A look back at: Front Mission

 

Fantasyanime and RPGClassics are two of the sites that I credit for showcasing loads of classic RPGs that I just had to check out. Of the two, Fantasyanime is a lot smaller (and lost its download links like years ago) but it has shrines dedicated to lots of games that I just had to play. And honestly, I think out of their catalog, there's only like 8 or so left, including this game's spinoff sequel. As for RPGClassics, their walkthrough did guide me in how to get through this particular Square game that initially didn't make it out of Japan until a Nintendo DS remake occurred. And it even spawned a whole franchise of sorts. So yay, Front Mission. This was a long time coming.

Mecha combat meets Fire Emblem-like tactical turn-based strategy RPG gaming. Player phases and enemy phases, grid-based movement, different weapon styles for melee, short-range, and long-range, finite shoulder-mounted missiles for sniping, experience for actions you take, it's certainly all here. Though no permadeath, oddly enough, even though it would make sense with the modern war-like setting and mechs blowing up. A huge chunk of this game was spent on spending money on upgrading mechas, I mean wanzers of course. Gotta have a durable body, arms, and legs, arm the wanzers with weapons that work well with multiple bullets or better hit percentages, but at the same time keeping the weight at most 100, so even if you have the money you might not have the weight. I do like that you can customize not just the parts and weapons, but also the name and paint job too. Grinding for levels and skills boils down to using the units that need the grinding, and the colosseum option exists in towns for individual grinding a la the Fire Emblem arenas (without permadeath of course)

Storywise Front Mission proves to just be a linear game, which is fine by me. You just progress across the island, sometimes not being able to backtrack, and each town has upgrades that the others don't. Most missions, as in all but like one or two, have your main objective be to just destroy all enemy wanzers. There's thankfully only a small couple of escort missions, and even then, if the escortee doesn't survive the game still continues fine with just a small penalty. The idea of fighting a war, a war that was caused by your main character, but also the horrendous problem of mad science in using human brains for wanzer computers reared into the plot. A lot of old games delved into that mad science, it's certainly a trope that has shown face many times. As a reminder, I didn't play the DS remake, meaning I'm missing out of the USN storyline which was added there, but I really don't care that much at the moment. It was a fun game and I'm going to try the others soon enough.