Front Mission 4

"Front Mission Back to its Roots"

With Front Mission 4, Square successfully brings the game back to its origins. This review is written largely as a counterpoint to IGN's own awful review of the game, but it is also written by a loving fan of the series.

Graphics 7/10
Not really anything to write home about. The textures and wanzer (mech) design leave something to be desires. However, in my opinion, this "simplistic" look makes the game load much quicker. When contemplating over the top graphics, it's nice to see that they made adjustments and maybe sacrificed higher resolutions to insure that the game would load quickly (this is in comparison to FM2). That is not to say the wanzers or their armament look shoddy. In addition, Front Mission 4 has a great deal of wanzers in any particular mission, so in order to make the game fast loading, with a high quantity of wanzers, something had to be sacrificed.

Sound 8/10
Voice acting was surprisingly good. Sure, some of the accents may have seemed a bit cliche or forced (at times), but without a doubt, the voice actors kept the atmosphere in tact. The game feels like a military operation and the characters all sound appropriate. I'm pretty sensitive to voice acting, and I didn't really cringe a single time yet while playing the game. Sounds such as explosions, gunfire and wanzer movements were well done and as expected.

Music 9.5/10
A very, very well done music score. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and range of the composition. From standard military themes, to emotional and up beat pieces, a lot of the music kept the action going for me. In a way, the score reminded me of Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies, which is good, since it captures that whole "military feel" once again.

Story 7.5/10
A few parts of the story are a bit difficult to believe. Sometimes circumstantial evidence is used, and there seems to be a disregard for political climate in some situations. Unlike IGN or some other people, I do not have problems suspending my belief over some of the other elements such as the gold. There are many twists and turns within the story. I have yet to complete the game yet, but I will refrain from spoiling any surprises I have found. The story is largely told either through dialogue cutscenes, or text sequences played out through interaction via the menus between missions. This is back to the original Front Mission style, and gives the game a bit of a (Japanese) adventure game feel.

Gameplay 8.5/10
Unlike Final Fantasy Tactics, Front Mission 4 is a Strategy game. To clarify further, it is a Turn Based Strategy Game. Undoubtedly, many people will be basing their experiences from such games as Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and the like, which have strong RPG elements. Front Mission 4, however, has greater emphasis on figuring out how to do the most damage you can do, according to the rules of a particular setup, instead of just powering your characters to the max and blasting your way through. If you've played Disgaea or La Pucelle, you'll understand what I mean by figuring how to deal the most damage with what's given to you on a particular map. In this way, the game features some light puzzle elements, as any good strategy game should have. Missions should never take more than 30 turns, unless you have completely the wrong set up. In addition, it is possible to make things go faster by speeding up movement time (holding X, or hitting start and changing default movement to "fast") and skipping battle sequences (hitting O at any time, once a battle cutscene has initiated). Equipping wanzers and pilots could have been handled better. I would have preferred to see all shop and wanzer equip done in a similar screen to streamline wanzer customization. It can be annoying trying to remember if you've bought a part already and have unequipped it from another wanzer. The same goes for Pilot Customization/computer set up. If these areas were consolidated, I would be much happier with the gameplay. Load times, btw, are nice and quick.

Overall, I'd like to give the game an 8.5, but since I can't, 8 will do.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/22/04