Customer Reviews

Front Mission Evolved

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am personally an avid FM fan and had this pre-oredered for the Xbox 360 for quite a while, and as of this review I have completed the game on Normal and Hard, and I am a Staff Sergeant 2 in Multiplayer.

Story/Characters/Cutscenes 2/5

The story (about 10 hours in length), though cliched, is truly weakened by how forced it feels--a little more exposition and well-placed dialogue explaining some of the under-lying themes/plot holes would have improved the otherwise average story I felt like I was watching a new addition to the Gundam series with no fight choreography. However, since Motomu Toriyama, the lead writer for Final Fantasy XIII wrote the story, it should come to no surprise that it has all the same issues as FFXIII's story; that being a lack of exposition manifested in unspoken themes and massive plot-holes. Additionally, The Character development was predictable, but the voice-acting, produced by Hydrogen Whiskey Studios, wasn't too bad. However, the dialogue provided to record was terrible--thank you Toriyama. The Cutscenes, also outsourced to Hydrogen Whiskey Studios, were quite good and went a long way to enjoying the otherwise below-average story.

Gameplay 4/5

Gameplay mechanics are tight, (Double-Helix did a great job) and the additional modes: On foot infiltration and Gunship Defense are well thought out and fairly fun (except on hard in which case they're a nuisance). I was very pleased to find no bugs in either of my two playthroughs, and quite frankly, a little shocked. It was quite refreshing as it has been too long since I have been able to say that. The gameplay, though not anything revolutionary, is the highlight of the game and makes the game worth buying for Hardcore FM fans and Hardcore Mech fans alike.

Customization 3/5

Customization mirrors that of FM, FM2, and FM4, so fans of the more open upgrade driven advancement in FM3 and FM5 will be disappointed. At different campaign levels and cash milestones more parts are available, and these new parts will yield the old parts obsolete (in most cases these new parts are upgrades to the previously purchased Wanzers). This doesn't bother me much, but I know this will be a concern to some FM fans and AC fans. An issue I have with the customization is the lack of strategy involved in the campaign and multiplayer as a result of customization restraints. For instance in FM4 and Evolved a Ballistics Wanzer could use a Recon Wanzers sensor backpack to extend the Ballistic Wanzers Range, and though the repair backpack makes a come-back, it comes at the cost of mobility as the roller-skating ability, though still accessible, is less maneuverable without the A.G.I.L.I.T.Y backpack. It feels like the strategic component is overall lacking in a series that has ever emphasized strategy.

Overall 3.5/5
For all its faults it was better than I expected. The story was written by Square-Enix, The voice acting and Cutscenes by Hydrogen Whiskey Studios, and the gameplay by Double-Helix, and despite this, the overall cohesion of the product is exceptional and exceeded my expectations. I truly enjoyed the full experience of it all despite it's shortcomings, so I recommend this for the true die-hard fan of the FM series and die-hard Mech Fans starved for more robotic slaughter, but everyone else should consider renting first.

Glitchy, after one patch the level "Percival" is unplayable. I loved Front Mission 3 and 4. This is more like Armored Core or even Robotech. I am all for evolution, but this game has lost it's identity by giving up it's strategy for pure action. Call me old school but a game shouldn't use every button unless it can be intuitive. Did I mention glitches? I rounded a corner in the level "Percival" and the ground and buildings disappear. Enemy silhouettes floating around. I hope the game gets fixed. If you like Armored Core you may like this game, but it wasn't the game I have been waiting for. Back to Fallout 3.

I pre-ordered this game and finished the single-player campaign in about 12 hours, including some frustrating boss battles that took significant time to get past.
I've had no prior experience with the Front Mission strategy games; however, I played MechWarrior 2 and 3, MechCommander, Shogo, and Heavy Gear II on PC, and Armored Core on PS1. These games were all complex, varied, and fun. I rate Front Mission Evolved far below them. It is an arcade-version of a mech sim. In fact, I'd rather play Shogo: Mobile Armor Division from 1998 (which similarly has on-foot missions), because the story and voice-acting are much better, and it's actually fun. FME can't do better than a 12-yr old PC game? Skip it.

1. Complexity
While FME gives the illusion of complexity in the number of optional parts and weapons to customize your wanzer, there are really only a few you end up using. I found a few favorites and stayed with them, unless I was forced to customize by the story, or just to get through one of the boss fights. You won't find the need or inclination to use 75% of the options since their negatives outweigh the positives (if they have any). I used a rifle once, only when forced by the story, and tried grenade launchers but quickly abandoned them. Specific equipment changes were important and critical for me to make it through the boss fights (a shield became highly useful from mid-game on).

2. Varied
I liked the various visuals you see during the SP campaign, but besides texture and lighting changes, there wasn't much to make them play differently. The wanzer models and graphics are detailed an look good, but the rest of the graphics are a bit dated.
The on-foot missions are terrible and form an after-thought dung heap. It's sort of cool to destroy two wanzers and a few helicopters with the shoulder-launched missile, but if it only takes 2 or 3 shots, why does it take many salvos of wanzer-mounted missiles to achieve the same destruction?

3. Fun
The boss fights got increasingly annoying. Figure out the boss's move and time your dodge, then wail on him/her. Certain part or weapon changes can be crucial to get past these battles.

Multiplayer:
I have been playing multiplayer, and it is a little better than SP, mainly because your opponents have intelligence and there is a small amount of stategy in Domination and Supremacy game modes.
There are plenty of bad things that stand out, though. The game lobby is a ridiculously bare bones mess that lets you communicate to the other players only through a microphone, but most players don't have them. You can't pick your team (and auto-balance always does strange things), you must leave the MP lobby in order to quickly see the equipment on a wanzer; otherwise, you must access the slow wanzer customization menu. You can't see what wanzers the other players have chosen (including your teammates) and you can't change wanzers after you die before re-spawn.
It's not fun at all to work up from a low rank just to progress high enough to get decent weapons, because you will spend many hours and die hundreds of times to get there. It wouldn't be as bad if you could limit ranks when setting up a MP match. There is no reason to match rank with part/weapon access; skill should be the determining factor, and there is too little of that required. The biggest gun always wins, and that means the high-ranked officers usually clean up. The weapons have ended up being unbalanced. The heaviest hitting missiles and bazookas rule over all. The firing delays should be much longer on powerful weapons.

Launching a ranked match from the lobby is irritating. It's an automated affair, with a 60-second countdown starting after an even number (at least 4) of players is present.

If someone leaves or enters to make it an odd number (4 on 3, or 3 on 2), the timer pauses, which is good since this difference will determine the outcome of a match 99% of the time. This is easily discovered when a player leaves a match due to frustration or lag when:
1. the countdown freezes after reaching zero and stays in the lobby stating "waiting for players". If you wait long enough (minutes), the match MIGHT start.
2. the map is loading but it's taking longer than usual (just wait twice as long as you think it should take, and the match will start)
3. your teammate is getting repeatedly killed due to rank/weapon imbalance and leaves, so then YOU are even worse off

I wish this game was a turn-based tactical game with action elements (AND a better story AND acting AND replay) like Valkyria Chronicles, but then it wouldn't be multiplayer. In it's current form, it's an arcade shooter with little thought required.

When I saw this game at Bestbuy and Target, I was surprised because I haven't really heard of it. I bought it used last week from Amazon which was 1/3 of the original price and I'm glad to report that I just finished playing the game on PS3 10 minutes ago - this is probably one of the most underrated games of 2010. I like Mech games and this one really hits the spot, I could not put the controller down. The story is very engaging and decently conceived but this game is definitely not without flaws. I appreciate that the creators wanted to mix it up a little bit between Wanzer action and foot combat but the latter was pretty bad. I dread the time when I had to get out of my Wanzer and go on foot but it actually helped fill in the storyline. Sometimes during Wanzer action in the jungle, the leaves and trees get in the way of your view.
The good thing is that there were not a lot of foot missions. It is a fun game but you also have to think - the success of your mission lies behind how you customize your Wanzer and boy have I really spent a lot of time going back to the drawing board if a configuration does not work which is pretty good with all the statistics and numerical figures for a certain weapon/part etc. The boss battles were pretty challenging especially the one with Cornelius.

Overall I really like this game, I guess beauty lies on the eyes and taste of the beholder. If you are not a Mech fan then this game will just be so-so but hardcore Mech fans like me, it's a blast. Voice acting was decent as well, graphics were very good during Wanzer action but characters have facial wonkiness at times. The design of the Wanzers were also pretty well conceived.

In the end, I could not get enough - I wish there were more levels to play. Hope this review helps.

I've been a fan of the front mission games since front mission 3. This game has everything that I was looking for. In this game you are allowed to customize your Wanzer any way you like, from changing the arms, legs, and torso to custom paint and adding decals. There are a lot of weapons that you can use and different types of armor. I got this game on a Sunday and was done with it in a week. I was not able to use every weapon or armor but I'm looking forward to playing it on hard mode and selecting the upper level parts. The game itself is a bit short but the game play and graphics makes up for it. The online play is not what I thought would be. There are very few people playing. I don't understand why this game only has two and a half stars. It should at least have four. Overall I would recommend this game to any Front Mission fans or to any robot lovers that like to destroy everything in their path.

Gameplay has changed from its franhise strategy rpg to action shooter. It actually is pretty good but it could have been better. Controls is sort of messy but a worthwhile pickup.

Story is lame. Go netplay.

Netplay is great but has many issues. Random team balancing. Was placed by myself against 3 others. Totally unfair but skills can outwit numbers. Japan players play this alot are very good.they are the players u will most likely see online.

Graphics not that good. Some ps2 look better.

Got for 10 when ther was a special on amazon. Worth the pickup for franchise fans. For others i would recommend if you get it cheap.

I'm new to the mech genre of video games. I have played zone of the enders before as a playable demo, I thought I'd start with this game as my first mech game instead. From what I've seen from the previous game in the series those game were heavily strategic/rpg mech type. This game on the other hand goes for the straight shoot em' up route its non stop action there's little thinking involved. I think this is square enix's way of making their game series "harder edged". Well they kind of failed the gameplay is to basic it plays like a mech game from the ps2/xbox era.
The graphics are ok but its nothing special. The wanzers all animate nicely and you can customize them to your hearts content, this is the only part of the game where strategy is needed (and of course in the harder difficulty) choosing the right type of weapons and gear for your wanzer is very important. So i give the game credit for that and because i like the developers Double helix games, they do good work and can make great games if given the right license this game was great I personally enjoyed it because I never really played theses type of games before. But i'm going to have to play the earlier titles in the FM series to know what the series is really about.

I picked it up for 5 bucks from the gamefly store maybe thats why... but I still think it was well worth it and its definitely not a bad game. Give this game a shot at the very least its a rental

The main reason I bought this game was for multiplayer. Unlike other reviews I have read, I have only experienced 1 bug. Unfortunately, that 1 bug freezes my multiplayer game right out of the lobby 100% of the time. If I was allowed to even play the game, I might have the privilege to experience the other bugs I have read about (audio stopping/recycling, game crashes, buggy menus, etc.).

The single player campaign is playable, but environment textures are horribly boring and low quality. Story is drab and boring and uninspired.

Lastly, the customization of your Wanzer is so limited in selection that there is very little to do but change paint.

This game, if it were relatively bug free, should have been a $15 DLC off of Playstation Network. Considering all of the bugs that make this game unplayable for me, I don't see how Square-Enix can ethically charge money for this. That little icon on the back of the case that says "Network Players 2-8" is a contract to the buyer. In my case, this was a breach of contract. This game will be returned shortly and I will never buy a Square-Enix game again.

Avoid this like the plague. If, for some reason, you want to play a boring singleplayer campaign, buy it in a couple of months when the price drops from $60 to $15.

This is a third-person action game that involves you controlling a walking tank called a Wanzer. Your mission is to destroy the enemies. In between each mission you get to upgrade your Wanzer with whatever weapons you like. There is a strategy to this as you do not want to put too many weapons on you Wanzer as making it too heavy will make it move slowly. If you like your ranged weapons you can select missiles or rifles. If you like your combat in melee action then you can install shields and blunt weapons. Either way, your maneuvering and moves will decide the outcome, not turn-based like in the other installments which I found to be boring. It is obvious to me that the makers wanted to appeal to us action game fanatics. The graphics are excellent and the controls are easy to use. The only downside to this game is the length. It was so much fun that I just wanted to keep on playing. It is as short as a lot of action games. Having played a lot of epic RPG games like Fallout 3 I am used to a long adventure. Part of the fault lies in the fact that the action in this game is so fast paced that you won't notice that the time went by. But credit should be given to the game designers as that means that you are not bored. At least there is an online portion where you can play against other players online. If you don't have internet, then you can replay the game as it can be replayed using a different strategy by using the ranged weapons instead of the melee weapons or playing it on the hard mode. I highly recommend this game.

For the most part, this is a good game. There are 2 main problems, however.

First, every Boss you defeat escapes in a cutscene. Talk about futility! They come back again to mess things up in the story. Oh, and before they leave (in the cutscene), they do evil things. As a matter of fact, throughout the story the evil side seems to be winning. They have victory after victory no matter what your actions. Although near the end of the game there is some closure (you get to FINALLY defeat the Bosses), during the story it is just frustrating to see the just-defeated-Boss escape time and again. And they are not easy battles, either.

Second, the end Boss is just way too tough. Two hits from him and you die, and this is with the most armor health you can get. He has direct fire rockest that can't be shot down, two hits you die; he has a super sword he switches to half way through the battle, two hits you die; he is so fast to manuever you can't run away. I have been trying to beat him for three days now. I give up I guess.

Other than those two things, the game is very good overall. You get to tinker with your mechy and make it really cool. The standard battles are a lot of fun. 80% of the game is 5 out of 5. Just those two main issues kind of makes it frustrating.