LogFAQs > #963296775

Yes, "tone" would be a better word for what Lightning Strikes means. The complaint is that Advance Wars portrays war as this cute and fun kid-friendly activity when it's actually really horrifying in real life. In the first game the characters basically think of war the same way that people in Yu-Gi-Oh! think of card games, especially in that one mission where Andy and Eagle decide to have a friendly scrap after Sturm has already been defeated. The second one and Dual Strike dial that back almost completely though.

Personally though, I don't really agree that much. If we are going to indulge in this kind of killjoy attitude toward video games about war, I think the way that Advance Wars games make it clear that they have a cartoonish detachment from reality is preferable to something like Call of Duty that shows a (comparatively) much more grounded idea of war and still ends up portraying it as a fun activity for adolescent boys through its game mechanics.