The first two Front Mission remakes (reviewed here and here) were mixed with legitimate improvements and awkward revisionism with mediocre visuals. The translations were rough, but the timeless tales of corrupt geopolitical strife shone through. For such old games, their stories were prophetic in estimating the direction of where the world would be heading. The original Super Famicom releases were on the clunky side. Forever Entertainment smoothed things out and punched up the pace of the long-winded battles, reimagining the visuals in 3D, drenched in PS360 aesthetics.
Most Front Mission fans in the West probably got their teeth cut with Front Mission 3 on the original PlayStation. The first two remakes still feel like 16-bit games in their design, but the third entry was where gameplay was refined and streamlined for more responsive and energetic battles. The Front Mission remake trilogy is finally complete. Is a rag-tag group of mech test pilots enough to trace the whereabouts of missing weapons of mass destruction? Is this the best remake in the series? Cubed3 gears up to find out.
Anybody can jump into Front Mission 3: Remake and not worry about playing the prior entries. While it does help having background knowledge of the setting’s geopolitics and understanding what the Oceania Cooperative Union represents, the story is paced out deftly, so players won’t be lost for too long. The main plot is not as dry or vague as the last two games and focuses less on the economic and social problems of an abstract nation vying for independence.
Front Mission 3: Remake is more character driven and leans heavily on the human drama, making it far more relatable and easier for casual strategy RPG enthusiasts to embrace. The plot hits closer to home than it did in 2000 and is frightfully prophetic. Sometimes Font Mission 3: Remake unfolds like an angry manifesto from bitter conspiracy theorists who correctly predicted everything that would follow after the attacks on the World Trade Center, but with large mechs.
Everything started with a chance meeting and the discovery of stolen weapons of mass destruction. Kazuki and Ryogo are lowly test pilots barely in their twenties who become patsies for the theft and go on a globe-trotting quest to uncover the truth. Everywhere they go, Kazuki and the gang face off with corrupt law enforcement, military, and foreign enemies.
Looking on the web and keeping tabs on the current events creates palpable world building and breadcrumbs to where the story will be heading. Events in the plot are subjected to cover-ups, and everywhere the party goes, it feels like they’re under surveillance. Front Mission 3: Remake unfolds like a 90s thriller with bouts of explosive action where the young heroes make dramatic proclamations about their character growth. It’s not a subtle game, but it is an epic one that goes on for over 40 hours and features two story routes where scenes unfold very differently.
When not reading story text or exploring the simulated alternate history internet, Front Mission 3: Remake‘s bread and butter are the Wanzer tactical battles. Compared to the prior Front Mission titles, this latest entry streamlines the battle system and simplifies some of the gameplay while also removing a lot of the frustrating randomisation. The party size is lowered compared to the last few games, and balanced, where battles move along faster.
One of the major pillars of the franchise is building and customising Wanzers, and Front Mission 3: Remake still delivers, even if the number of stats and variables has been simplified. When engaging with foes, attacks will randomly target individual body parts. Each piece serves a critical function. If a Wanzer’s legs are destroyed, then movement is reduced to a single tile. If any arm is destroyed, then the equipped weapon with its respective limb is unusable. A destroyed torso or “body” makes the mech instantly explode, killing the pilot. Enemy Wanzers and friendlies can eject from the pilot seat and run for the nearest vacant mech if they find themselves stranded in a crippled machine and is a last-ditch effort to survive.
A Wanzer’s head is the most important part of the machine since it’s the nerve centre of its combat abilities. Decking a war machine with the biggest guns and missile launchers isn’t enough. Every weapon has skills that are unlocked, like the “glimmer” system from the Romancing SaGa games, which involves a bit of randomness. Head parts allot slots for each of the learned skills. Some are passive bonuses, while others activate while attacking. Like everything else in Front Mission 3: Remake, skills activate with a bit of luck, but multiples can be stacked for a high chance to trigger.
The randomisation in the battle system is a worthy feature that keeps encounters tense. There is no way to rely on the best skills other than trying to tip the scales, but this also applies to the enemy. Front Mission 3: Remake manages a clean balance of strategy and luck, keeping it engrossing for its lengthy duration. The battle conditions are forgiving enough that deadly mistakes still can be overcome. After battles, dead party members are revived as if nothing happened, and all destroyed Wanzers and parts are restored. There is no need to dwell on repairs as the story propels forward, allowing players to concentrate on building and customising mechs with found parts or buying them.
Front Mission 3: Remake‘s difficulty is surprisingly light compared to the rest of the series. Even by strategy RPG standards, its challenge is on the easier side of the spectrum. Once in a while, a difficult mission might put Kazuki’s team against the ropes, or the RNG might completely throw a curveball that sends everyone to their doom, but these moments are far and few between. This is a breezy tactical game for newcomers, which is surprising considering the dense geopolitical plot.
Front Mission 3: Remake is based on a PlayStation game that had crude yet charming 3D models. The remake’s artists kept the designs and overall look and feel of the original, but bathed it in modern sensibilities and Unity post-processing effects. At times, the game resembles an early PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 game due to the way materials are rendered. Rough and coarse surfaces like asphalt or concrete are unrealistically shiny. Other textures and bump maps during close-ups are noticeably low resolution. Front Mission 3: Remake isn’t a pretty game, but that’s also because it’s set in an austere and cold brutalist world that mirrors the real world.
The animations still look like they’re PlayStation quality, which isn’t a bad place to be for large, clunky robots. The problem arises when Front Mission 3: Remake uses human character models in cutscenes. These laughable humanoid effigies are painfully stiff and animate like action figures. The original game avoided having human characters on screen because it played to its strengths and leaned on character art instead. The remake should have taken a lesson from the limitations imposed on the original to avoid the hideous clash. The most disappointing aspect of the presentation is the lacklustre sound design that lacks the appropriate punch during impacts while battling.
Did you even play the game before writing this review?
The combat system has been changed from the original. Skills trigger less often and combo chance is even lower. In the original game, skills had a decent chance to trigger, and combo rate following a skill was very high. The game was balanced around chaining skills to defeat enemies using fewer turns and fewer actions.
In addition, random status effects were rare in the original. In the remake, random status effects happen right and left. It is common to have multiple pilots disabled after the first turn due to stun, panic, or eject in the remake. By the time you get to mission 4 or 5 of either storyline, a player frequently has to reset the game after the first or second turn over and over just to be able to clear the mission.
Try playing the actual remake before giving a rave review. Then play the original, and compare them.