Gaming: Rambling About Front Mission 3

I've found myself playing the old PS1 game Front Mission 3. I had a long train journey, and I was bored with SRWJ, so I set it up on a portable. In the absence of a major project, I've revisited a few old habits, but I digress. As a game its pretty good, holding up well, but I have thoughts I’m going to try to express.

 

I wrote a review way back when I last played it, and while I largely stand by that, I've had more experience since, and my writing style has shifted. I've played a lot, a hell of a lot, of Super Robot Wars since then, which puts the game in a different light. First off a correction. I spent some time acknowledging the graphical limitations of FM3, but compared to the roughly contemporary Super Robot Wars Alpha, which I’ve also messed with, its a revelation. That game was still pixel art, but not well animated or creative pixel art. Graphics aren't everything, especially in a turn based game, but FM3 pushes harder in that aspect. Front Mission 3 doesn't look good these days, but it doesn't look cheap and certainly didn't back then. It plays with camera angles and visual effects, trying to be cinematic. Hell, it arguably looks better than the initial Armored Core games. I just have the suspicion that the engine can't handle more than four robots on screen at once, resorting to sprites on the map screen. That's the number of units you can field, and there seems to be a soft limit on the number of enemies of maybe ten? This feels confining after SRW, but fits the vibe. The combat is very gritty and personal, while the location based damage invites comparisons to BattleTech. I did find myself thinking in terms like "missileboat" and "brawler" with this play through. However two elements are grafted to the gameplay loop, and honestly don't sit well. Element 1 is the acquisition and use of battle skills is randomised and obtuse. I swear, there are entire skill families I’ve never seen because you'd need a FAQ to know what the prerequisites are, and it may not trigger anyway. These really needed to be controllable, but the execution instead feels like something borrowed from Final Fantasy 7, flashy but not functional. That's not a bad comparison to make, TBH, things are a bit more roleplay than tactical at times. You can't really build a strategy around them as you cannot trigger on the skills on demand, and occassionally your mecha just overperform, throwing me off my rhythm. The Internet functionality meanwhile feels ignorable a lot of the time, a way to handle worldbuilding without overloading the already lengthy cutscenes. There's stuff you can dig out here, like the best mecha in the game, but otherwise its a slow-slow-slow password hunt. Overall, there’s meat to the game, but perhaps not as much as I once felt.


As a little side note, it turns out that FM3 discourages power-levelling. I discovered that if you have a guide, you can get training maps way before you should. You'll probably die, but you can get a lot of experience that way. But if you do, you'll get marked down at the end of a mission. For a long time. Until you are where the game thinks you should be. Yay.


Coming back to graphics, that remake that just came out, or is about to come out as I write this. Let me embed some video here.

First, a longplay of the original.

Here’s the remake

There's been several remakes in this franchise recently, and while I've not tried them, something has always felt off. The remake of the first game annoyed me as it was 3D not pixel art, changing the entire vibe. That felt more like a budgetary limitation than an artistic choice, as its probably cheaper to remake the whole thing in Unity or sommat than redraw the pixels. FM3 was already 3D, so why am I reticent about this one? Well, it looks too shiny and quick. The PS1 version had very deliberate movements and a dirty look to the visuals. This was almost certainly the result of technical limitations, the console chugging away, but it was part of the game's character. That isn’t really present in this remake, everything looks too new. The remake is probably closer to the original intent, and objectively better looking, but I would have preferred the Ludicrous Edition treatment. Then there's the other changes, which seem to be AI generated for fucksake. I'm not in a hurry to play that remake.


Where am I going with this? Nowhere, really. Its a good, if old game. And it's easier to play now, at least. And I may have played it too much….

Ten Tips for Playing Front Mission 3

Does it count as a clickbait title when the subject is so obscure? Ehh. Following on from my review of the game proper, here's some advice for playing Front Mission 3. And so you know that I'm not completely useless, here's my end game rankings. Yes, there is some vanity in displaying it.

 

Go on that Intarwebz
While the Internet is the least exciting part of the game, it occasionally can assist missions, and does provide various battle simulators for level grinding. Also, its possible to acquire the most powerful Wanzer by keeping an eye on shady websites. You don't have to check every mission, but don't ignore it.

Never sell your starting Wanzers, just pass em around
Front Mission 3 is rather obtuse about Battle Skills, but most characters have machines that match them rather well. The Zenislev(1) and Kyojun Mrk107 are also notable for having skills that remain unexciting-but-useful throughout the game.

It's best to have lots of little skills
While things get more nuanced later on, it's usually best to stack multiple 1 slot Battle Skills, ideally identical. This is because these trigger and combo more often. In an extreme example, when using a Rifle, it's more or less mandatory to take Zoom 4 times, as it overcomes the problems of being single shot.

Missiles are easy spammed, but Shields are better
Due to their range and damage, Missiles are powerful even in the hands of a novice character. However, this does not last, as your foes improve. Shields however are always useful, and increasingly mandatory. You will almost always be outnumbered, after all.

Be a fiddler crab
You are not obliged to have symmetrical or even attractive Wanzers, so mix and match parts. My goto design was a skinny but precise arm with 2 guns on it, a beefy arm for the shield, and a generator backpack to compensate.

Steal every Wanzer you see
Tactics are ultimately king, but don't let yourself fall behind in the arms race. Boss types can't be pinched, but there's an entire family of high quality Wanzers you can't buy, but you need(2). This can be be greatly eased by....

Buy a Tiadong ASAP
Pilfering Wanzers is hard to do at first, as you have to force units to surrender. You need the luck for them loose morale, and a gentler weapon to force the issue without killing them. The Tiadong arm however has the useful skill Eject Punch, which saves a bit of time, if somewhat unsporting.

Have understudys, but not clones
Front Mission 3 ultimately gifts you with 8 characters, and it wants you to use them. Try to maintain a pair of missile people, and two punchy dudes. Note that Wanzers can fulfil more than one role, and try not to overspecialise.

If in doubt, set your armour to Piercing
Cutscenes will often telegraph what the enemy has, but weapons that cause Piercing damage are the most common. The only force that doesn't favour machine guns or rifles are the regular army of Da Han Zong, where upon you choose Impact.

And finally, go with Ryogo
When he asks. You know, early on.


Foot notes
1) Actually a mistranslation, it should be Zenith Rev.
2) And when you meet their owners, trust me, you'll want to take them out of spite.

Retro Review: Front Mission 3 (PS1)

A depressingly small number of people seem to care about the Front Mission series of video games. I mean, obviously, its established in Japan. Its just when you google it, you get tumble-weeds and Russian-language video clips. There is an entry on Steam, but its so badly received, I've not bothered to play it. I did however pick up Front Mission 3 (FM3) while at a retro-games fair, having happy memories of it. FM3 is what I like to call a "Lego mecha game", where a majority of your time is spent swapping parts, refining a team of giant robots and sending them into battle. It falls into the Strategic RPG genre, in that its turned-based and set on a grid, while have role playing mechanics. Such things aren't hugely common these days, and certainly weren't back then, either. This example is however noteworthy for not being a licensed game, naming its robots “Wanzers”, and for being made by Squaresoft at the height of their Play Station power. Yes, the Final Fantasy people. This franchise should be absolutely HUGE, but it isn't, due to a lack of localised entries. First impressions after 20 odd years, running on my PS3?

Its not exactly a looker.

Making the obvious allowances for age, FM3 is somewhat uneven when it comes to production values. There's no denying the detail and sense of weight that Wanzers have, with some good CG cutscenes at key points, but its not exactly a performance game engine. The image above makes it look better than it does in motion. Its all about brief exchanges of violence, and uses depressively low res sprites for the map screen. The game was criticised for this at the time, IIRC. I've found myself wishing for a HD remake along the lines of Valkyria Chronicles , because while it isn't actually ugly, it does feel like a awkward transitional step like so many of the early polygonal/CD games of its time. And then you remember Armored Core was out 2 years before this, and Final Fantasy 8 was out in the same year..... Of course FM3 probably wasn't meant to be played on a flatscreen. And there's the cleaned up network version that you can play on a Vita, as well as "aftermarket" options. Strategy games aren't really about the graphics, of course, and the game is spectacular on its own terms, but uneven is uneven. Another area where the game has aged poorly is its Internet section, which provides some distractions from the meat of the experience, as well as world building. Sadly, it runs at the speed of dail-up, and doesn't really offer much incentive to keep coming back.

Anyway, despite subjective complaints about presentation, the actual combat system is a pleasing solid one, the kind where simple but elegant concepts get layered atop each other. You can simply just power through the violence like you would with a Final Fantasy, by grinding and simply buying shinier kit, but that's not really clever long term. You need to pay some attention, and experimentation is encouraged. Here's some of the things you need to consider.

1) Wanzers move and attack based on Action Points, which are also used in the enemy turn for defence and counterattack. You therefore have to strike a balance between offence, defence, and positioning.

2) Weapons have differing ranges and AP costs, as well as one of three damage types which a Wanzer could get bonuses against. So, you need the right weapon in the right place.

3) Furthermore, Wanzers have 5 distinct health bars, only one of which being fatal, while weapons alternate between a single big hit or a spray. Again, you need the right weapon in the right place, to wear down, cripple, and finally finish off your target.

4) While having healing items like a common JRPG, these have to be assigned to s specific Wanzer in a dedicated backpack. Certain weapons also have limited ammo, which also have reload items. This will result in design compromises.

5) Punching people is entirely possible due to the high accuracy and low AP cost. Such attacks do however allow the enemy to shoot a Wanzer before it strikes.

6) Finally, Battle Skills break these concepts in various ways, but triggering randomly so you can't rely on them. You can however chain them together for max damage.

I had some immense fun with all that. There's a some some real chunky goodness to all this if you care to look into it. The battles are often scripted, rather than having noteworthy AI, but the game does reward intelligent and adaptive play. I called this a "Lego mecha game" earlier, and that is very much the case. You can and should rebuild your Wanzers as you go, trying to optimise your designs and unlock new skills. However, if you want a character to keep their original Wanzer, you can do that too. Components can be upgradef multiple times, characters often having some handy skill in their starting mecha. The worst I can say is that a FAQ might be useful, because the game obscures that sort of information. Here's a video of what you are in for.

I've talked mainly about combat and how its presented so far, but there is in fact a story. Two of them. FM3 benefits from 2 lengthy narrative campaigns, each being the thick end of 40 hours. Which one you get is based on an innocuous choice, which sees characters switching roles, quite dramatically in some cases, but the broad-strokes remain the same. What starts as an espionage thriller, sees the cast flee Japan, becoming catspaws for a rival superpower, getting involved with a civil war in future-China, before returning to Japan to take on the Real antagonists. There's a lot of realpolitik going on, and there's enough meat to keep you interested, although I regret that its not really possible to go into the full merits here. The unfortunate thing is that this is relayed entirely through cutscences, not gameplay. Its a wall of text, something which I suspect console gamers of the time didn't welcome. Indeed, it's easy to go on autopilot with these sections, and maybe miss a few of the meaningful choices you can make. I did, completely missing one character for 20 odd years. Characters can also blur together after a while, going out of focus as the narrative forgets about them for a bit. There's no actual mechanical difference between them, as skills are based entirely on Wanzer parts, which can be a strength, but if you're gonna have this much freedom, you may as well allow full character creation. Either that, or give characters something unique to hang a hat on. That having been said, the narrative is never less than engaging, and while I like the gameplay more, seeing where the plot would go had its pull.

Conclusion

Front Mission 3 is very good at what it chooses to focus on, but it hasn't aged gracefully. A lot of the complaint s I make boil down to genre convention; you don't buy a game such as this for graphics, you buy it for the turned based combat. That's got a very specific appeal, and while the game makes efforts to present things well, those efforts were not treated well by time. Its not a game that' you'd use to convert someone to a genre, is you get my meaning? Fortunately, the actual gameplay has held up extremely well, and the story holds your attention. If you can get past its dated graphics and you're onboard with giant robots, give it a try. And then wonder where that month went.