TINY METAL: FULL METAL RUMBLE Reviews

This turn based strategy works for me. It follows a lot of its gameplay mechanics straight out of the battle isle series handbook. That to me a massive win. The graphics are great, it has a storyline (which I dont care for but its there) and for the most part, its a pretty flowing game. The UI is very fiddly mind. Rather than selecting squares, your cursor is the square. This was obviously thought out more for the console and mobile market which is a real bug bear on a pc. forget wasd for moving the camera! But the game is forgiving when you make mistakes. Simply right clicking brings the unit back to the start of its turn. Overall, its a really polished game. Looks great and borrows games that worked mechanics. Shame about the buggy viewing controls but I've managed to live with it and will likely buy the expansions for it.

I enjoyed this game as a pseudo Advance Wars successor. It scratched the itch of wanting to play a game where you needed to strategize how you would best get your income (do you rush to grab cities ahead of your tanks? Do you try to take one side of the map over before moving over?) or how you win (do you try to capture the enemy HQ or just eliminate all of their units?). I appreciate needing to buy units and that every replay could be a different attempt at what could work, and I really love being able to have multiple units "lock on" to an enemy before having one of them launch the attack so that everybody (even units that would be weak against it -- i.e. an infantry against a tank) can get experience points and level up. I did miss having naval units, but I really liked the addition of the "Mecha" units. Two of my gripes with the game fall onto the commanders. One is that the commanders don't make a HUGE difference depending on who you choose with their abilities. Second is that you (and the enemy) get your commander powers really fast. On some levels where I was putting in a lot of hits on enemy units in one turn, the enemy commander would get their max power literally ONE TURN after having used it. In a game like Advance Wars, I felt like my power was really earned and that using it would turn the tide after a couple of turns of struggling. This was basically every other turn of me or the AI launching our abilities -- and it kind of lost its luster. Overall I beat the main campaign in about 24-ish hours, and was worth it just to have the gameplay remind me of the Advance Wars games I long for...

Ultimately, Tiny Metal fails to aspire to anything more than the decades-old title it rips off wholesale. While not being a bad game exactly, as a tactics game it pales in comparison to most modern options and really only serves to show off the limitations of Advance Wars' mechanics. Every missions boils down to an exercise in macro, spamming out Riflemen to overwhelm the poor AI. The attempt at balancing this appears to be the ridiculous charge rate for their Super Power which results in the Enemy using it's ultimate power every turn, allowing it to largely disregard the rock-paper-scissors system the game is built around. TLDR: Too easy to be satisfying, too frustrating to be a fun stomp. Nostalgic, but very dated. Also terrible writing.

Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble is the sequel to a game I never played, but is one of the heirs of the Advance Wars name released in 2019 along with Wargroove. Though I had my share of problems with Wargroove, I still found it an overall enjoyable experience with some gripes here and there. I expected the same from FMR, and the end result is a game that has many things about AW it does right but is also plagued with issues that render the product decent at best. Pros: One of my issues with Wargroove on release was the slow speed of animations and development, which, along with the sheer size of certain maps, made gameplay grueling and sometimes downright boring when it came to routing enemy forces that were clearly beaten. When set to the faster speeds, Tiny Metal does not have this problem and in this regard the gameplay is enjoyable. The art style is simplistic but not unpleasant to look at. The campaign is almost forty missions long, with the Will of the Shogun DLC adding almost twenty new ones. Add in a Versus mode with its own set of around a hundred maps, and you've got enough content in there to last you a while. There's no custom maps in this like there is in Wargroove or AW, which is unfortunate, but there's still plenty in there to sate players. Certain changes to the AW formula are well-done, in my opinion. Changing the capture points required for HQs from 20 to 25 is a subtle but very nice change that prevents one-turn captures from Wolfram (the infantry specialist, à la Sami from AW). The mech units can actually use their rocket launchers on air units this time around instead of being stuck with their machine guns, which means they are a valid defense against battle copters. The anti-air ranged unit, the Viper, can attack on the same turn it moves, as well as being very cheap (400 funds!), which helps out a unit that got absolutely rocked in the AW games. New unit types, like the Spec Op, which is a stronger infantry with more movement, and Mechas, which are sturdy anti-infantry and anti-copter units that move on mountain as easily as they do on plains, are welcome additions to the roster. Commanding officers in Tiny Metal aren't as completely busted and game-changing as they were in Advance Wars, but their abilities are much more important than in Wargroove. One CO gives her infantry passive movement and attack boosts, while another gets reduced costs on his tanks at the cost of his infantry damage, or a slight boost in critical hit chance for all their units. While some are definitely stronger than others (the aforementioned infantry specialist might be the best CO in the game) and some characters fill the same niche (Nathan and Danté are both tank experts?) they were fun to mess around with, though it's hard to compete against the better COs when they have no downsides. Cons: Playing on Normal, Hard or Master difficulty turns on Fog of War on all maps. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem: the Radar units actually serve a purpose, you get to use forests and mountains to their full effect, etc. But the big problem with Tiny Metal's FoW is that it also hides THE TERRAIN from you. If you go into a new map blind, you'll have no idea whether you're walking into a dead, a bunch of mountains, or into the enemy base. While yes, you can simply load the map on Easy difficulty to scout out the terrain, and then reload on a harder difficulty, it makes tedious when it'd be a much more enjoyable experience with being able to actually plan your movement. I mentioned that the campaign was 40 missions long, and the problem I have with that is that by mission 15, the game has run out of new units or new gimmicks to introduce. I kept waiting for transport copters or naval units to show up, but neither of those ever did. Furthermore, you spend at least 3/5ths of the main campaign on the same snow tileset before switching to desert maps that restrain your infantry movement (making Wolfram even stronger compared to her fellow COs!). There's maybe five maps in total that use the green tileset. Map design is also not the campaign's strong point, as most maps are 1v1s against the AI with a slight edge in predeployed units, or your two predeployed forces ready to jump at each other's throats. The second half of the game can be basically summed up as 1) Pick Wolfram 2) Rush the enemy HQ, simply because the AI doesn't know how to defend itself. This isn't new to the Advance Wars genre, but it's a shame that we have almost twenty years of knowledge of the genre and we still can't come up with halfway decent maps. Another gripe I have with the campaign is that you only get to rotate between 3 COs (Nathan, Wolfram and Nora) with a 4th (Victoria) joining about halfway through, and you get to use either Ragnar (Eagle) or Tsukumo (Kanbei) once or twice over the entire campaign. I know AW1 only had three playable COs for the entire campaign, final mission being the exception, but it's sad to see at least 4 other COs sitting unused in the Versus mode. I understand they were characters from the first game, but is it that hard to just bring them back for variety's sake? The enemy CO, meanwhile, doesn't change. Ever. You will fight against Dinoldan Soldier for the first map until the last map, and you will like it. He doesn't even have a personality to speak of, he's just a faceless mook. I was expecting a Sturm-esque reveal near the final chapters, but there never was one. The DLC isn't any better, as the Dinoldan soldier gets replaced by a Sentinel of the Dawn soldier, who is just as boring and uninspired. I mentioned that the units got tinkered to help the game balance, but in other areas the game completely falls flat on its face. Bombers now cost 2100$, making them 33% more expensive than the next most expensive unit in the game, and by the time you can build one, you've already won. Battle copters are now targetable by more units and frailer as a result, but they had their cost reduced to 600$, making them even easier to spam, ESPECIALLY with Victoria, who gets them for 25% cheaper (this means she can get 3 battle copters for the price of 2 tanks, a VERY good deal). Hero units are also busted: these are units that carry over their experience from map to map in the campaign and that you can deploy if you capture a specific building. Of course, since you can deploy them anywhere on the map, it becomes trivial to deploy a rank 15 battle copter straight to your front lines to instantly turn the tide of battle. There's even an infantry hero, just in case you wanted to sneak behind the enemy lines and capture their HQ. The game's also got a certain number of bugs, like achievements not unlocking, graphical glitches on particular missions or the UI not showing up forcing you to reload the map. It's not gamebreaking, but it is pretty annoying when it happened, which was pretty common in my 14 hours of play. Overall, it's not a bad game. I enjoyed most of my time with it, though by the end I definitely found the missions repetitive and uninspired. I'll most certainly go back and clear some of the versus maps and toy with the COs I couldn't use in the campaign. Some changes to AW are improvements and ones I greatly enjoy, especially the Lock-On mechanic which has your units gang up on an enemy unit, but the lack of naval units, transport copters and an anti-air tank left me wanting. I also found hero units to feel out of place in an AW game, as you can absolutely do campaign missions over and over to get Jean-Michel Falcon to max rank and trivialize everything else. I'm giving it a thumbs up, but there are some big problems with it and I don't expect just anybody to enjoy it. Advance Wars fans looking for a similar game will most likely enjoy this, though you shouldn't expect it to be as good a product. If there ever is a Tiny Metal 3, I will keep my eye on it, but until then, you can catch me replaying the AW2 War Room.

**UPDATE 27/07/2019 - Additions will be added with an asterisk and date** Don't let the downvote fool you. I'm going to continue playing this game and my opinion will likely change further down the line but there are a couple of issues that could be a deal breaker for other Advance Wars fans. Lets start off with the good: -Riflemen (Infantry) as far as I can tell remain useful throughout the match as they have a high capture rate and are extremely cheap *(25/07/2019) [strike] highest capture rate of all other infantry units.(There are two other infantry units that I haven't used yet, Spec-Ops and Sniper.[/strike] My Metalpedia hasn't gotten into them yet but I'll get into that later.) -Lancers (Mechs) are not overpowered compared to regular Infantry. They deal reduced damage to other Infantry units while maintaining their powerful first strike against vehicles and deal decent damage against helicopters. Lancers have an increased capture time due to having fewer people in a unit. -*(25/07/2019) Spec Ops (also Mechs) are pretty much the other half to create Mechanized if you combine them Lancers. Spec Ops are extremely effective to other infantry units while very weak to just about all vehicles. They have the same capture time as Riflemen with increased movement however the true balancing factor comes from their cost being eight times that of their more conventional counterparts. To put it in perspective, a Metal is cheaper than these guys. -*(25/07/2019) Snipers function very similarly as the Anti- Tank unit did in Days of Ruin, meaning a direct/ indirect fire unit. Snipers can fire after moving, have a higher vision range than other infantry units, and have a surprisingly high defense against them as well. Do NOT attack these guys with any infantry unit, they will be decimated by the counter-attack. That said, Snipers have no defense against vehicles, they literally cannot fight back except against Gunships for some reason. Snipers have the longest capture time with only two personnel in each unit. -Scouts (as themselves) are a surprisingly useful combat unit now. Infantry units just seem to melt under them. -Archelon (APC) are armed now. While the gun doesn't seem to do much, with one exception, it is nice that my APC wall can defend itself somewhat. That said, the Archelon is surprisingly effective against Gunships. Archelons do not resupply all units around them at the beginning of a day and have to be told to resupply only the [strike] land [/strike] unit in front of it. This reduces some camping cheese.[strike] Archelons are not able to resupply air units.[/strike] -Fighters (as themselves) can now attack all units though not very effectively. We're talking dealing 2% damage to Riflemen on a road here. Still, it's nice to have the option however this will go over to one of the bad points later. -SupplyPlanes (no unit in AW) pretty do as their name suggests; they supply planes... [strike]well air units.[/strike] Think a flying Archelon that can't transport units (this will come up in the bad as well.) *(25/07/2019) SupplyPlanes can supply all units, thank you comments. -Lock-on/ Focus fire is a fantastic addition that lets you punish your foe after they let their units get surrounded. And if said unit has the poor grace to survive the onslaught, they can only target the last unit that struck them. -Assault is another great command that that lets you force a unit off a tile the one behind it (relative to the attacker) if its able to move there. However, the attacking unit has to endure their counter-attack first before the assault begins. The bad in no particular order: -Movement types seem overly simplified. There is no difference between a Scouts movement and a Metals (Tank), only that one can move further. -No river crossings for infantry units... well, no rivers at all. -Radars (and Phase Arrays) are seemingly useless. In theory, they can detect units outside of your sight range, however, its not clear if the Radars see in a line, cone, or radius or if terrain can block it. Just give us a sort of ranging overlay when we select those units, please. -Air unit selection has been severely reduced. No more T. Copters, Bombers, Seaplanes, etc. Maybe this is why the Fighter can attack everything now? -No navy what so ever. Really, nearly a third of possible units and strategy is just straight up missing. -Only one transport unit. No more risky deep inserts with T. Copters and no island hopping maps that would require landers. -The unit voice acting is mostly just bad, the Scout being a prime example. It sounds like she's trying to yell while maintaining an inside voice so she doesn't wake up her folks or something. The Radar should also be mentioned for having the most nonsensical lines as she is apparently a pacifist that joined an ARMED and ACTIVE military force. It's also very odd to hear a Rifleman talk about freeing his country or fighting for his king when he works for a sort of independent PMC. This goes into my next point. -No unit variation. There are at least four or five playable factions in the game and every single one of their units looks the same. Same Riflemen, same Metals, same mecha. I'm sure the King is proud that his men are pulling double duty to work for some Not- Japanese as well. -I'm not sure if its because the main AI force you fight in the campaign has an extremely overpowered passive ability (they do, more on that in a bit) or if it's just straight up cheating but there have been points where I've had units attacked that there is no way it should have been able to see. Sometimes it'll just park next to a forest tile one of my units is hiding in and unload into them. They don't have another unit next to mine, they certainly don't have a Radar nearby, and the weird thing is, its not consistent. Sometimes they make a beeline to the hiding unit, sometimes they ignore it when they have the forces to deal with it. -Most COs have absolutely no downside. Only half of the playable COs have some sort of passive downside while the other half only have upsides. The only one I would call completely overpowered CO I can see is Dinoladn Soldier with an extra 2 vision for all units (does that nullify the need to be right next to a forest to see into it?), 15 extra fuel, and 5% increase to attack power. Wolfram, one of the first playable COs, only gets a plus 1 vision and movement to infantry... and no downside. -Mechanica seem to make other vehicle units superfluous. Yes, they are more expensive but you have a mech that pretty much covers whatever you need and with greater mobility (as in, they can cross hills and forests like infantry units) -The metalpedia is severely lacking in information that it provides on units. It doesn't give how far it can move, see, or what units its good against. It only states what a units movement type is (infantry, vehicle, mech, air) and a short lore blurb about it. It also doesn't tell you about units you haven't used yet in the campaign, hence why I can't talk about the two other infantry units and most of the mechs. -No map editor/ creator. While I can't say most of my own or friend made maps in AW were all that good, we still had countless hours of fun playing them. I fear that this game will have a much shorter lifespan without these tools. There are likely points that I missed and some that will crop up as I continue playing. I wouldn't classify this in the same camp as Advance Wars, it's more of an AW lite. Still, despite the down vote I'm giving, I'm going to continue playing. And if the above issues don't bother you, give the game a buy. But if you're looking for something a bit closer to the real thing à la AW: Days of Ruin, there is a better game for you out there on the storefront (tho it has its own issues as well.)

I loved Advance Wars and was hoping this would tide me over, unfortunately I was wrong. While similar in many ways there are a number of shortcomings that push me away from this game every time I try and get into it. As others have mentioned the AI is unbalanced or at least appears that way. Get into a 1v1 infantry skirmish where neither commander is an infrantry specialist and both units are on the same tile type, guess what the AI will often win those regardless of who attacks first. The controls feel like they are designed for a tablet/touchscreen and it becomes cumbersome. Constant screen dragging/finessing required. The hero unit/insta-lose mechanic is a major handicap when playing. A number of the campaign maps are heavily tilted in favor of the CPU and if you don't blitz them you are in for frustration. All in all the game needs refinement or at least more customization to make non-campaign play fun.

This game is mad Fun! I played it soild for like 2 mo. this summer but then I got the Fatal Milk error and my game hasn't worked since then. Ive looked online in forums and I've also reached out to the game studio but nothing! I'm not sure if the port from Switch to PC has something to do with it But I'd hold off on buing this for PC atm!

If you liked the last Tiny metal and wished it was more like old school advance wars, this games fills on all the missing supply chain tactics and troop transport perfectly. Still lacks a maritime part but it's excellent overall!

Huge improvement over the first game. Has a lot of new mechanics and units that bring it more closely in line with Advance Wars including co powers / abilities, merging units for combined HP, a skirmish's and map packs, etc. Half the price of the first game and significantly more content.

I want to love this game. It's a spiritual successor to the incredible Advance Wars series, but you know how that game always boiled down to stalemates? Tiny Metal gives you the "Assault" command which, at some risk, lets you force an enemy unit to take a step back. The stalemates literally disappear just because of this command. But there are just too many drawbacks to recommend this game. -Unstable. I have 9 hours of gameplay as of this writing. One hour of that was spent trying to resolve a crash that ended up costing all of my campaign progress. There have been multiple other reproduceable crashes over the course of the remaining 8 hours. -The COs are generally pretty lame and there's a lot of design overlap. You have two tank experts, two Kanbeis, two Colins, and then like 5 other commanders with one unit specialty each. Advance Wars had some creativity - enhanced artillery range, bonus damage based on defense buffs, increased repair rate, and many more. Meanwhile, Tiny Metal has a character who... has bonus defense on all units, and cheaper helicopters. Her super ability? 5% bonus damage on all units. FIVE. PERCENT. -Some utterly gobsmacking design decisions. There's a skirmish mode where you fight AI players on pre-set maps... but there is a _limited pool of selectable COs for each map._ There is literally no way to just play a commander of your choice on a map of your choice against an AI opponent. Also, I hope your game save doesn't get corrupted, because there is no way to abandon a game in progress to go back to the campaign map. If something goes wrong with a saved game for any reason - say, it crashes on load - you just lose your campaign. -In some campaign maps, you get hero units. If any of them die you lose instantly. The enemy CO in these maps has an enhanced crit chance that can lead to ludicrous damage, to the point of one-shotting your stuff in matchups that should be unfavorable. Guess what ends up happening sometimes? Every problem I have with the game is 100% fixable. Hell, a lot of it could just be patched (free DLC COs? interface tweaks?), and then you'd have an Advance Wars game better than any Nintendo ever made. But the game has been out for a while and these issues are still present, so... sucks to suck, I suppose.