Front Mission 3

by Squaresoft

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004R9IL
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: March 21, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,175 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Editorial Review

An excellent science-fiction-themed strategy game with role-playing elements, Front Mission 3 is the first installment of the popular Japanese series to make it stateside. In a future where giant robots known as "Wanzers" are the war machines of choice, you are cast as a civilian test pilot who gets swept up in an international military conspiracy surrounding a weapon of mass destruction. The majority of the storytelling occurs via cut scenes and menu-driven "event" screens, with the game's "network"--a virtual computer that simulates Web and e-mail, among other things--providing additional background information and character interaction.

Front Mission 3 features a rich battle system that makes the game easy to learn but hard to put down. The different models of Wanzers can be used "as is" or modified to change their appearance, capabilities, and equipment; since a Wanzer and its pilot are controlled as one unit in battle, the pilot's battle skills and experience come into play when pairing them off during pre-battle setup. Pilots can, however, eject from Wanzers during battle and board unoccupied ones, or even fight on their own, David and Goliath style. Battles are turn-based and take place in 3-D isometric environments, which can be rotated to provide a better perspective. When combat occurs, the viewpoint changes to close-ups shown from various camera angles. While the battles are relatively short, Front Mission 3 makes up for their brevity with quantity, packing well over 100 hours of highly addictive gameplay on its one disc. --Joe Hon

Pros:

• Topnotch turn-based strategy battles
• Intriguing storyline filled with melodrama and plot twists
• Highly stylized art design
• "Double feature" scenario adds replay value

Cons:

• Some "network" features are more trouble than they're worth

GameSpot Review

Ironically, the first game in the Front Mission trilogy to arrive in North America may actually be the best one to introduce the series to a new audience. This strategy-simulation game features cool mech designs, an intricate plot, involving characters, and gameplay suited for both hard-core and casual gamers. The story takes place in the year 2112, ten years after Front Mission Second. You play as Kazuki Takemura, a student at a technical high school, as well as a test pilot for Kirishima Industries. He and his friend Ryogo Kusama are delivering new war machines, called Wanzers, to a military base located in Yokosuka when a mysterious explosion leads both characters into an unexpected turn of events. You navigate through the story with command windows that let you talk to different characters, move from one location to another, surf the Net, purchase supplies to equip your Wanzers. Between stories, you go through several missions where you will take your characters and their respective Wanzers onto the battlefield. The battlefield takes the format of orthodox strategy-simulation games, implementing a rigid grid system. The Wanzers have assorted types of weapons, such as machine guns, shotguns, missiles, grenade launchers, and flamethrowers. Each character has an experience level that conveys how efficient he is at using the different kinds of weapons. It's up to you whether specific characters take control of a short-range, heavy-armor type or a long-range, light-geared type of Wanzer. The field map, Wanzers, and foreign objects, such as trees or freight boxes, are all rendered polygonally. When you are engaged in battle, the field map zooms in and shows the battle scene. The load time of zooming into the field map is very, very slight, making transitions into battle very smooth. Also, in FM3, the entire battle sequence only takes a couple of seconds, as opposed to the long 30-plus seconds each sequence took in FM2. It took several hours to finish just one mission in FM2, but due to the smooth transitions and shortened battle sequences, FM3 has a much faster pace. In the battlefield, each character has a certain number of active points (AP), which are spent when you move the character from one grid square to another and fight against other Wanzers, and regenerate after each turn. Characters also acquire skills depending on what type of armor the Wanzer is equipped with. Though skills vary, most of them are useful in battle. For example, your character can shoot more ammo rounds in one turn, specify which body part of the enemy Wanzer to attack, or attack more than once in one turn. At the end of each mission, you will be rated on how well you did. You earn different medals ranging from platinum, gold, silver, to bronze. Having more platinum medals could earn you a much bigger reward later on in the game. You can also surf the Internet (well, the Internet according to Square, anyway) in the game. You can access different forums, ranging from government to commercial to private. Although this was featured in FM2, most of the time the forums contained senseless English text and wasn't much use in the main game. In FM3, the Internet is an integral part of the game. There's also lots of weird little fun stuff you can do in there, too, such as change wallpaper on your computer, vote for your favorite school idol, send e-mails to Square, and much more. You can also engage in training on field maps generated by virtual simulators. Most of the time, you will want to put time into training to acquire the necessary skills you will need for the real battle. There are about 60 stages in total, and you should expect to spend at least 50 hours completing the game. If you become hooked on the Internet section of the game, the chances are you will sink several more hours into it. Plus, there are two separate and different scenarios, which deliver great replay value. Although Square has managed to make the game more straightforward, the graphics in the game have been downgraded. The Wanzers in FM2 were made up of more polygons, and the frame rate was a little slower in some situations. The lower polygonal count was probably a sacrifice that had to be made in exchange for the extremely short loading times in the battle scenes. Improvements include your ability to rotate the field map very smoothly, as opposed to being able to rotate it only every 45 degrees in FM2. Other areas, such as the gridlines on the field map, the digital novel part of the game, and the FMV sequences are definitely much better-looking. The movements of the Wanzers from one grid to another looked pretty awkward in FM2; they looked like baby frogs leaping from one box to another. In a lot of respects, the field map is much more similar to the original Front Mission on the Super Famicom. The sound effects in the game have improved, and the FMV sequences definitely are worthwhile and entertaining. The soundtrack fails to deliver in some situations and ends up feeling average. One thing that may be a disappointment for fans of the series is that the dark, post-industrial atmosphere of the game has been diluted, resulting in a more futuristic, techno-pop image. As a good analogy, it's almost like how Namco's Ace Combat series changed its image and atmosphere completely when Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere came out. Front Mission 3 has managed to retain its strategy-simulation aspects, albeit at a relatively simpler level, which will let beginners feel comfortable playing the game and keep the hard-core gamers satisfied, too. Square has managed to deliver a good human drama based on the theme of war in the Front Mission series, and this game fits the series nicely. --Ike Sato
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars front mission 3, April 1, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Front Mission 3 (Video Game)

This game is awesome. It takes place in the not so distant future, where battle mechs called wanzers dominate the battle field. You are Kazuki Takemura(but you can change your name)and you work for a wanzer making/testing company. You become trapped in a world wide conspiracy and you must get to the bottom of it by fighting tons of battles in your and your allies wanzers. The combat system is turn based and your wanzers can learn battle skills such as tackle,zoom, or stun punch. Move your mech, choose your attack, and then sit back and watch the battle cinematics. Wonderful graphics and gameplay. A must have for gamers who love battle mechs, turn based games, or any type of gamer. Squaresoft did a lovely job with this game.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent strategy game - but not without its problems, June 12, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Front Mission 3 (Video Game)

I bought Front Mission 3 for a few reasons - because I am a diehard Squaresoft fan (Final Fantasy VII was my first game and is still my all-time favorite) because I loved the idea of robots in RPGs (Xenogears is my second favorite) and because RPGs are my favorite game genre. I had logged 29 hours of play time on FM3 when my memory card mysteriously deleted itself (not the game's fault - crappy card) so I didn't get to see all the game had to offer. However, I did get an understanding of the game. The battle system is probably the game's best feature. The isometric, 3D battle fields are reminiscent of the ones in Final Fantasy Tactics, and you fight your enemies in large robots called wanzers. Characters can use machine guns, shotguns, melee weapons (fist, baton, spike), missiles, grenade launchers, and other weapons to decimate your opponents. Each TYPE of weapon gains experience as you use them, so you can have one character who is good with shotguns or another who can effectively wield machine guns. One particular feature of this game is both a pro and a con. This would be the Network, which is like the World Wide Web. You pick a country, a type of site, and the site itself. From there, you can "download" programs, access restricted areas by receiving passwords (more on that later) or just see what's happening around the "world" of FM3. While this makes the game fantastically deep, I think it is way too complex. There are at least 100 web sites, and to see them all would require a LOT of time and patience. With the "Network" also comes a version of E-Mail. The characters in your party will occasionally receive mail from various people they know, and you sometimes have the option of answering it with pre-written replies. In addition to this, people will sometimes give you passwords to enter restricted areas of some Network sites. There is even a secret E-Mail address that lets you see a little congratulatory message for finding the address. One part of FM3 that can be seen as either a pro or a con is that it takes place on Earth, albeit in 2112. This way, you know where everything is, but it takes an element of discovery away from the game. In my opinion, the biggest fault of FM3 is its EXTREME linearity. You do not walk from town to town in this game; rather, you click where you want to go (because of the linearity there is never much choice), taking you there immediately. You can't even walk up to a person to talk to them; you have to choose their name from a list of people that you are near to. I think that this is absurd. I have always liked being able to walk around and talk to people in RPGs, but in this game, that simply DOES NOT HAPPEN. If it were not for that, this game would have probably received the full five stars from me. In all, Front Mission 3 is a great game for people who like fighting with huge machines, using strategy, and surfing the web, but do not mind that you have a set course to follow that is impossible to deviate from. I would recommend this game to them, and hope that they enjoy it immensely.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Future Looks Hard Core!, January 18, 2001

By 

J. N. K "Esco" (Central Mass) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Front Mission 3 (Video Game)

After playing the greatest turn based strategy of all time (Final Fantasy Tactics), I was convinced that Squaresoft was the ultimate gaming company. Keeping the faith, I got this game, not knowing what to expect, and the rest is history (and so are the hundreds of enemies they pitched at me).

In this game, you lead a character and his freinds through the 22nd century as you search for a mighty device called MIDAS, an energy creator that can be used for good, but is just too easy to turn into a bomb of mass destruction. As you go along, you fight evil from around the world, like the Japanese Defence Force (JDF), the United States Navy (USN), and even super-humans called "Imaginary Numbers" of the Chinese "Da Han Zhong" (DHZ). Combating them you are eventually pitted in almost 200 different battles, each with a different map and group of enemies.

The battle system is the core, where you select methods of defending yourself from the enemies, and which people to choose with their specialities to blow the enemy away. A few times I got pitted against enemies I just couldn't beat, but for the most part, it was very clean and rather simple (not like Final Fantasy Tactics, which was unbelievably hard).

With the battles and the talking sequences, you have some decent graphics and music. While I'll wait a while before I buy the soundtrack for this game, I will say that the music ranges from kinda weak techno to some awesome stuff. The graphics also could use a polishing, but all the required things are here (except a big explosion when a wanzer dies). When attacking your enemies, you go into a really awesome sequence of camera movement or angles. This adds almost a western style of shooting others, but you can still see that you are in a modern city with futuristic machines.

All in all, while many will argue that Final Fantasy Tactics was the better game (I think I might too, actually), there is no denial that this is quite possibly the only game in the world of the genre at the same level as FFTactics. This game is awesome, a change of scene from the midevil madness with Kartia, Vandal Hearts and FFTactics, and is good training for the harder ones, esspecially FFTactics.