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[Wario64]

7.3

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/strategy/frontmission4/review.html

"Ultimately, those most likely to enjoy Front Mission 4 are already Front Mission fans. The best points of the game--the wanzers, their customization, and their ensuing battles--are mitigated by the oftentimes glacial pacing and unnecessary obfuscation of the upgrade system. However, those with a penchant for mechs and a wealth of options for their upkeep--in addition to some patience--will find Front Mission 4 a worthy outlet for their interests."

 

[radios shipping overview]

Ultimately, those most likely to enjoy Front Mission 4 are already Front Mission fans.

That's all I need to know. Sales +1

 

[Korranator]

"Ultimately, those most likely to enjoy Front Mission 4 are already Front Mission fans.

That's all I need to know too. Sales 0

 

[belgurdo]

It's a strategy game. Why are they expecting lightning fast battles and nuclear explosions in every attack cutscene? Retarded

 

[DarienA]

That's all I need to know. Sales +1

Same here I don't care about the newbies, Sales +1.

 

[Korranator]

It's a strategy game. Why are they expecting lightning fast battles and nuclear explosions in every attack cutscene? Retarded

Probably, because other games in the genre have much faster pacing.

 

[DarienA]

Probably, because other games in the genre have much faster pacing.

Bah I don't want ALL strategy games to be fast paced... a mix is just what the doctor ordered. Just like I don't want all my RPGs to move to a real time battle system. I'd like a few to keep turn based....

 

[Korranator]

nm

 

[Mumbles]

It's a strategy game. Why are they expecting lightning fast battles and nuclear explosions in every attack cutscene? Retarded

I've always found that the strategy games that get knocked for "slow pacing" are rarely much slower than the ones that aren't. But FM3 *was* fairly slow (not Ring of Red slow, but below average) - not because of the intricate strategy, but because of the animations. Never bothered me much, though - I didn't turn them off, and don't remember even looking for that option.

 

[Cloudy]

My $40 copy should have shipped from Ebgames today

 

[DarienA]

I've always found that the strategy games that get knocked for "slow pacing" are rarely much slower than the ones that aren't. But FM3 *was* fairly slow (not Ring of Red slow, but below average) - not because of the intricate strategy, but because of the animations. Never bothered me much, though - I didn't turn them off, and don't remember even looking for that option.

In the demo of 4 you can even hold a button to speed up the movement phase IIRC...

 

[calder]

At least it's a less baffling review than the IGN one.

Same here I don't care about the newbies, Sales +1.

+1 indeed. I *liked* the 'slower' pacing of FM3 and the demo, so no worries for me.

 

[Fifty]

At least it's a less baffling review than the IGN one.

As usual.

Anyway, it looks good enough, and the demo played well, so I'll be picking it up later this week.

 

[Wario64]

The skipping battle animation button in the FM4 demo is probably my favorite thing about FM4. FM3 battles were just too long (could you turn off the animation?), talking about at least 30 minutes for each battle. The game still kicked ass though. And you could save mid battle if I remember correctly. But yeah, being able to skip the animations in FM4 is great

 

[Takuan]

I'll give this a try. I don't like what I read about the AI and loading pre-battle, but meh, giant robots!

 

[Tommie Hu$tle]

You could skip the animation in FM3. I think IGN had the most accurate review of FM4. The game really hasn't advanced at all and the AI stinks that (I'll wait till you hit the line before I attack never mind the fact that 4 wanzers are pounding on a fellow wanzer in plain site). No recon to setup your wanzers sucks. With that said it is giant robots so I'll pick it up later this week.

 

[Bebpo]

You could skip the animation in FM3. I think IGN had the most accurate review of FM4. The game really hasn't advanced at all and the AI stinks that (I'll wait till you hit the line before I attack never mind the fact that 4 wanzers are pounding on a fellow wanzer in plain site). No recon to setup your wanzers sucks. With that said it is giant robots so I'll pick it up later this week.

To be fair, you can't just lead one enemy out at a time and pick them off. The AI has triggers so if little mech A out front starts to get beat on, mechs B & C up in the tower will start coming down to his aid. This pressures you to take care of enemies FAST when you pull them out or else they start piling up at you.

As for advances to the series. While it may not be a huge gameplay advancement. Having gigantic maps with an insane number of units in many battles really boosts the "epic war" enviroment of the game. Also gameplay wise, the link attacks rock and are a great addition (thought the game ends up being based around mastering them).

30 hours in and just finished mission 20 myself. Depsite minor problems, I really love the game and recommend all s-rpg fans to pick it up.

 

[Tommie Hu$tle]

30 hours in and just finished mission 20 myself. Depsite minor problems, I really love the game and recommend all s-rpg fans to pick it up.

Bottom line is that this is a SRPG with giant robots and customzation. Hence I am compelled to get it regardless. With some of the great AI out there today I would hope that SE would have put more thought into it.

 

[iapetus]

Probably, because other games in the genre have much faster pacing.

Go play Ring of Red and then say that.

 

[Cloudy]

I popped the game in at 11:30 last night just to try it out a bit. It's 6:30 now and I just quit lol


:\

 

[Korranator]

dp

 

[Korranator]

Originally Posted by Korranator

Probably, because other games in the genre have much faster pacing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally Posted by iapetus

Go play Ring of Red and then say that.

Go play Disgaea and agree with me.

 

[Tommie Hu$tle]

I'm playing the game now. My view of it has changed from the demo to the more positive but, I still have some real issues with it. Let me get some more playtime in before I give a true review. As of now I would rank the game as a 5 (average).

 

[iapetus]

Go play Disgaea and agree with me.

I went and played FM4 instead, and feel obliged to disagree with you. You can speed up the movement of the wanzers, speed up or skip attack animations - you can storm through the battles pretty much as quickly as you can in Disgaea. There are a couple of niggles with doing things this way - the lack of any damage display outside the attack animations is the main one, but in-battle pacing isn't an issue at all.

 

[Suikoguy]

I rented Front Mission, and plan to buy it

Its really not all that slow, Final Fantasy Tactics for advance is noticably slower.
Which is why I plan to buy it

 

[Tommie Hu$tle]

the lack of any damage display outside the attack animations is the main one, but in-battle pacing isn't an issue at all.

Not really Iap, when your arms go you see black smoke rising from the side of the Wanzer where the arm is lost and if your legs are gone you can see spark animation (hard to see) but, you can tell when you can only move one square at a time. Also you can toggle the health bar. I think there is one health bar that is split into three so you can see individual damage.


All I have to say for the record is Vampire arms kick ass.


I wouldn't buy it at full price.

 

[iapetus]

Not really Iap, when your arms go you see black smoke rising from the side of the Wanzer where the arm is lost and if your legs are gone you can see spark animation (hard to see) but, you can tell when you can only move one square at a time. Also you can toggle the health bar. I think there is one health bar that is split into three so you can see individual damage.

Sorry, what I meant was that you can't see immediately how much damage you've taken - yes, there are visual indicators of serious damage and you can just move the cursor over the wanzer to see the detailed breakdown of damage to each location. It would be nice to see a floating number to show how much the attack did, is all (in the same way that you do in the attack animation). It's a minor niggle, and I don't plan on skipping many attack animations, but I thought it was worth mentioning again.

 

[Rei_Toei]

Go play Robot Warlords and cry.

 

[Mock]

If the pacing of the battles is an issue for players, then they're simply playing the wrong kind of game. Final Fantasy Tactics is every bit as slow, so is Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars and many other games in the genre. I even think its absurd to consider Disgaea or La Pucelle Tactics as a "faster" game because they're every bit as deep.

SRPGs are just slow games by nature, they payoff is that they also tend to offer hundreds of gameplay hours, not to mention replay value.

 

[Bizarro Sun Yat-sen]

You guys should try FM2:

"However, this new feature is also Front Mission 2's biggest flaw. Because the game needs to load in 2 large, detailed mechs every time you become locked in battle, you're left waiting about 8-10 seconds before each offensive/defensive move. In the first mission alone, there are approximately 11 enemy targets that you can destroy, each taking at least 3-6 rounds. Animations during battle take anywhere from 5-20 seconds a piece for each party. Additionally, after a single round is over, you're left waiting another 3-5 seconds for the game to return back to the isometric view. As you can imagine, simply getting through the first mission takes an extremely long time. The problem doesn't lie in the actual battle animations themselves (they are truly beautiful); rather, it's in the load times. When you consider that a basic hand-to-hand punch takes around 35-40 seconds to complete (nearly half of which is load time), this repetitive process becomes quite tedious. [...] There is no option to speed them up or skip them, so you are forced to watch them. "

(from review by Michael Motoda, courtesy of random google search result.)