Customer Reviews

Front Mission Evolved

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

-Tommy Race

While Front Mission is normally a mech-based Strategy RPG series, "Front Mission Evolved" is closer to games like Armored Core or Mechwarrior than its predecessors. It tries to keep some of the themes intact, and does a pretty good job about the setting and designs, but also seems divorced as a game. As an individual game, it does a fairly decent job of being entertaining.

Front Mission Evolved is a mech combat game combining action-heavy gameplay with some customization features. Players pilot "wanzers" (short for "wanderpanzer", meaning "walking tank), which are similar to any number of human-shaped giant robots. These mechs can be equipped with different weapons, armor types, backpacks, and so on. Like in the older games, there is a balance of weight and power versus the amount of weapons and ammo carried. However, the core gameplay itself is much different than previous Front Mission games. While these were strategy role-playing games, Front Mission Evolved prefers to let the player pilot a mech themselves.

Each Wanzer has four weapon slots: The right hand is used to hold a gun (usually a machine gun or shotgun), the left hand is used for melee attacks, and the two shoulders are used to hold missile or rocket launchers. The backpack slot is by default used for a jetpack (which allows hovering) but can be replaced with repair gear, extra ammo, jamming equipment, and so on. The game's combat is good, but also sort of boring: you move the reticle over the target, you pull the trigger, you move on. There's not a lot you can do that differs from the basic model.

As far as combat goes, the only real things that stand out as being markedly different from other action games is the gliding mechanic and locational damage. The former is a battlefield tactic; by using a jetpack as a sort of roller skate, the wanzer can be much more mobile than they would be by walking. This is an invaluable tactic, since walking out to shoot an enemy also leaves you exposed. Gliding makes it much safer to skate out, fire a missile, and skate back to cover. The latter refers to the fact that wanzers take damage in their arms and legs as well as their body. If a section is damaged enough, it becomes unusable. The player's mech will regenerate body health, but not limb health (which requires finding a repair kit). Enemy mechs are generally not worth crippling, since it's just as easy to hit their torso as it is to hit their limbs.

Front Mission is a decent game in terms of graphics, sound, gameplay, and so on. However, its biggest failing is that it doesn't really have anything that sets it apart. It's about the same as Armored Core, with perhaps a bit more customization. There haven't been many mech games recently, so it's sort of filling a niche, but the customization isn't good enough to actually fill mech enthusiasts' needs. It's the kind of game that's worth picking up if you liked Armored Core or Mech Assault, but only in the sense that you can chew through its content and its multiplayer and be done with it. There wasn't anything innately appealing about the game itself.

Rating: 6/10.

Unlike the below review, I have played the other FM games back in PlayStation days. Also, I have finished this game as well. I can clearly understand why old fans of FM are pissed off because FM is known for strategy mach games and not a FPS. Anyways, here's my thought.

I feel this game has vast potential of being great! However, for this release of the game... it doesn't offer much. You only get few weapons, few type of armor to use, and etc.. the choices are too few. Also, one particular weapon is very imbalanced. Once you figure out which weapon that is then you'll never change. They try to make their weapon library big by giving a shot gun about 5~7 different names. Still, this game does manage to keep it interesting as game progresses. Toward the end, I could not let go of my controller until I finished the game. Also, if FME 2 ever comes out it will definitely be at least 9/10. Anyways, in order to enjoy this game you must LOVE mach games and be forgiving in some part of the game. I'm definitely a mach fan!

Front Mission Evolved is totally different than the previous version of Front Mission that came out for the ps2 Front Mission 4 and the DS Front Mission. These older versions of Front Mission were turn-based strategy games in which you customized your mechs (wanzers) and moved around in a manner that resembled chess.

Front Mission Evolved keeps what made the earlier games cool and brings the action to the front through third-person shooter gameplay. In many respects, Front Mission Evolved is more closely related to the Mech Assault franchize from the original xbox Mech Assault 2 Lone Wolf. Enemy mechs, tanks, and soldiers come at you and you have to balance close up melee combat with long-range missiles and machine guns. The graphics are good during gameplay and really brilliant in the cut-scenes.

The wanzers' controls are exceptionally intuitive. Moving between the walk, skate (like a sprint), jump, and hover is straightforward. The only manuevers that require some practice are the dodge and EDGE system (a fancy way to track enemies). Weapons are sensibly mapped.

You can equip four weapons and a backpack. There are multiple weapon types (missiles, rockets, rifle, shotgun, machine gun, and melee). And there are a variety of backpacks that provide bonuses like more ammo or greater manueverability. Each body part (arms, legs torso) can also be upgraded for armor, energy, or agility. On top of this, each weapon may also have a special effect assigned to it (such as shrapnel, inferno, corrosive). So you can see the customization is nearly endless.

The problem with 3rd-person games like Mech Assault and Front Mission Evolved is that they both sacrifice the element of giant warmachines duking it out with arcade "power-up" and such scattered around the landscape. While ammo is limited, all you have to do is find a glowing crate liberally sprinkled about. Which means that while Front Mission Evolved is the best mech game on the 360, it is not perfect.

Front Mission Evolved, because it does have online multiplayer, now ranks as mech game #1 for the 360 (the multiplayer edging out Chrome Hounds which was a great under-appreciated game).

Unfortunately, however, I think the venerable Mechwarrior 4 MechWarrior 4 Compilation is still the best mech combat game around. I am waiting patiently for the Mechwarrior Reboot that has been in the works for years. However until the new MechWarrior Reboot comes out (if ever), Front Mission Evolved is my mech arena of choice.

well square enix making a westernized game feels like activision making a jrpg. feels like i'm being patronized most of the story through XD, but overall the game is solid for those mech lovers out there.

So, this is improvement from chess board style slow version from previous installment. This is better of course 3d and has more impacting action points to the game play. I like the game and replaying is fun also. But, I can increase the difficulty and makes it harder is challenging enough to replay.

i agree with almost all of the reviews below. so i'm just adding my 2 cents here, at first i was turned off by the series leaving the strategy element behind. still bummed that they decided against it. i loved all of the f.m. before for the strategy element. I feel they made this into a semi generic shooter but what it does it does competently. its like most any other 3rd person shooter, except you "level up" your wanzer by buying new equipment. so you can have a shield, melee weapons, shotguns, bazookas, rocket launchers, homing missiles and other types of weapons. so you can make any combination that you like, which is a nice alternative to your usual 2 weapons on most shooters. all in all i enjoy this game and recommend it definitely for under $30 if you can find it cheap. only thing that i didn't really care for were the on foot parts, could have done without those. also the graphics hoover around early 360 graphics so not the prettiest but good enough.

I've been a big fan of the past Front Mission titles and was a bit of a skeptic going into Evolved. Turn-based strategy was fine by me and I wasn't thrilled to see the series head off in a different direction. However, the game was presented to me as a gift from someone that knew I've enjoyed the series. What I found was a solid game that stays fairly true to the franchise.

The combat is enjoyable and familiar for anyone that has played Armored Core or Mechwarrior on the Xbox. It doesn't take long to get comfortable with the controls and Wanzers can still be built from the ground up to fit your playing style. The story mode is fun, but extremely short. I've been able to play through the game on the "hard" setting in less than an hour when skipping the dialog. The first play through will undoubtedly take longer for most players.

My only major gripe is the reliance on hidden "sensors" in each level to extend the life of the game. This egg hunt is tedious and simply not fun, but unlocks a variety of items and battle skills. Many sensors are so well hidden that they're almost impossible to see, which makes the game absolutely maddening if you're attempting to find them all without the benefit of a guide or FAQ.

The online play can be fun, but it can take a long time to find a match. Higher-level players have the benefit of considerably better equipment, which leads to some extremely unbalanced fights. The game attempts to balance teams prior to the start of the match. This is, unfortunately, very poor and often results in one extremely powerful duo trouncing severely handicapped opponents. The matches are very enjoyable when the game manages to create balanced teams. Matches also require at least four players for a ranked match. With no option for bots to fill the vacant spots, it can take a long time to get a contest rolling since the game lacks a large following.

Overall, Front Mission Evolved is enjoyable and stays true enough to the franchise. It's certainly worth picking up at the reduced price, or makes a good weekend rental. Just don't expect to be blown away.

I have always been a mechwarrior fan and like similar games and stories. This is fun game to play but due to the thin plot, shallow customization, and lack of strategy options I think it fails to really pull your attention from other games. I found it fun to play but got bored after about 6 hours of game play because of the unidirectional game play. There are better games and more fun games out there to take up time. I have already traded it in after a week.

I bought this game hoping that it would play like the Mech Assault games on the original XBOX or the MechWarrior games on the PC. This game comes no where close to those games. Unfortunately, this is just a poor knock-off of better third-person shooter games with giant robots.

Single Player:
Story is OK with tolerable voice acting. Difficulty is all over the place. You can play some missions feeling like you are doing well in the game and then you hit the boss stages. The bosses are extremely hard and frustrating. The boss levels felt cheap. Then there are the missions where you are on foot without your "wanzer". These levels are just lame. I bought a game so that I could play in customized "wanzer", not to play as a puny human. Graphics are sub-par. On some levels I couldn't figure out how to continue on the level because the textures were so muddy and generic.

Multi-player:
If you haven't bought and played this game from day one in multi-player, you will get crushed in multi-player. Good mech parts are locked until you earn XP and level up to unlock better mech body parts and different weapon types. My brief stunt in multi-player involved me getting destroyed before I could even target the other team. If you are lucky, you may find players at your level so that the game would be fair. When I played it, it was poorly balanced and disappointing.

Overall:
This game has its moments where it can be really fun to customize your "wanzer" and try out different weapon build-outs. However, the wild swings in difficulty and poorly implemented multi-player really limit this game's potential. I would recommend renting it or waiting for a big price drop before purchasing this game.