Players take control of one of two warring nations, Red Star and Blue Moon, as they seek to establish turn-based dominance over each other. After selecting which stage to start the game and setting which, if either, player will be controlled by a person, the Red Star army is given the first turn. The objective in each stage is to either conquer the enemy's headquarters or destroy all remaining enemy units in one turn. During each turn, the player is given a certain amount of funds which can be used to build units in factories, seaports, and airports in their command, as well as cities near their headquarters. Each unit has their own specialty and abilities, with ten land units, four air units, and two sea units. Some units use firepower against the enemy, while others provide support to allies. Only foot soldier units are capable of conquering cities, which are used to repair or refuel damaged units and gain more funds. There are 15 maps available at the start of the game, with two secret ending maps dependent on the player's nation when playing against the computer.
On release, Famicom Tsūshin scored the Famicom version of the game a 33 out of 40. The 1989 "All Soft Catalog" issue of Famicom Tsūshin included Famicom Wars in its list of the best games of all time, giving it the Best Simulation and Best Commercial awards. The original Famicom Wars was followed by a series of sequels which were released only in Japan as well, which includes Game Boy Wars in 1990 and Super Famicom Wars in 1998, both which were developed by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo, as opposed to a sub-series of sequels to the original Game Boy Wars, which were developed and published by Hudson Soft. The series eventually made its international debut with Advance Wars, released for the Game Boy Advancein 2001. The maps from both Famicom Wars and Super Famicom Wars were later included in Advance Wars and its sequels. A group of six soldiers from the game appears in the Wii gameCaptain Rainbow. The soldiers aspire to win the volleyballgold medal.
''Super Famicom Wars''
The fourth game in the series, Super Famicom Wars, features four playable armies. It was available to download to writable Nintendo Power cartridges in May 1998 and released for the Satellaview Super Famicom add-on. The game is available on Nintendo's Japanese Virtual Console for Wii, Wii U, and 3DS platforms. An English-language fan translation was released in 2018.
