 17 maps involving two new factions, Green Earth and Yellow Comet, as well as a 4-players mode consisting of 10 maps involving all four factions, for a total of 44 maps. The player can also assign one of seven generals to each army, which mainly affects what kind of strategies the CPU will employ, although some of the generals do provide passive benefits even when assigned to a player-controlled faction. The game was digitally released on Nintendo's Japanese

for

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. The W ...

, and

3DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generatio ...

platforms. An English-language fan translation was released in 2018.

Gameplay

Development

Reception and legacy

''Super Famicom Wars''

Notes

References

External links