Front Mission 3

"(Slightly) more fun than a barrel of monkeys"

This is not a game that was made for the masses. No, unlike some recent Final Fantasies which had a whole lotta graphical fluff and cutscenes, this one has menus, menus, and a lack of action. The worst part about this game is that not only is it long, but it has an interface-thingey! Yes, instead of actually moving around towns, you have options on a menu! Too crazy. However, once you see the characters out of their Wanzers you'll be thankful for those interfaces-I'm serious-these character models are like dolls suddenly animated. They move stiffly like toy soldiers...it's just gross. Well, I suppose I've already dabbled a bit into the

-GRAPHICS-
anyways, these are pretty bad-yet passable. When you shoot a tree down in the environment the pixels make me sad. The missiles when shot always look like they're veering to the left. The aformentioned character models are hideous. The game bypasses this with the interface system-which is simply a menu on top of one prerendered screen. However, the game occassionally does use blurring to mask its graphical discrepancies, which deserves some credit. However, the fact that games with much much much better graphics coming out at this time makes this category a 6/10. Now of course, this is me judging the graphics from the time that they were made in. As I write this in the fledgling 2003 if you made a game with graphics like these now you'd be shot, fired, shot again, and then fired again.

-GAMEPLAY-
Basically, you ride around in mechs/wanzers/gears/gundams/whatever and kill bad guys that are in your way. Now this game is a turn based strategy game, which means your characters and the bad guys swap turns moving and fighting each other. Now, there are a few flaws evident in this system from the beginning. First, there are a whole lot of random things that can happen. I'm not sure what the designers were thinking, but you can be stunned, confused, or ejected randomly. Of course, there are abilities that let you channel this-for example a certain Stun Punch will perform a melee attack that will stun the enemy. However, these special abilities are also random, so you never truly know when you'll get one. This reduces the elements of strategy in this game to slight preparation (you can put more of the same ability in your wanzers computer to increase the frequency of desired ability...it's complicated) and luck. Now, Two- each wanzer consists of four seperate parts-body, left arm, right arm, and legs. If the body is destroyed, the wanzer won't function. If the legs are ruined, the wanzer can only move one space at a time-a bit silly, you'd think it wouldn't be able to move at all-and if you can shoot the arms off the wanzer can't do any damage to you. But you can't control where your wanzer will hit, so once again, strategy elements are reduced to luck/complete obliteration of your opponent. And third, a minor qualm of mine, how do the pilots survive their wanzers getting destroyed? You see the thing exploding-yet they're back the next battle IN THE SAME MACHINE. Oh well. That was a minor niggle.
Now despite all those negatives, there are some positives. It still is a fairly good battle system, with some stylish battle animations and so on. Also, there are is a lot of environmental interaction, for example trees and walls you can take out to get a better shot off, things that can be exploded to harm your opponents. There is uphill advantage, which is nice.
That said, your characters only get in battles generally after you've had to interface for a while-which is extremely boring seeing as there is only text to read and one background to look at. If you ask me, once this game gets to China (I guess Square thought they masked it well enough with a name like People's Republic of Da Han Zhong) it really slows down. Basically, in China you go around helping the Hua Lian rebels, gathering reconnaissance, and falling into traps (like every other mission is a trap). The constant traps evaded by the characters along with the sob-story backgrounds of some NPCs is enough to make you put this one down. I can only think of a few games where I ever wanted to do that. Overall, a mixed bag. 8/10. Text interfacing isn't that fun, and if I wanted to read I'd get a book. But the wanzer battles are nice if lacking in any semblance of strategy.

-STORY-
Hmmm, starts out okay-oh wait, no, it really doesn't. ''You know too much'' should have tipped me off to the borefest that is the story, but I thought, hey-give it a fair chance right? Well it didn't do too much with that chance I gave it. The story is alright when your company is trying to find Midas-simply because the pacing keeps you from getting bored. But once you get to China-ooooog. Then the game falls back on hideous stereotypes that are present from the beginning of the game.
The characters are stale and uninteresting. Unfortunately you have to sit through each of their own tragic backgrounds that have drastically altered their futures and shaped them to be the dull, mundane people that they are right now. Or Some, like Ryogo, are simply mindless comic relief and filling the ladies' man role that is overdone in way too many games today (Irvine, Zidane, and their spawn). Others, like Kazuki (the main character) are trying to show emotion but because of either the bad writing or the lack of a character model come off as ridiculously one minded-an example if you will-
USN Commander:We'll hit the DHZ fleet at the Phillipines in 1200 hours. Any Questions?
Kazuki:WHAT ABOUT MY SISTER!
Then someone will tell Kazuki he has to calm down, and he'll agree, but still be worried about his ''sister''. Kazuki says ''What about my sister'' many a time and you'll be wanting to tell the whiny nancy boy of a protagonist to shut it before the end of the game. Worse than these uninteresting characters are the NPCs you meet who fade into the background after a 2 minute introduction sequence. And even WORSE than that are the NPCs whose pasts resemble those of one of the characters-then of course the character they can relate to will tell them to shape up and deliver a preachy lesson. Wow. Captivating. Unfortunately, as the game progresses it falls back on more cliches (i.e. are genetically engineered people human and so on) which just makes the whole experience worse. When the pacing slows down in China, the whole game takes a nose dive as you have more time to listen to characters, more time for people to randomly join your party *cough cough Moneymaker cough*, and unfortunately more time for you to notice flaws in the other aspects of this game. The game does get better at the end, but ever so slightly; an appropriate metaphor for the end of the game could be a sandbag trying to hold back a flooding river. Too little, too late. Story is terrible, unless you've been living under a rock and this is the first time you've seen the 'you know too much' cliche in effect. 5/10

-SOUND/AUDIO-The mechs all sound the same, which is okay but I would have liked to hear some different sounds as there ARE different sized wanzer feet. The gunshots sound great, as do the explosions and so on. The music is pretty good. I like some tunes. Then again, they haven't done anything really remarkable in either the sound or music department. This is arguably where the game is most sound. 8.5/10

-REPLAY VALUE-There are actually 2 different 'versions' of the game depending on what you do in the beginning of the game. I wouldn't want to play this one again though.

-OVERALL-A 7/10. Mediocre graphics, terrible story, pretty good gameplay, and above-average sound and music. The game is linear, I felt that the text interface system was a bit of a cop-out on Square's part to design towns, and the battle system is decidedly lacking in any real semblance of strategy save the basic ''Hit them first and take high ground''. Oh yeah sometimes you'll need to heal.
But I do think I'm being a bit hard on this one. I think part of it had to be my expectations coming into the whole thing. I had found games mainstream people seemed to forget in Final Fantasy Tactics, Xenogears, and Suikoden 2. Of course, most any game would be overshadowed by those 3 greats but still-what I found in FM3 was evidence why the other two FM's had stayed in Japan. Too slow to be palatable (true for the mainstream but even I got bored) and the graphics are plain. The battle system appeared to be the main selling point, yet it looked like it needed some work. This game gets a 7 because I am a big dorky fan of mechs and their ilk, the battle system was alright, and the music was strong. I recommend, however, that you rent this one to see if you can stomach the slow pace of the whole thing. A buy for veteran RPG goers, that will, if nothing else, give you a good (if slightly boring) time.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/02/03, Updated 02/02/03