BW1 Bonus 3 No Pause script

Hey guys. MKDH here and yes, I'm doing Bonus Mission 3. This is a no pausing, no casualties, Perfect S-Rank run of this still idiotic level. Having replayed it to check comparison with Rivals AC from Advance Wars 1, I will say that it actually has a redeeming quality--Rivals AC's sole redeeming quality in fact. I still think Bonus Mission 3 is still the worst level in both Battalion Wars, don't get me wrong, but now in my opinion Invasion Farce is just barely edging it out in which is better with the wordless Heavy Tank usage tutorial. Besides, my point is that Battalion Wars' worst level being almost objectively better than Rivals AC, which is now a lot more subjective about whether or not that is the worst level in Advance Wars, is a testament to how well the mechanics of Battalion Wars holds up.

You have all heard my complaints about how the Artillery siege is irksome, how the Bomber is responsible for the big mess that is this level by being basically invincible until the last phase and abuses AI Roulette that has it hound a random Heavy Tank, etc. etc. The sucky thing is, there is nothing new with the first two phases, but the redeeming quality is around in the last phase, and what a surprise it is. But until we get there, I'm going to fill dead-air with some stuff I want to talk about.

I'm planning to stream Goldeneye 007 this weekend because I recall my mother liked James Bond if she was going to watch the yearly marathon of the older James Bond movies. I would be streaming Star Wars Rogue Squadron for the N64 in place, because she did like Star Wars, and I recall her being sold on it by the scene where Luke used a grapple to swing across a chasm with Leia in tow, but I need emulation to play it and streaming Rogue Squadron is awful as it stands, which sucks because I would want to replay Rogue Squadron anyway. It's not like I have any better ideas for doing something in public honor of her, because like I point out, communication between us was bad. I'm not going to lie: both of my parents had their problems that didn't help matters in the least. Still, they were ultimately good people with their hearts in the right place.

That's definitely more than what I can say about the Advance Wars subreddit, since they are just so persistent in harassing me, and of course people, up to and including Wargroove's developers who have proven absolutely shallow, are going to listen to THEM. In the midst of explaining about the latest bit of their nonsense, I end up linking to GipFarce's good old song of Matthew Pyke, the victim of lust-induced murder. This same murder had EagleTheLightning have to travel from Germany to England to be able to stab the guy 86 times. Of course, GipFarce conveniently didn't care about that little detail when it would involve that the inevitable plane ride would eat through EagleTheLightning's funding, which brings me to what I realize from his heinous mockery: the Advance Wars subreddit as a whole has a very, very, VERY bad problem with darwinism.

What makes me sure of that is GipFarce's general attitude in the topic, which I will link to in the description to show just how much of a red flag it was from the start. Think about it: his motive for pulling this entire farce was because he didn't want his channel associated with the murder, even though he wasn't the culprit or anything. His channel was basically involving the Days of Ruin metagame, so by all accounts, he should have been able to deflect the association. What he does instead is to fully blame Matthew Pyke for the actions of a guy who would even travel abroad, across freaking water at that, to pull this nonsense over a case of lust. I will point out that I didn't know Matthew Pyke, and my experiences have shown me how Pyke's girlfriend is far from a saint. It doesn't change EagleTheLightning's actions in the least, and the same applies for GipFarce's ugly, UGLY mockery.

There's also the railroad kid analogy where GipFarce was claiming the kid was a complete idiot. Yeah, good analogy, GipFarce. Hey, while we're at it, let's let that spazz client I have complained get run over by a car or truck because somehow he would deserve it for being an idiot. I'm sure everybody would be happy about that. Oh wait, no, that wouldn't be the case. I can tell you that much. The idiocy happening at all is simply not good to begin with.

You can see how GipFarce subscribes to his flagrant darwinism, no matter who gets hurt by it. Not only that, the Advance Wars subreddit sees fit to follow suit by being brown-nosing sycophants who even approve of the difficulty of levels like Kanbei's Error AC in AW1, even though THAT level is the definition of arbitrary. And of course, people like the Wargroove developers think I'm the one being toxic for daring to call them out for the toxicity the Advance Wars subreddit members spew practically 5 times a day.

Let me tell you something about how stupid it is to not short-leash GipFarce just because of how he's apparently important. There are people who wouldn't be blamed for remarking that being particularly good at something doesn't mean they're any more important in regards to that same something, and that's if the same something deserves the benefit of the doubt. Even if this was outright false, that just means that the adept person would inevitably be a role model. Even if you could claim the Right Makes Might trope is a myth, or heck, even without the notion of responsibility to not abuse power, there's still the meaning of using talent for others, showing game designers how to better streamline the process of level design, and the viewers what doesn't have to be given up to have the same talent. The Advance Wars subreddit members don't want to understand this. Users like Mangs and shadowofchaos725 don't want to understand this. The Serenes Forest forum members don't want to understand this. The vanilla TV Tropes members don't want to understand this. The Kid Icarus Uprising competitive community members don't want to understand this. And the Smash Bros. tourneytrash certainly don't want to understand this.

I'm not going to instantly claim I'm practicing what I'm preaching there as well as I should. I do like to think I'm good enough at Advance Wars and especially Battalion Wars. But finding levels like Rivals AC, Crystal Calamity in Dual Strike, and Bonus Mission 3 as the faulted metrics they are becomes a step in the right direction, something users like Minoru Leonardo and whoisthisgit understand. The Advance Wars subreddit doesn't care, as long as they think to take every opportunity they can to pull Unsportsmanlike Gloating and the like. Even when it keeps crossing a line. I do like to think I contrast them well, but I'm being a braggart with that, which weakens the metric. Granted, at least I care that there's a metric, but it's not like complacency is a good thing.

The short of it is, the brand of darwinism you see happening at places like the Advance Wars subreddit is nothing but a needless plague.

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As for Bonus Mission 3's redeeming quality, you might notice that the manual Fighter 2-rounds each Gunship, and 3-rounds each Bomber. The point of interest is because of how easily the manual Fighter can mince each Gunship quickly enough that sending an AI Fighter to attack it can easily be a waste, it brings to light tactical gameplay brought upon by Battalion Wars' own basic design: the player can choose to either personally duel a targeted enemy and use skill or some such to achieve results, or have other units take care of that target and move onto something else. It provides a surprisingly good arcade feel for this segment. It's surprisingly the same basic thing with Rivals AC, except Bonus Mission 3 doesn't rely on Fog of War to maintain entertainment value, and while the Fighters are basically invincible here too, the standards ceiling is much improved and there's better thought juggling for being efficient with the offense. Seriously, even when I have Battalion Wars overplayed, it still surprises me about how it manages to be good. Sure, I look at its core design and realize that enemy drop healing items allow for maintaining offense that shows its craftiness and they have a timer as incentive to close range combat. Design decisions like these are definitely good, but even that pales in comparison to the worst level in both Battalion Wars making actually good use of the sole redeeming quality of a notorious level now much more subjective about being the worst in the entire Advance Wars series, while actually involving less besswax.

I don't know how Battalion Wars is just a cash-in, but it clearly isn't, and boy would I like to make a Spiritual Successor of it. Now excuse me, I'm going to get to watching Star VS The Forces of Evil's special event The Battle For Mewni. Daron Nefcy, I hope you're not being a simple optimist calling Toffee a Well Intentioned Extremist. ...come to think of it, maybe you aren't after all, surprisingly. If he's actually addressing the sapping of magic in the universe, it would certainly better than the Advance Wars subreddit's darwinistic garbage.