Retro Games Beaten

The Front Mission series is a long running franchise, about giant robots called "wanzers" beating each other to death, due to vast and complicated political wars. Front Mission 5 was meant to be the conclusion of the true canon games, and it is. Front Mission 5 ties together the entire first four games' plots into something coherent, while culminating in the most difficult and complex Front Mission ever made. This is not a Front Mission for beginners, it was clearly created to appease and challenge series veterans. As such this review is not written for newcomers either.

Front Mission 5 brings some advantages over its predecessors. First and foremost, FM5 has the best 3D graphics of the entire series. Including all of its cutscenes being animated using real time graphics versus traditional talking head portraits. FM5 has a huge and varied OST as well. There are new gameplay additions such as an incredibly difficult roguelike dungeon mode and an AI controlled arena mode, with the traditional bonus practice (sim) missions still in place. There are also dozens of optional pilots to scout from the various military bases you visit, so you can piece together a team of pilots as you see fit. Front Mission 5 offers yet more complexity and innovation than even those things over its predecessors, but I'm not about to type ten paragraphs explaining it all.

Let me talk about what I didn't like about Front Mission 5. In an attempt to amp up the difficulty, enemy wanzers have incredible amounts of HP. Which means to defeat them, you have to become a linking master. And then, you have to surround enemy wanzers with your own wanzers, and link attack them to death. Having to use almost all your wanzers to defeat one or two enemies per turn becomes tedious quickly. To avoid that, you can opt to enter the roguelike mode, where the best gear is hidden. But I did not enjoy the roguelike mode, so nah. Or, you can opt to enter the arena, and try to make tons of money to afford the very best gear possible for your squad. However, the arena mode forces your own wanzer to be AI controlled, meaning you have to sit back and watch. The AI is abysmally terrible, and you will rage watching your own wanzer making constantly bad tactical decisions and losing to otherwise paltry enemies. So if you forgo the roguelike dungeons and the arena, your only option is to become a god of linking.

Overall, Front Mission 5 will have a limited audience. Frankly, I don't blame Square Enix for not bringing it to the USA. Most people are simply not interested in piloting giant robots through bitterly difficult battles, while deciphering a deeply complicated story spanning across multiple earlier series' entries. If however, YOU are interested in doing as such, you will be in wanzer heaven here. And, if you've already played Front Mission before, know that FM5 is far more difficult than earlier entries. (But that should be a positive aspect to a true Front Mission fan.) We're talking huge battle maps, tons of enemy wanzers, and your tiny squad barely surviving against a turn limit. You'll need to really, really love engineering your wanzers to the Nth degree, with a level of OCD complexity that only a true geek could love. If all of that sounds like fun, then you might just have what it takes to win this war and take home a scar of your own.