Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising -- Campaign Mission 18: Sensei's Return
0War having returned means that I must divide my focus ever more between old and new. What about something borrowed? (Something blue?!)
I'm blue, da ba dee da ba da? (Please don't tell Eiffel just under a hundred times.)
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Gather 'round, all ye observant. This is a story. About a game with no actual story. Actually, it's a remake of a game with no story. That also had no story. But it had CHARACTER! ...that is to say, it builds character! ... ... ...or did it have characters?
It all began with a bunch of red guys and some blue guys. They had a war. But they lacked CHARACTER. Either way, one side would eventually win. You could even win as the blue guys!
Then, when they remade the thing, they added green and yellow to the mix. And each of these teams had CHARACTER. Not especially impressive ones, mind you, but they were there! The blue guys still had awful AI, though.
But! Beyond all this CHARACTER... they also had... SECRET CHARACTER. Unaffiliated, roving warmongers... "Freelancers" in chief!
Among them were clear prototypes for a money-based monger and a luck-blessed demoiselle, and their influences on the field around them were undeniably... questionable in legitimacy.
But towering above all was the immensely powerful "Mr. Yamamoto," who had 140% unit stats across the board at MINIMUM (the old times were strange indeed, don't worry on what further atrocities might otherwise be committed), and to this day, this monster of a man is only spoken of in hushed whisper.
Fun fact! Of the many, many, MANY localization oddities plaguing this series, even across multiple versions ostensibly in the same language, "Sensei" is originally named "Yamamoto"?
No reason. None at all.
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Campaign
Mission "17": Sensei's Return
"Return"? He was gone? Wait, he was here BEFORE? Just who are you, old man?!
In dire times of war and turmoil, even the elderly have a role to play. An odd old man rarely seen without his trusty, feature-concealing paratrooper gear plays the dual role of helicopter and infantry specialist. He also gets a boost to his transport movement range. Just be very careful around Anti-Air tank units.
If you thought any of this made him too similar and perhaps even a little pigeonholed like Sami, the similarities in play will mostly end at "oh, I guess I better be careful about the footsoldiers"... and things only get more unusual when you play around with his unconventional Powers.
Oh, and just for the record. His Infantry and Mech units are... 140% stronger than standard. I feel like I've heard that somewhere before...
This mission is more or less a playground to test out his capabilities and see how they turn the tide of battle. It's also such a constrained space that it'll more or less automatically minimize Adder's special movement-based Powers.
Just be wary just how far away from proper production your efforts will take you, which can put a strain on your efforts to put the hurt down on the enemy if you're not especially careful.
If ONLY there was some manner in which we could just generate units from nowhere at a moment's notice! Hopefully somewhere nearer the front lines, at any rate, which will make the territory capture game a lot more unusually important.
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Incidentally, that big bag he's got strapped to the front? PROBABLY not actually a parachute, even though he's always yammering on about them.
Like, it's not actually uncommon to put a BACKUP chute there, but it's equally unlikely that it'd be the primary chute you're counting on to make your safe landing. (But if I'm going to believe anyone can make it so without issue, I think I'll be trusting THIS particular mister.)
The thing about combat paratroopers is that they still need to land somewhere and do the fighting... and weapons are rather... ... ... not aerodynamic. And you NEED those things to stay someplace secure, but you also need them to NOT interfere with your own attempts to translate human motion from the air to the ground without massive disaster.
So they'd compromise. The weapons would be small, modular, and easily assembled. And, assuming an appropriate low-altitude jump, such things could be readily stowed in a bag where a backup parachute would otherwise be placed.
I learned something. Hopefully. Please correct me if I'm mistaken on any of this, but furthermore... I'm not actually going to jump out of an aircraft for any reason, with or without weapons.
(it also kinda makes sense for the guy in charge giving all the orders to be familiar with the kinds of things his specialists will be doing, but not ACTUALLY jumping out of helicopters along with them. At the moment. Maybe. You never know!)