Front Mission 3 Review

Front Mission 3 Review | November 4, 2014
PlayStation Exclusive Title

Front Mission 3 is a tactical RPG and one of the few games from the PS1/N64 generation that has made the transition to modern day consoles through digital download. This PlayStation Network exclusive was first released in 1999 in Japan and was the first game in the series to be released in North America and Europe a couple of years later. Front Mission 3 is giant Mech robot turn based fighting. You get to use up to four players from your group and you are always outnumbered by your adversaries. There are very few choices when it comes to a retro tactical RPG and this one is worth looking into.

The Front Mission series are known for having deep story lines and multiple RPG elements when it comes to customizing the Mech suits. They are call Wanzers and you can attack three different parts. The body, the legs or the left of right arm. If you destroy the body then the Wanzer is destroyed and is out of the battle. But, if you destroy the arm holding a weapon then you can make your opponent ineffective for the rest of the battle. It adds some strategy to an already strategic style of game. Good variety in weapons and Wanzer setup. There are hundreds of different combinations that you can create from close up melee fighters to far away Wanzers that can use rocket launchers. There is over 100+ battles to play and you do get rankings depending on how well you perform. Some battles are really hard to defeat. If you want to get higher rankings you will have to spent time leveling up or replay the game.

Great storylines are fine but in Front Mission 3 the story gets lost and a little confusing. If centers around four military organizations: Oceania Cooperative Union (OCU), People's Republic of Da Han Zhong (DHZ), United States of the New Continent (USN) and the Japanese Defense Force (JDF). During the dialog you start to get them all mixed up and you don’t remember who is on your side and what organization attack who. There is way too much reading and to many three letter abbreviations to remember. There are several section of the game that take 25 to 35 minutes of just reading and if you miss something there is no way to go back. You can’t tilt the battlefield during combat either so you can't see all of the players on the map sometimes. You get 8 players but you can only use 4 at a time and when you get someone new in the middle of the game they start at level 1 while the rest of you team is at level much higher. It is annoying and you have to level them up because further on in the story you have to split your team into two group of four and fight separated for a while.

The game is not bad but falls short in many areas compared to today. For example you get more powerful attacks by buying new Mech body parts but you don’t know what attack you get until you buy them and power them up. If the new attack is worthless and not for that Mech fighting style then you just wasted a bunch of money and time. Also, you can’t ever seem to find the right mix. You create a Wanzer with the movement you want but you can’t use the weapon you want. You create one that is strong but it can move and it is slow. This happens the whole time. Not a bad price at $6. Front Missions 3 has over 40 hours of gameplay and over 100 levels to play but it is more like a play it once and not again. Tactical role playing games are very few so you might just be stuck with the price because we have never seen it on sale.

8.0 out of 10
Good Game

8.0 out of 10
Good Game

Rated
T for
Teen

Rated
PEGI 12