"Big mechs fighting one another..... What could go wrong?!"

Front Mission is another series that Squaresoft (Now Square Enix) makes, apart from the ever popular Final Fantasy series. Being a fan of Squaresoft and having played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, which I liked, I decided to purchase this game to be added to my collection. This game surprised me, in many ways. Let me tell you how.

It's the Year 20XX…..

Front Mission takes place in the not-so-distant future where ‘wanzers'(pronounced ‘vanzers') are used as weapons of war. The politics of the world is also different in this modern era, where the UCS(United Confederate States of North and South America) and the EC(Europe Council) exist as nations.

A sudden attack on Germany by unidentified wanzers lead to an investigation by the Durandal, a special unit that specializes in wanzer battle tactics. Here you play as Elsa, a lady from the French Army that has just been transferred to the Durandal and is helping to identify the enemies. From this angle, you play to uncover who the enemy really is and follow a trail of political and economical clues.

Halfway around the globe, however a war is going on then Venezuela declares independence from the UCS, causing a war to happen. From this point of view, you play Darril, a lazy UCS soldier who has stumbled upon millions of gold and is trying to desert the army.

Both storylines will soon converge, but the way the story goes is pretty solid. The Germany angle is pretty neat, while the South America part isn't that serious, and more on the humorous side. However, both storylines are told perfectly. Of course this is expected from Square Enix, one of the best RPG creators around.

Whoa! Look at the beautiful intro!

Don't let the intro fool ya. This is a turn-based tactical RPG, which means that everything really goes at a snail's pace. You navigate through hundreds of menus, selecting gear and assigning skills to each pilot at the pre-battle menu. You can do various things, from changing wanzer parts, weapons, and even the colour and patterns on them. Everything here has a function, well except for the colouring. You basically try to find a balance between health and firepower while keeping the weight of all the equipment under the wanzers power. After getting everything ready, you go off into battle.

Battle is turn-based. Your turn. You select a unit, move it across the battlefield based on it's stats, then if you're in range, attack the enemy. This is mostly like tossing s dice, with the CPU choosing the damage the enemy will receive after some number crunching. After you've done that, it's the enemy's turn. Basically it keeps repeating itself till either you've killed them all or they've killed you. It's a little repetitive and boring to people who aren't used to this game genre. As the battles continue they get harder and harder, but the objective is mostly the same. Kill everything that moves on the map, with extreme prejudice. That's all.

After the battle, you enter the story mode. Story mode is pretty much like the battle mode, except without the battles. Lines after lines of dialogue are shown at the bottom of the screen with the portrait of the speaker right beside it. There are also pictures on the screen, but mostly they are non-animated and pretty dull.

Look at the pretty wanzers…

Graphic wise, the jury's still out on it. The details on the wanzers are pretty good, each part of the body looking very distinct and different from one another. Other units such as the various tanks and helicopters also look pretty good. I wish I could say the same thing about the backgrounds. They look a little generic, but is passable. I think that with the power of the PS2, the graphics would have been a little sharper, but I guess that'll be rectified in Front Mission 5.

The story mode graphics, however really stink. Like I said earlier, the pictures in the story mode are static, mostly showing the background or something like that. I would have preferred the screen having some movements apart from the lines and lines of dialogue that I have to scroll down. The portraits of the wanzer pilots are pretty well drawn, each pilot having several portraits to show the various expressions. But is it be or does Beck look like Silvester Stallone. Maybe it's just me….. Although the portraits are good, having something like the 3d portraits like the ones used during the codec sequences of MGS2 would be even better, IMHO.

Sound wise, the game's pretty good. Machine guns and shotguns rattle like they do in real life, although I doubt that a machine gun the size of a car exists. Each weapon has a nice distinctive sound to them, and the sound of lead tearing chunks of metal off enemy wanzers is satisfying no matter how many times you listen to it.

Let's do this again…

You will replay certain missions several times. Trust me on this one. Mostly it's when a member of your team dies, either by plain dumb luck or a serious setback in your strategies. A destroyed wanzer means that the bonus cash you receive will be deducted to pay for the repairs and stuff. And sometimes you just play it again to test out a new strategy or wanzer set-up. For example, I tried a head on approach on a certain level and got about half of my forces decimated at once. Replaying the mission, I realised that by flanking the enemy from both sides with my snipers and luring them into a crossfire zone, I practically creamed them without suffering major damage to any of my units.

Replaying missions will also allow you to try on different wanzers for a change. Experimenting with the wanzer setup is a little fun, since you get to see if carrying two machine guns are better than wielding a bazooka.(It is.) However, after winning the game I see little reason to replay it, since you've already known most of the storyline. This doesn't mean that it isn't worth your money. There are many levels, and with most of them taking from 30 minutes to a whole hour to complete, you know you'll be playing this for a long time.

Mission debriefing

Front Mission 4 is a pretty solid game in the turn-based tactical RPG genre. Fans of such games would be thrilled playing this game. However, for the casual gamer, navigating through the menus and its ‘trial and error' nature may piss them off. I suggest that you rent it first to get the feel of the game before deciding if you really want to buy it. However, if you do you'll be in for hours of playing this game to complete it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/20/04