Desert Ashes is a poorly executed knock-off of Advance Wars. Except, instead of commanding identifiable tanks, ships, and planes, each unit type is an obscure creature. Trying to learn what each obscurity actually does is the only challenge this game has to offer. The fact that it actually required the combined efforts of four artists (according to the in-game credits) to design these graphics is, in all honesty, extremely sad. The only aspect that was surprising, in terms of quality, was the music -- which was so well done, it seemed completely out-of-place in this game. Unfortunately, since each track played continuously throughout a level as a relatively short loop, even that quickly became annoying.