Most similar to Advance Wars:
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis
Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation
Shining Force:Resurrection of the Dark Dragon
Just in general:
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2
Drill Dozer
Golden Sun 1 and 2
Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
Guru Logic Champ
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Zero Mission
Medabots RPG
Klonoa: Empire of Dreams
Very much so (and there’s at least one patient gamers community around, because I’ve posted to one).
The only advantage I can see to playing a game on release is taking part in that first rush of interest, but I’m antisocial enough that that doesn’t appeal to me anyway, so I’m not missing anything there.
Beyond that, I think playing a game at least a year or so after release has all of the advantages. The initial flurry of absolute love vs. absolute hate has died down so it’s easier to get a broad view of the quality, the game is more stable, the price is better, dlc and expansions are out and generally packaged with the game, and best of all, in this current era, I can most likely buy it from GOG and actually have the full game, DRM-free, on my system.
And there are a bajillion good games out there, just waiting for me to discover them.