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-= Front Mission: The Official Thread – THE POWER OUTPUT IS TOO HIGH! =-

Symytry

Member
BlackWaltz said:
I got the same bullshit from EB as far as Front Mission, but I was able to grab it from WalMart, looked like they had tons of copies at my local one.

The problem with Vancouver is that there really isn't any "local" walmart. Unfortunately it's against my moral values to shop at Walmart, I'll have to wait for EB.
 
I just picked this up yesterday. The store clerks at EB didn't even know this game existed :lol . I've just finished the second mission and its pretty awesome so far. My one gripe is that I think the short weapon range should be 2 instead of 1 like melee. It feels a bit odd in mission battles, but works perfectly in arena fighting.
 

Prospero

Member
siamesedreamer said:
I was interested in this game until I read the comparison to FF Tactics in that Gamespy review... :/

The comparison between Front Mission and FFT isn't really meaningful, IMO. Front Mission's defining characteristic is its potential for obsessive stat-tweaking, and FFT doesn't really have that.
 
Prospero said:
As scarce as this looks right now, it's still a Square Enix game. But Panzer Tactics is distributed by Atlus, and it's a hex-based WWII wargame that clearly values gameplay over graphics. That'll be the hard one to find.
I might get it as well, too, if I can find it.

I used to play a bit of Panzer General on my PC back in the 90s... Kind of nostalgic to see it again on the DS.

Between Panzer, Front Mission, ASH, and -- I think there were one or two others I was contemplating, Etrian Odyssey 2 perhaps -- there's such a nice tactical array of titles out or coming out now on the DS. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, too, if they'd just localize an English version.
 
I was just wondering if there's any reason for me to not spam missiles with every character. They're just too damn good early in the game.
 

ElFly

Member
Just got this. The graphics are outdated, and the battle animations take a second to load. Otherwise, it's cool.

It's hella complex, though. I am on the first shop of the game and don't know what in hell to buy! :lol

Reading the manual.
 

Beavertown

Garbage
Jamesfrom818 said:
I was just wondering if there's any reason for me to not spam missiles with every character. They're just too damn good early in the game.


Yeah, I have at least one on all my characters. I don't see any reason not to, at this point.
 

duckroll

Member
So I picked it up:

- Interface is really awesome. Giving the option of both touch and button control schemes is great.
- Using both screens to display mostly DATA is really useful for a strategy game.
- Great port, everything looks good, and the game is fast. It's even faster if you use the new options available on the DS version.
- It's... Front Mission.
 
So far so good, but one annoying thing:

Sometimes it seems to lag between attacking an enemy and then the top screen actually showing the attack animations.

It's minor, but the lag time adds up.
 
I now have 20 hours of play time logged into this damn game. I find that the arena is great for a little grinding in the middle of the day while I'm at work. My only gripe with this game is the shop. I don't mind new weapons being available in the next town but having to customize new wanzers after almost every story battle is a bit annoying.
 

Galactic Fork

A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Just got it today, really like it so far. Touch interface bugs me, square enix continues its annoying theme of making you touch everything twice. If they'd just make the menu items bigger, you could just touch the item you want once. But no, you have to touch the item to highlight it, then touch it again to activate it. Also, rather than making the L button cycle through allies, you should just be able to hold it down and then select the ally. Other than that, the game's golden.
 

Prospero

Member
So I was wondering if I'm going to be able to finish this before the November onslaught of new games, and it looks like I don't have a chance. Apparently there's a total of
62
missions. And there are unlockables.

This is going to keep me busy for a while--November games will have to wait, until I finish at least one of the two storylines.
 

bluemax

Banned
Jamesfrom818 said:
I was just wondering if there's any reason for me to not spam missiles with every character. They're just too damn good early in the game.

I remember I used to try my damndest to get the ability that lets you target with missiles then I'd reign terror with them. Immobilizing your enemies before they ever get in range FTW.
 
Why the hell are shotguns weaker, more accurate versions of rifles. Shotguns were my favorite weapons in FM3 but here its just so useless since you can just use Duel with a machine gun if you want to concentrate firepower on one part.
 

sykoex

Lost all credibility.
Couple questions i have about this game...

1. I can understand the rifles that do a good amount of damage on one part, but if i can't choose what part of the enemy mech i want to shoot then what's the point? Too many times it'll randomly shoot the part of the mech with a crapload of hp while the 'body' of the mech had like 2 hp and could have resulted in an instant kill.

2. Why is it that most of the time it seems that when i wager money in the arena, if i lose the battle, i lose the amount of money i wagered, but if i win the battle i'll only win a very small amount of money?
 

Totakeke

Member
The money you earn depends on the odds of the fight, for example, the minimum 1.01, if you bet 100 you'll only get 1 more if you win the match. So if you win a match with odds of 3, you'll get 200 more on top of your 100 back.

Played like 5 hours of the game, but so far the battles still feel too random for me since you never know what part your attacks will hit. All you can do is setup your wanzers with the best equipment and just attack. The minimal differences between the wanzers you can have isn't helping either. What's the point of putting all those different weapons when there's one best type of each and money is readily available from the arena?

Also, are there any differences between a low W/P ratio to a high one as long it doesn't exceed 100?
 

ElFly

Member
Finished the OCU side. Great game, although it drags a little in the end.


I am starting the UCS campaign. The first mission is pretty hard if you can't guess what you are supposed to do.
 
Totakeke said:
The money you earn depends on the odds of the fight, for example, the minimum 1.01, if you bet 100 you'll only get 1 more if you win the match. So if you win a match with odds of 3, you'll get 200 more on top of your 100 back.

Played like 5 hours of the game, but so far the battles still feel too random for me since you never know what part your attacks will hit. All you can do is setup your wanzers with the best equipment and just attack. The minimal differences between the wanzers you can have isn't helping either. What's the point of putting all those different weapons when there's one best type of each and money is readily available from the arena?

Also, are there any differences between a low W/P ratio to a high one as long it doesn't exceed 100?
The whole point is to tailor your Wanzers for every encounter you have. For instance if you're facing a lot of long range commanders you either build a long range mech or a meat shield short range with high mobility.
 
ninj4junpei said:
I'm five hours in and definitely enjoying it. :D I have a question though, why do short range weapons suck so much?

Short weapons, mainly machine guns, become awesome once you get some skills. Duel allows you to aim at whatever part you want and is great for shooting off weapons and experience farming. Switch lets you fire off the short weapon in the other arm and Speed lets you fire off more shots with a machine gun.

EDIT: If you want to exp farm, shoot off the arms of a couple units on a mission that has a supply truck. Those units will run to the truck and fix their arms and have 1 health. Just shoot em off over and over again for a bunch of experience.
 

MrDaravon

Member
bluemax said:
Fucking Gamefly was supposed to have shipped this to me but I still haven't got it. I'm pissed.

Did you have it in your queue before the game released? I put it on mine a few days before the game came out and it shipped as soon as the game came out. With most new releases though if you don't have it on your queue before the game comes out, it's usually a week or two wait.
 

bluemax

Banned
SailorDaravon said:
Did you have it in your queue before the game released? I put it on mine a few days before the game came out and it shipped as soon as the game came out. With most new releases though if you don't have it on your queue before the game comes out, it's usually a week or two wait.

They shipped it to me but it never arrived. They have it listed as being shipped to me but I never got it. Meanwhile I have crappy Heroes of Mana which they shipped on the same day.
 

Totakeke

Member
DeaconKnowledge said:
The whole point is to tailor your Wanzers for every encounter you have. For instance if you're facing a lot of long range commanders you either build a long range mech or a meat shield short range with high mobility.

In all my battles I just focus on the long range mechs first with all my wanzers since they're the ones that could kill your retreating wanzers. What I do is I just have a mix of 3 short/3 melee/3 long wanzers every encounter and I haven't encountered a battle that I really needed an unbalanced mix. So there's basically three types of wanzers with short/melee being quite similar, other than the different abilities the pilots can learn from specializing. (Why do long range specs only have one ability ;( )

What's also backwards about tailoring your wanzers for a battle is that you need to go into the battle, look around, then reset then setup your wanzers again, the only thing mission intel is good for is to tell you whether there's a boss or not and what type it is. You would never know what terrain the battlefield is and the walker types are usually the safest (except for one sand level).


Not saying the game sucks, it is pretty good, especially for a remake of a game that was released a long time ago, just seems like the wanzer customization is sorta limited.
 
ninj4junpei said:
Argh, mission 7 is a pain.

Edit: There seriously needs to be an option for weather. There's enough lag as it is.
Hmmm? Odd slowdown, you say? I hadn't read about that before. I assume, not too much?
 

Symytry

Member
slowdown? Am I blind? I haven't noticed any at all. I'm about 14 hours into Royd's campaign and loving every minute of this translated masterpiece. It was fun playing through in Japanese back in the day, but now that I know what's actually going on it's so much better.
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
There is no slowdown. I think he's talking about the lag between the bottom screen and the top screen when the battles begin, I haven't noticed it being any longer depending on the weather.
 
jj984jj said:
There is no slowdown. I think he's talking about the lag between the bottom screen and the top screen when the battles begin, I haven't noticed it being any longer depending on the weather.
Actually, on mission 7, there is slowdown with the attack animations because of the rain.
 

Soulhouf

Member
The most impressive is that in every project he took a different job: Battle Graphics, Field Graphics, Map Graphic Design, Graphic Director, BG, Concept Art, Scenario Writer, Director,...
 
Well, pre-Xeno, he basically just did graphical elements--period. Then, with the Xeno series, he's had his chance to show his creative writing.

So two very different facets distinctly seperated as pre-Xeno and post-Xeno.
 

Galactic Fork

A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
OK, two part question.
1: Am I the only one who got a Nintendo WFC connection instruction book in their copy of Front Mission?

2: If not, does that make anybody else as bitter and annoyed as me?
 

turk128

Member
Incredibly addictive game.

Hope they clean up the interface a little in the future installments (faster dialogue and dialogue skip), more variety in the top info screen in combat (can be confusing at times), and don't bother with touch screen controls unless they really think it through. Also, my 1st Front Mission game was on PS2 so I hope they can implement more variety in attacks, skills, and parts.

Great game, can't wait for more.
 

turk128

Member
Totakeke said:
Played like 5 hours of the game, but so far the battles still feel too random for me since you never know what part your attacks will hit. All you can do is setup your wanzers with the best equipment and just attack. The minimal differences between the wanzers you can have isn't helping either. What's the point of putting all those different weapons when there's one best type of each and money is readily available from the arena?

Also, are there any differences between a low W/P ratio to a high one as long it doesn't exceed 100?
When you get the Guided skill ability later on, it's gonna make the battles much more strategic and fast (you can then aim for parts). I still don't know what the shotgun or flamethrower advantage is over a rifle, thou.

Every 10% of un-used power, you get 1 extra movement. A high powered melee mech with no weapons and just shield can move around the map incredibly fast.
 

Symytry

Member
in mission 12 (I think, might be 13)
the train mission, did anyone else get the reference to Bubblegum Crisis? Sylia, Nene and Priss, taking care of the explosives to blow up the train? I thought it was a bit strange, but it's too much of a coincidence.
 
Is this LTTP yet? 11 hours in, totally addicted. I love how the game slowly ramps up the strategy required. Early on you can spam missles, but as you get farther the weight reqs prevent it. As you get more skills the handed weapons become more important. As you get building wanzers with roles becomes more and more important. This game does an amazing job of ramping into the strategy, without doing so obtrusively, holding your hand too much, or long tutorials.

The grinding is just right also, a few arena battles for EXP and money here and there, but mostly it's all interesting story battles.

Miuha is such a beast, First-> Double-> stun! all in one round decmiates pretty much anything. When do skills level up, is it based on overall exp, or amount of times the skill is triggered (double/switch) or used (Guide/Duel)?
 

Tom_Cody

Member
I had been greatly anticipating Front Mission's release on DS and I purchased it day 1, but I have only gotten to playing it now (I'm about 5 hours in). I admittedly had high hopes, but so far my experience has been at best mixed. The visual and audio presentation are great. This is Front Mission through and through. Unfortunately, I am less impressed with the battle system. Being the first game in the series, I wasn't expecting it to be as polished as FM3, but this just feels primitive by comparison.

-The attack range balance is awful. Machine guns, melee weapons, rifles, shotguns, and flamethrowers all have a range of 1 space? Whats the point? In FM3, melee had a range of 1, flamer 2, shotgun 3, machine gun 4, and rifle 6. Machine guns are the only multi-hit short-range weapon- meaning that all of the other weapons are essentially identical to melee weapons. From a strategic standpoint there are only 3 short-range weapons: machine guns, bazookas (taking the place of rifles from the later games), and melee/rifle/shotgun/flame.

-The Wanzer weight restrictions are completely unbalanced. I am only 5 hours in, so this may improve as the game goes on, but this is just ridiculous. I have my main character equipped with a weapon in each hand, a launcher on each shoulder, and legs with the best possible mobility. That is not balanced. What is the point of weight restrictions if you can simply equip all of the best possible weapons and parts at the same time? Money limitations serve to balance this somewhat, but why even bother with weight restrictions if your only concern is money?

-The lack of attack-range and attack-accuracy information in battle is greatly missed. These are much more minor concerns (and may actually be my own fault). Is there a way to indicate the opponent's mobility/attack range? Having been raised on the Advanced Wars series and the later Front Mission games, I have come to expect indicators of the enemy's effective attack distance. In playing both series, a check of the enemy's attack range is how I always start my turn. Even without conveniently colored-in tiles, one can still count tiles to judge missile distances but there is no way to indicate their mobility, which varies from wanzer to wanzer. It is also frustrating that accuracy is not displayed attack by attack. Accuracy is a huge part of the Front Mission series. Both in weapon selection and positioning around the battlefield. Not having this information available greatly reduces the precision of strategic gameplay.
 
I beat Royd's scenario a few days ago. I really enjoyed it and will jump back in to play Kevin's scenario after I take a little break.
 
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