Front Mission 3

"Quite possibly the longest game I've ever played!!"

Having heard about another SRPG( Strategy Role Playing Game ) from Squaresoft and having loved Final Fantasy Tactics, I became very excited when I first heard about this game! As soon as it came out I immediately went to Best Buy to pick it up. When I got home and popped it in, I played for about two hours and was horribly dissapointed by the boring first battles and storyline. Luckily, I stuck with it for another day and I was pleasantly surprised afterwards. So when playing this game, keep in mind that you have to give Front Mission 3 a chance before judging it too harshly.

Graphics: 5
As you can tell by my score, the graphics in Front Mission 3 are nothing to write home about. They are very dark and grainy and there is also a great deal of choppiness when the camera is shifting or when there's a lot of action on screen. I'm very shocked by these poor visuals considering Square has built quite a reputation of having incredible graphics contained within their games. Despite the poor in game graphics, the game has wonderful FMVs which are nearly on par with FFVIII's. Poor graphics, jaw-dropping FMVs.

Gameplay: 9
If you liked Final Fantasy Tactic's battle system, you'll love Front Mission 3's. The first few battles suck, but you eventually begin to love the strategy-filled fifteen minute battles. I also like the ranking system in which you get payed after every battle. The real meat of this game though, is the fact that you have full customization over your mech ( or wanzer as they call it ). You can choose the weapon, the parts of it's body, even the color and the name. You can also steal enemy vessels which is easily the coolest part of this game. The story and the characters are also decent as well!

Sound: 6
The sound, just like the graphics, is nothing special. The background music is often boring and uninspired, and definitely takes a back seat to the fury of the battling wanzers firing at each other relentlessly. The only thing that actually saves the sound score from being a 3 is the fact that I greatly enjoy the sound of the machine gun hammering bullets into the enemy. For some reason, I also like the humming noise the wanzers make when they're walking...

Replay: 8
Despite it's immense length, you'll definitely want to play through this adventure another time! Why you ask? To play through the game with different battle scenarios and a different story as well! Yet another great feature of this fantastic game!

Overall I would highly recommend this game to anyone who loved Final Fantasy Tactics! Even if you like normal RPGs, I know there are millions of you out there, you should still at least rent this incredibley fun game! If you do rent this game and find that you hate it...well...uhh... I'm sorry for the loss of your five dollars.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/22/00, Updated 06/22/00