Phalanx
08-27-2008, 01:13 PM
Featured Game: Front Mission 3
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/7931/frontmission3palrr2.jpg
Front Mission 3 is a strategy RPG from Squaresoft featuring giant robots. Before I explain what this game actually is and why I feel it deserves a “featured game” about it, I’d like to explain a little about how I picked up this extremely underrated and unheard of game.
This game came out in Europe on August 11th, 2000. Eight years ago. That makes me ten years old (unfortunately), this is at the time of my life when I had been playing games like Final Fantasy, Zelda, Metal Gear Solid and the like for years. More mature games had been placed in my Playstation through sheer luck more than through what I’ll call “intellectual purchasing”.
With regards to Front Mission 3, I mean, look at the boxart. When you’re 10 years old, giant robots are “the poop”! This is at the same time that Gundam Wing (if I remember correctly – definitely around this time) was being shown on Cartoon Network so giant robots were definitely all the rage back in 2000.
This game as far as I’m aware cost £20 when I bought it, considering it came out just 2 months before the PS2 (yes, 2 months!) I can imagine most video game retailers (Electronic Boutique in this case) were eager to flog their PSX games regardless of how new or exciting they were.
I actually remember when I got home to play this game being slightly disapointed to discover that this game wasn’t a Mech-action game similar to games like Armored Core, G-Police 2, Mechwarrior or the countless B-movie-esque mech games which had such cool boxart but such unmemorable names that you’d always see sitting on the shelves. But I should’ve known better, it’s a Squaresoft game after all, it’s obviously going to be an RPG.
Anyways, so like I said earlier, Front Mission 3 is a SRPG featuring giant robots. It was actually the first SRPG I ever played (Final Fantasy Tactics never got released in the UK) and I think it was the only Front Mission game to ever be released in Europe at the time.
The game featured many of the standard SRPG conventions. Battles take place on a grid where you move your units around to apprehend the enemies using a whole manner of different abilities.
Front Mission 3 mixes this up a little (and I mean a little) due to the game’s focus on giant robots.
The game (much like Armored Core) allows you to customize your robot (which I’m now going to call Wanzers – a portmanteau of the words walking and Panzer I believe) using a deep plethora of menus in order to create your ultimate Wanzer – ready for battle! A few things that are different which I remember noting quite poignantly was the fact that you don’t have to use the same arms. You can use a different left arm to your right arm. Not only did this mean you could have quite awkward looking robots but it also meant that you could mix and match perfect weaponry together (which I’ll explain in a tad).
Weapons in the game are basically how the game handles different abilities (so unfortunately, you won’t see Wanzers casting Firaga or summoning Espers ). There are a multitude of different weapons in the game that each handle differently. Combat was interesting (and defines Front Mission – as a series the most) as instead of enemies having a single HP stat, each part of their Wanzer has hp. What this means is that when certain parts of the Wanzer’s HP reach zero, different status effects occur to the machine. For example, when the HP of the legs reaches zero, the Wanzer can only move one square on the grid instead of several, if you destroy an arm then the weapon attached to that arm can no longer be used. Most importantly, destroying the body (core) of the wanzer will destroy the entire machine itself. The part I loved the most was that you can actually attack (and kill!) the pilot of the wanzer. If you did this then the wanzer would then be empty – enabling the player to either pilot it during battle (you can remove your pilot from a wanzer and move them into another one) or keep it after battle and sell it for cash.
Now to actually go about destroying these enemy Wanzers, there are weapons which you must outfit your Wanzer with in order to do so. The most generic and basic weapons in the game are things like Shotguns, Machine guns, rocket launchers and melee weapons.
Shotguns attacked all parts of the wanzers’ body (very good if you wanted to destroy parts of their body), machine guns attacked all parts of the wanzers’ body at random (it could potentially miss the legs for example) and the rocket launcher does massive damage to a single part. Melee weapons required you to be within one square of the enemy and again, did massive damage.
Another SRPG convention Front Mission 3 gladly ignores is the handling of actions and moving. All units are governed by a single stat called “AP – Action Points (I assume)”. Moving one square costs your Wanzer 1 AP and so, the game isn’t completely independent on a certain stat to dictate how far you can move (your legs also play a roll in this) unlike games like FFT or Disgaea. Attacking also costs AP with the distance you attack from being dependant on AP (this is why Sniper Rifles and Rocket Launchers generally cost more AP – you fire from a distance). A feature which depends primarily on AP (which is why it wouldn’t work in other SRPGs so much) is how Front Mission 3 handles Countering. In games like Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics, in order to counter, your unit is required to have the ability to counter. In Front Mission 3, every unit can counter – as long as certain parameters are met. If you have enough AP and are in range, when the enemy attacks you, hells yeah can you return fire on that sucker. This added a very large degree of strategy to the game due to the fact that you were always trying to manoeuvre your wanzers into positions where the enemy can’t counter.
Now you might be wondering, “does this game actually have any moves?” and the answer to that is – yes. Abilities/moves/skills in the game are learnt (yes, learnt) from different parts of the Wanzer. Each leg, arm, body, head (can’t remember if weapons do – I don’t think so) contain different abilities which will occur at random during an attack or move in battle. However, there are two ways these can occur. One is from learning the move (you can keep learning the same move, so that is one way for it to occur) as well as the move itself occurring from the wanzer’s memory. These moves are things like “Zoom II” which improves accuracy or being able to attack with your shotgun and melee weapon in one turn – that sort of thing. These happened quite regularly so it wasn’t a grind trying to learn them.
Levelling up in the game is dependant on each weapon you use. As you used weapons, you gained experience in the name and hence, you could use them more proficiently. However you didn’t gain experience quickly and as a result, it’s important that you stick to the weapons you use.
Finally (and I think this is quite important actually), the maps in Front Mission 3 provided a lot more thought in how to trek them than in other SRPGs. Depending on where the enemy unit is effects the accuracy of your weapons. The maps had a lot of different terrains and ways to position yourselves (having Wanzers on the roofs of buildings, on slopes etc) and these effected your accuracy. Unlike in FFT where if you’re in range – you’re in range (so to speak), being in range in Front Mission 3 wasn’t enough so to speak. If a tree, fence, wall, etc was blocking your view, you wouldn’t be able to get a full shot on the enemy. However you could destroy a lot of the scenery which made battles feel so incredibly epic that you wouldn’t necessarily try to move out the way of occlusion. Nothings more satisfying than barraging an enemy while destroying trees and canisters surrounding them at the same time!
http://yannick.fleurit.free.fr/Culture/Retro%20Front%20Mission/Front%20Mission%203%20(2).jpg
I guess I should start discussing the actual story to the game now which I feel is the weakness to the game (hence I discussed the gameplay first). The game is in the early future which is incredibly familiar to the present day – just with giant robots. The main character in the game (YOU) is some douchebag called Kazuki Takemura. Very very early in the game you hook up with his long time pal Ryogo and are requested by your superiors to deliver two Wanzers to the JDF (Japanese Defence Force). However, during your very brief period at the base, you become witness to a large explosion which you weren’t meant to see and as such, you become fugitives as you try to escape the JDF.
The story takes you around much of the world and is actually pretty epic. You’ll meet up with a large amount of characters and while most of them are quite bland and boring, a couple of them are pretty cool (Dennis was always my favourite). Eventually you learn about a WMD called “MIDAS” was stolen (during a cutscene at the beginning of the game) and it poses a threat to global security (hey – it’s been a while) and on top of all of this, there’s talk of projects to create “Superior Beings” – most likely to pragmatically imitate Metal Gear Solid’s popular story.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/7931/frontmission3palrr2.jpg
Front Mission 3 is a strategy RPG from Squaresoft featuring giant robots. Before I explain what this game actually is and why I feel it deserves a “featured game” about it, I’d like to explain a little about how I picked up this extremely underrated and unheard of game.
This game came out in Europe on August 11th, 2000. Eight years ago. That makes me ten years old (unfortunately), this is at the time of my life when I had been playing games like Final Fantasy, Zelda, Metal Gear Solid and the like for years. More mature games had been placed in my Playstation through sheer luck more than through what I’ll call “intellectual purchasing”.
With regards to Front Mission 3, I mean, look at the boxart. When you’re 10 years old, giant robots are “the poop”! This is at the same time that Gundam Wing (if I remember correctly – definitely around this time) was being shown on Cartoon Network so giant robots were definitely all the rage back in 2000.
This game as far as I’m aware cost £20 when I bought it, considering it came out just 2 months before the PS2 (yes, 2 months!) I can imagine most video game retailers (Electronic Boutique in this case) were eager to flog their PSX games regardless of how new or exciting they were.
I actually remember when I got home to play this game being slightly disapointed to discover that this game wasn’t a Mech-action game similar to games like Armored Core, G-Police 2, Mechwarrior or the countless B-movie-esque mech games which had such cool boxart but such unmemorable names that you’d always see sitting on the shelves. But I should’ve known better, it’s a Squaresoft game after all, it’s obviously going to be an RPG.
Anyways, so like I said earlier, Front Mission 3 is a SRPG featuring giant robots. It was actually the first SRPG I ever played (Final Fantasy Tactics never got released in the UK) and I think it was the only Front Mission game to ever be released in Europe at the time.
The game featured many of the standard SRPG conventions. Battles take place on a grid where you move your units around to apprehend the enemies using a whole manner of different abilities.
Front Mission 3 mixes this up a little (and I mean a little) due to the game’s focus on giant robots.
The game (much like Armored Core) allows you to customize your robot (which I’m now going to call Wanzers – a portmanteau of the words walking and Panzer I believe) using a deep plethora of menus in order to create your ultimate Wanzer – ready for battle! A few things that are different which I remember noting quite poignantly was the fact that you don’t have to use the same arms. You can use a different left arm to your right arm. Not only did this mean you could have quite awkward looking robots but it also meant that you could mix and match perfect weaponry together (which I’ll explain in a tad).
Weapons in the game are basically how the game handles different abilities (so unfortunately, you won’t see Wanzers casting Firaga or summoning Espers ). There are a multitude of different weapons in the game that each handle differently. Combat was interesting (and defines Front Mission – as a series the most) as instead of enemies having a single HP stat, each part of their Wanzer has hp. What this means is that when certain parts of the Wanzer’s HP reach zero, different status effects occur to the machine. For example, when the HP of the legs reaches zero, the Wanzer can only move one square on the grid instead of several, if you destroy an arm then the weapon attached to that arm can no longer be used. Most importantly, destroying the body (core) of the wanzer will destroy the entire machine itself. The part I loved the most was that you can actually attack (and kill!) the pilot of the wanzer. If you did this then the wanzer would then be empty – enabling the player to either pilot it during battle (you can remove your pilot from a wanzer and move them into another one) or keep it after battle and sell it for cash.
Now to actually go about destroying these enemy Wanzers, there are weapons which you must outfit your Wanzer with in order to do so. The most generic and basic weapons in the game are things like Shotguns, Machine guns, rocket launchers and melee weapons.
Shotguns attacked all parts of the wanzers’ body (very good if you wanted to destroy parts of their body), machine guns attacked all parts of the wanzers’ body at random (it could potentially miss the legs for example) and the rocket launcher does massive damage to a single part. Melee weapons required you to be within one square of the enemy and again, did massive damage.
Another SRPG convention Front Mission 3 gladly ignores is the handling of actions and moving. All units are governed by a single stat called “AP – Action Points (I assume)”. Moving one square costs your Wanzer 1 AP and so, the game isn’t completely independent on a certain stat to dictate how far you can move (your legs also play a roll in this) unlike games like FFT or Disgaea. Attacking also costs AP with the distance you attack from being dependant on AP (this is why Sniper Rifles and Rocket Launchers generally cost more AP – you fire from a distance). A feature which depends primarily on AP (which is why it wouldn’t work in other SRPGs so much) is how Front Mission 3 handles Countering. In games like Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics, in order to counter, your unit is required to have the ability to counter. In Front Mission 3, every unit can counter – as long as certain parameters are met. If you have enough AP and are in range, when the enemy attacks you, hells yeah can you return fire on that sucker. This added a very large degree of strategy to the game due to the fact that you were always trying to manoeuvre your wanzers into positions where the enemy can’t counter.
Now you might be wondering, “does this game actually have any moves?” and the answer to that is – yes. Abilities/moves/skills in the game are learnt (yes, learnt) from different parts of the Wanzer. Each leg, arm, body, head (can’t remember if weapons do – I don’t think so) contain different abilities which will occur at random during an attack or move in battle. However, there are two ways these can occur. One is from learning the move (you can keep learning the same move, so that is one way for it to occur) as well as the move itself occurring from the wanzer’s memory. These moves are things like “Zoom II” which improves accuracy or being able to attack with your shotgun and melee weapon in one turn – that sort of thing. These happened quite regularly so it wasn’t a grind trying to learn them.
Levelling up in the game is dependant on each weapon you use. As you used weapons, you gained experience in the name and hence, you could use them more proficiently. However you didn’t gain experience quickly and as a result, it’s important that you stick to the weapons you use.
Finally (and I think this is quite important actually), the maps in Front Mission 3 provided a lot more thought in how to trek them than in other SRPGs. Depending on where the enemy unit is effects the accuracy of your weapons. The maps had a lot of different terrains and ways to position yourselves (having Wanzers on the roofs of buildings, on slopes etc) and these effected your accuracy. Unlike in FFT where if you’re in range – you’re in range (so to speak), being in range in Front Mission 3 wasn’t enough so to speak. If a tree, fence, wall, etc was blocking your view, you wouldn’t be able to get a full shot on the enemy. However you could destroy a lot of the scenery which made battles feel so incredibly epic that you wouldn’t necessarily try to move out the way of occlusion. Nothings more satisfying than barraging an enemy while destroying trees and canisters surrounding them at the same time!
http://yannick.fleurit.free.fr/Culture/Retro%20Front%20Mission/Front%20Mission%203%20(2).jpg
I guess I should start discussing the actual story to the game now which I feel is the weakness to the game (hence I discussed the gameplay first). The game is in the early future which is incredibly familiar to the present day – just with giant robots. The main character in the game (YOU) is some douchebag called Kazuki Takemura. Very very early in the game you hook up with his long time pal Ryogo and are requested by your superiors to deliver two Wanzers to the JDF (Japanese Defence Force). However, during your very brief period at the base, you become witness to a large explosion which you weren’t meant to see and as such, you become fugitives as you try to escape the JDF.
The story takes you around much of the world and is actually pretty epic. You’ll meet up with a large amount of characters and while most of them are quite bland and boring, a couple of them are pretty cool (Dennis was always my favourite). Eventually you learn about a WMD called “MIDAS” was stolen (during a cutscene at the beginning of the game) and it poses a threat to global security (hey – it’s been a while) and on top of all of this, there’s talk of projects to create “Superior Beings” – most likely to pragmatically imitate Metal Gear Solid’s popular story.