“Dude, I’m not good. You just suck.”

– Ryogo Kusama, Front Mission 3 Remake

Mechs, from Voltron to Zords, Transformers, and Gundams, pop culture has ensured that giant robots have been a part of our collective experience for decades now. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the giant fighting robot is here to stay. While the Front Mission series has been around for 30 years at this point, I was mostly unaware of it. I recall that the 2010 game came and went, leaving most people unhappy and yearning for the days of yore. Square Enix reached out to Forever Entertainment to have them remake several games in the series, including Front Mission 3.

This was my first time playing a Front Mission game, and from what I gathered online, it is the fan favorite of the mainline series. This game has a separate story that is unrelated to the previous entries, which makes it a great jumping-on point for newcomers like me. Will this be the start of a new obsession in my long gaming career, or merely a blip on the radar?

Neon Wanzer Evangelion

The story begins with two test pilots, Kazuki and Ryogo, on their way to make a delivery to the Japanese Defense Force (JDF). Once there, they meet a young scientist named Emma, and life becomes upended. I should also note that right around this point, Ryogo asks a simple question of Kazuki. Depending on his answer, the game will go in one of two directions. More on this later. Following Emma leads to a discovery that clandestine operations within the JDF could lead to world-ending scenarios.

The next 30 to 40 hours follow Kazuki and Ryogo, along with an ever-growing cast of characters, as they face down spies, foreign agents, and other treacherous enemies on a globe-trotting adventure. I am basing my experience on Emma’s campaign, not Alisa’s (the other scenario). Story details differ in key moments depending on which route you take. Having this option is great for replayability, but then you must ask yourself if the game is worth replaying.

Gundam Wing: Endless Wanzer

Front Mission 3 is a tactical strategy RPG that gives the player up to four different characters to control in battle. Each character pilots a mech, or wanzer as it is called in this universe. Battles take place on a grid-based arena. Each wanzer can move a different number of spaces based on its design and skills. Movement and attacks use AP (action points), and these are crucial not just during the player phase but during the enemy phase as well. When attacking or being attacked, you or the enemy get a chance to counterattack or defend, and doing so uses AP, which lowers what you will have available for the upcoming turn. AP refills between turns but not completely each time.

Each weapon uses a different amount of AP, with melee requiring fewer points than explosives such as missiles and grenades. Whether or not attacks are direct or indirect determines if you can counter them. Explosives are indirect attacks, and only shields can be used to defend against them. If they are direct attacks, range factors into this as well. You cannot counter a sniper rifle’s fire with a melee attack unless the sniper is right next to you. Using spacing correctly is very important for survival.

On top of all of this are associated mech skills based on each part. Each wanzer is made up of a body, two arms, legs, and a backpack. Each piece has skills that are designated for specific types of attacks. Ryogo’s wanzer starts with an assault rifle, and his skills focus on increasing the accuracy and rate of fire of his attacks. Skills are luck-based, and more often than not, it seems like the enemy is luckier than the player. If luck is in your favor, having multiple skills activate in the same turn can spell victory for you, even in dire straits. Not all skills are equal, though. A few times, a skill activated and it spelled disaster for my team. I was screaming into the ether, “Why would this be a skill?”

Power Wanzers

This brings me to one of my biggest gripes with the game, the seemingly random elements. I stated that the skills tend to run in favor of the enemy, and the accuracy also tilts the same way. I tested this concept a few times and kept noticing that my hits were missing constantly, even with a 70 percent chance of success. I made a save in the middle of a battle and kept trying to hit the same target with this percentage. It came out to less than a 50 percent chance of actually making contact. It is possible that other mitigating circumstances lowered that number further, but if I see 70 percent, I am expecting to hit almost three out of every four attacks.

To get odds in my favor, I tried upgrading my wanzer for higher accuracy and higher evasion. This came with more caveats, as upgrading these stats uses AP, which means fewer possible actions during play. One of my characters, Linny, had a very high accuracy rate, but because of this and his costly attack, he could barely do anything else unless I built him as a glass cannon. Some players may love to spend time tweaking every detail of a mech, but I would have preferred a more hands-off approach. For a large portion of the game, I didn’t need to grind weapon levels or money. I could just play and enjoy it. The latter half of the game, however, put a stop to this plan.

Science Ninja Team Wanzer-Man

Once you have established a team of eight characters, you are sometimes given missions in which you must split them into two teams of four. My gripe with this is that I had set characters who were my go-to choices for almost all missions, with one or two replacements for specific instances. Now I had to grind for hours to get my B-team ready for a very intense battle that would have made my main squad stumble. Grinding is slow and laborious as you fight in the simulator, and most enemies do not give you the same experience that real battles would.

When in doubt, head to the internet. No, not the real internet, but the in-game web browser that is available between missions. Here you can find lore about the factions involved in the mech war, as well as some secrets here and there. Some characters will send you emails containing passwords. These can unlock additional simulator maps, images, or, in very rare cases, new wanzers.

There are also standard role-playing game towns and shops that can be visited between missions. You are not exploring them in your wanzer or on foot, though, as they are represented by menus and text boxes. Most of the time, you are required to talk to a certain person or visit a specific location to move the story forward. Nothing mind-blowing, and at times it felt more like filler than story depth. The shops are very important, though, and I suggest you stock up on items after every mission. Battles will test your limits, and I cannot express this enough: fight until the very end. All wanzers and pilots will be resurrected after battle as long as you win.

The Art of Wanzer

The presentation of Front Mission 3 is all over the place. The 3D wanzers used in battle are serviceable enough, especially in comparison to their PS1 counterparts. The human models outside of the mechs are rough-looking. Thankfully, they are not seen often, but when you do, they resemble odd marionettes. The character portraits have an unusual quality about them, as if they were not upscaled correctly or had a strange filter applied. Recently, RPG Site reported that AI had been used to clean up 2D images in this title, and it makes all the more sense, since these portraits vary in both quality and uncanny valley-ness.

The game seems to have been retranslated, which could have led to a better understanding of the script, but what we have here is very cut and dry. Characters feel robotic when situations should be tense and full of emotion. There was one scene in Polish, and I expected it to be explained why Ryogo was fluent, but then another character responded in English with no explanation.

The music, on the other hand, is usually top tier. Many tracks have that early 2000s vibe, and I couldn’t get them out of my head. The town theme and the internet theme were especially catchy, and I will probably be listening to them for months to come. A major gripe, though, is that the music cuts out abruptly when scenes change instead of fading out.

Ghost in the Wanzer

After all is said and done, Front Mission 3 is a mixed bag. On one hand, you have a decently compelling story full of espionage, twists, turns, and strife that kept me interested. The ending of this tale, however, was an extreme letdown, with the final mission being easier than it should have been. The battle system is fully functional but lacks explanation of the finer details. Why would a weapon with an A rank be weaker than a weapon with an F rank? It is a baffling system to anyone unfamiliar with it, and I couldn’t find anything in the tutorial that explained it.

There is a great amount of replayability. You can experience the story from a different perspective, meet new characters, and unlock more wanzers and skills. The aspects of the game that were repurposed, like the art and the translation, suffered. But depending on how much you are willing to overlook, there is a game with strong bones here. Whether you find fulfillment depends on how deep you want to go with your wanzer, or if you are content with making only a brief detour.

Thank you to Forever Entertainment for providing us with a copy of Front Mission 3 Remake for this critique.