Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising

The Campaign mode in Black Hole Rising differs from its predecessor Advance Wars in that the mission selection is non-linear. The campaign takes place over the game's five continents, each focusing on one of the five countries in the game.[6] The player plays as one or more commanding officers of the protagonist nations, fighting against the antagonist of the game, Black Hole. Each continent begins with several missions that the player can select from. Upon meeting certain requirements, new missions may become available.[4] When the regular campaign has been completed, a more difficult Hard Campaign, in the vein of Advance Wars's Advance Campaign, can be unlocked, generally featuring modified maps and starting units.[4]

Completion of a campaign mission or War Room will net the player a rank based on several criteria.[7] When the campaign is completed, the player is given an overall rank, rewarding higher ranks with more unlockable content in the in-game shop.[4]

In this War Room map featuring Pipelines and Missile Silos, the Infantry on the left is launching a missile that will damage all units within the cursor on the right. The Orange Star army also has two of this game's new unit, the Neotank.

Many of Black Hole Rising's additional modes remains unchanged from its predecessor. In War Room Players are put in maps wherein they must defeat enemies who are usually given an advantage at the start. Versus mode allows the players to use either a pre-existing map or a user-created map and set up a game with customized settings. Versus mode can be used to create games played against the computer AI or other players by using hotseat gameplay. Multiplayer games with more than one game console is possible with Link mode, and requires the use of a Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable.[8]

In Design mode, players can edit color palettes for existing commanding officers (after the player has unlocked the palettes) or create their own maps.[7] In the map editor, the size of the map is fixed and the player cannot choose to use any of the new Black Hole buildings introduced in Black Hole Rising. There are also certain rules the player must adhere to in order for the map to be considered playable. Maps created in this mode can be saved on the game cartridge and can be played in multiplayer modes or sent and received to other game cartridges using multiple consoles with a Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable.[4]

Battle Maps remains as the game's shop, allowing players to purchase new content for the game by spending points earned in the other game modes. New content becomes available for purchase as the player progresses in the game. Available content for purchase includes new commanding officers, maps, and palettes to allow players to recolor commanding officers in Design mode.[4]

Black Hole Rising is nearly identical to the previous game in terms of core gameplay; the only additions were to the overall content of the game. Eight new commanding officers join the original game's eleven to make a total of nineteen. Many new maps were added for Versus mode and War Room, although most of the new maps and commanding officers are not available for use at the start of the game, and must be purchased from the in-game shop after certain conditions are met.[4]

Only one new unit, the Neotank, was added to the original set in Advance Wars.[9][10] Two new terrain features were introduced: the Missile Silo and the Pipeline (along with its breakable Pipe Seams).[9] The Missile Silo can be fired by foot troops to deal area of effect damage, and pipelines act as impassable walls. Because of its function as a wall, players can use it to create maps smaller than the default dimension the map editor provides, something that was not possible in the game's predecessor.

Along with the two terrain features, various new special Black Hole buildings were also introduced in Black Hole Rising, although they are only found in the game's campaign. These properties directly affected the gameplay of missions they are found in, creating new objectives for the player such as destroying or capturing one of these special buildings. An example of such a building is the large Black Cannon, which fires on one non-Black Hole unit each turn, dealing damage to it.[9] Destructible properties such as the Black Cannon have "health", represented by a heart icon. When units attack the property, the number decreases; when it reaches zero, the property is destroyed.[4]

One of the key added features of Black Hole Rising over its predecessor is the Super CO Power. The CO Power, introduced in Advance Wars, was a special ability unique to each commanding officer that could be triggered as the commanding officer's CO Meter filled by battle. CO Powers affected the game either by providing benefits for allied units and/or by inflicting negative effects on the enemy's units.[11] Black Hole Rising changed the format of the CO Meter to use small and large stars, although it essentially still functions as a fillable meter. A regular CO Power is still available by filling the small stars, but a more powerful Super CO Power, introduced in Black Hole Rising, can be triggered by filling the large stars as well.[9]

Although a Super CO Power is in many cases better than the normal CO Power, the CO Meter is drained differently depending on which power was activated. While Super CO Power will drain the CO Meter completely, the normal CO Power would leave players with some leftover charge on the CO Meter depending on how much existed before the CO Power. This allows for more strategy than Advance Wars since the player must now decide between using weaker abilities more frequently or greater abilities less frequently.[4]