Front Mission 1 was a very special game for players of emulators and japanese imports in the 16 bit era, because it delivered on many different fronts - pardon the pun. At the same time, it set itself aside from other tactical-RPG games, both mechanically and thematically. Despite the fact that those rival, fantasy themed, games were and remain more popular to this day, with game series such as Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem and later Final Fantasy Tactics (also by Square), I personally feel that I enjoy playing this early entry in the Front Mission series the best. Let's try to examine why could that be, in this review. First of all, the "mecha" theme was honestly very well achieved in the artistic sense. From the beautiful character designs by Yoshitaka Amano, the artist from the early Final Fantasy series, to the mecha, or "Wanzer", design itself which was very reminiscent of anime series like Gundam and Armored Trooper: VOTOMS, among others. Added to those top notch 16 bit visuals: a great soundtrack in its own right, and a gritty and war-weary plot just like you used to watch in the "real robot" type of animes. In other words, what you got with the original Front Mission was a love letter to the venerable anime genre, to the joy of its many dedicated fans all over the world. However, the "real robot" anime genre is also full of nerdy details about how these giant machines are supposed to work just like mechanical devices from the inside. This aspect is captured by Front Mission in gameplay terms, because the "Wanzers" of your many pilots can be fit with different body parts and electronics, leading to dramatic shifts in terms of battlefield performance or specialization of their modes of attack. The pilots themselves can become stronger by gaining RPG like experience in short range and long range combat, fist fighting and finally, dodge ability... most of these development lines lead to gaining special combat skills which give the player a huge edge in battle prowess - or complicate things greatly if its the enemy who has them. These skilĺs can greatly reduce the somewhat random flow of battle, making it more deterministic, to devastating results... because the body parts of a Wanzer have their own damage meter, and without any pilot skills neither you nor the enemy can control very well which part of the Wanzer to aim for with each of the attacks. The gameplay itself is kind of simple... but I personally feel that many of the better-made strategy designs feature less rather than more. First of all, its easier for the player to tell if there's any thought into the design of a strategy game when its rules are simple. With lots of complexity and variables, not so much. Because with complexity, there's a lot of strategic ambiguity being introduced, so it also becomes kind of debatable if your tactics are actually being effective or not. Sometimes the choice between this or that move becomes a matter of belief. Front Mission is simple - but in being simple, you can clearly separate the wheat from the chaff. First of all, rather than going with the "rock-paper-scissor" combat mechanics like similar games, Front Mission depend on dealing with tradeoffs in the construction of your Wanzers, and the battle formation. It works, because as you'll soon discover, some enemies are just far too powerful to tackle head on and risk direct damage, while on the other hand you can't depend solely on long range attacks and booby traps, because they are limited in number. Dealing with short range combat, Square had the inspiration to differentiate guns which spread all over the enemy Wanzer and are inherently more accurate, with others guns that land just one good, stronger shot, potentially disabling weapons or mobility. This selection opens very interesting tactics on one on one combat, which you can test at the game arena, before playing the real thing in the battlefield. Finally, unlike other games of the kind, Front Mission encourages and rewards the player if he/she adapts to the battle flow, and makes tactical retreats if convenient. This decision is advantageous, sometimes necessary to victory. In clear contrast with other games, where if things take an unexpected turn, instead of retreating, you reload your saved game and start all over. Its clear that the original gameplay is, thank the Gods, fully preserved here in this faithful remake (looking at you, Langrisser and Tactics Ogre). Is there any downsides to this Unity engine effort from Forever/Square? Sadly a couple of freezes and bugs after clearing a level. Glad that the autosave feature prevents you from losing your progress if that happens. For the most part, the visuals and sounds are superb and feel like a very worthy celebration to the, already great, original game. Specially in the "classic" isometric mode, the most faithful to the original and which I personally use and prefer. Recommended to anime and manga fans, old and retro gamers... and even the younger, modern day gamers who can appreciate indie games.
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