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Review : Military Madness for Wii Virtual Console
One of the TurboGrafx-16 games on the Wii VC that I look forward to more than any else was Military Madness. The great thing about TurboGrafx 16 games is that most people never played them in the US so it is almost like they are completely new. This game is a turn based strategy game of a war between armies on the moon and was called Nectaris in Japan. The closest thing on the market today that it resembles is Advance Wars on the DS and GBA. The first Advance Wars game (Famicom Wars) came out in Japan in 1988 while Nectaris was right on it's heels when it hit Japan in 1989 and then the US in 1990.
The flow of combat usually starts with the player slightly out gunned but once you capture numeral factories your numbers will swell to what is needed to defeat the bad guys but sometimes you need to play through a level a couple times until you get it right. The battles are all about concentrating firepower, minimizing risk and just plain luck. There are times that you want to scream foul when the evil lunar fascists carpet bomb your foot soldiers right before they capture the crucial factory but it is still a fun strategy game.
The game can be played with just the Wiimote and the instant game saves helps you put it down when you want to. There was actually a free update to the VC game that had a slightly improved emulator. There was a PSOne 3d remake that this made me want to replay.
It is a deal at 600 Wii points. It is not Starcraft and modern gamers might not be used to turn based strategy games but after first playing it 17 years ago I still find it fun.
Jake at February 27, 2007 
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