And yeah gameplay wise it's similar to Fire Emblem without the RPG elements, instead you focus on strategy elements like getting resources (capturing buildings in this case) and building up your army of disposable units
.
It's made by the same team (Intelligent Systems) that made Fire Emblem but don't expect a lot of story. In the first two games the plot is pretty thin but it's makes up it with Japanese anime type humor/characters, in the last game Advance Wars: Days of Ruin the series took a much more serious tone which killed the game IMO--I prefer the first two DS games, Advance Wars 1 or 2.
You can get Advance Wars in the Eshop for $8.00 which isn't a bad game just a bit dated.
There's been four games released stateside:
Advance Wars (GBA)
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (GBA)
Advance Wars Dual Strike (DS)
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (DS)
And you don't need to play them in order to understand the main plot.