1 bugs vs. tanks! - becoming sergeant for first mission fleeing giant ants

Dear Readers,

Bugs vs. Tanks! is one of those 3DS games that had special curation and collaboration between famous Japanese game developers. It was part of a Level 5 production called the Guild series and this one was from the second compilation and was designed by Keiji Inafune. It's been sitting on my 3DS for a long time now and I wanted to finally try it out.

The game opens with a cutscene with voiced German dialogue and English subtitles talking about the disappearance of tanks during World War II. They were regarded as destroyed but they were actually shrunk down to ant size. During this cutscene a tank drives across the newspaper page with one of the crew saying they made the headlines! Then they get chased by ants.

I start the game and am addressed as a sergeant. I'm prompted for a name and a difficulty setting. I choose "Easy". I choose "Automatic" for tank fire, turn on StreetPass settings for all they're worth nowadays and leave the default message on.

There's a collection for documenting tanks, bugs and medals, which is kinda nice.

After looking around the menus for a bit I start a mission, titled "LV 1-01 Tutorial1 Operation: Shrewd Retreat"

In this mission I have to learn controls with the help of two guys named Joachim and Ernst. We're out of ammo so I have to make a retreat while learning controls and also about stuff on the bottom screen like a radar map thingy.

We were pretty surrounded and had a lot of bugs to escape from. With a bit of manoeuvring we got to safety and some tanks led by someone named Kremmel came to our rescue, and that was the mission! There's a kill score, a time score and a Pacifist Bonus. Probably lots of other stuff too in later missions.

The 3D effect is nice enough and is nicest when the dialogue box pops out from the action, like most games.

Lieutenant Kremmel gave out to us for being crybabies. Ernst thanks him for saving us but under his breath, calls him an a-hole. I wasn't expecting that, haha.

We discussed suddenly being shrunk and assumed it was from a new weapon the Allies were using. We had to join up with Kremmel and refuel and reload ammo.

I wonder if "Bugs vs. Nazis" was a working title at any stage. I wasn't expecting to be playing as them and nothing was really said about them. It was just presented as being well... bugs versus tanks!