I’d call it a bad game. I’d call it an awful game!

There are all these ponies that argue that Invisible War was a bad game compared to the original because it was streamlined. And it was streamlined, but it wasn’t a bad game. The core purpose, accomplishing a goal using the play-style of your choice, was still very much intact.

Advance was a bad game because it was streamlined. The whole point of a customizable tactics game isn’t just to accomplish a goal, it’s to do so using your own methods. But Advance severally limited those methods behind race restrictions for no good reason! They rendered key abilities completely useless and disabled incredibly fun character combinations! Nevermind the obnoxiousness of having to have the right equipment to learn the abilities you want.

I’m not going to say the story was awful. It was, but I’m not saying that. I’m not even going to say the judgement system was idiotic, because it could be manipulated to your benefit anyway (making it not only poorly implemented, but also poorly executed). And nevermind that it was mind-numbingly easy.

I’m saying that even if you don’t compare it to the original, the gameplay was overly restricted for no good reason, almost as though the developers wanted to limit your ability to enjoy it.