Front Mission 4
Revolution and World War III

Reviewer Chi Phan	Story	6/10
	Characters	5/10
	Graphics	6/10
	Music	6/10
	Gameplay	8/10
	Extras	7/10
	Final Score	6.3/10

The Front Mission series isn't one of Square Enix bigger and better known rpg series outside of Japan. Front Mission 3 was release in North America for the Playstation and it was met with mix reviews. A fan base was never established for the game in North America. So not surprisingly the release of Front Mission 4 seem to come in a whimper than a bang as hardly anyone notice this game being shipped to stores. Still for those that what to try something a little bit different than the usual fantasy rpg game from Square Enix, Front Mission 4 will be the game for you.

Look at that gold! The path to war start here. Front Mission 4 is one big story but is told through two different mini stories. The two mini stories don't have much of a connection to the other, other than sharing the same bad guys. One mini story is base on Elsa and her team of Durandal in Europe. From Elsa story, her Durandal team is investigating an attack on a German base by an unknown team of Wanzers who's affiliation with what country in not yet clear. The European Community has announced that the attack on the German base was the result of the Unified Continental States and its Wanzers. The U.C.S didn't like that and wanted an apology or else it would use aggressive force to get that apology. The E.C would not comply and stand behind its statement that the German base was attack by U.C.S Wanzers. However the Durandal investigation may have shown some evidence that the U.C.S was indeed not behind the German base attack. Elsa and her team must race across Europe to find further proof to stop a possible World War III. In the other story, Darril and his friends have found a stash of gold worth millions. With greed insight, Darril and his friends decided to desert the U.C.S Army with gold in hand. But things don't go as smoothly as plan as the people who the gold belongs to decided to track and hunt Darril and his friends down. Through his trek across South America, Darril and his friend ended up with the Venezuelan Freedom Alliance, a rebellion group that is currently trying to overthrow the current Venezuela government. But as things turn out, the Venezuela government may have been back by the group that is responsible for the German base attack in Europe. As the story progresses deeper, more revelation is revealed and the connection between Europe and South Amercia becomes clearer. By the end of the game, I wasn't interested in the revolution that was taking place from Darril side of the story and I didn't care about the war between E.C and U.C.S on Elsa side. I also find it unnecessary of having two different point of view approach base off of one story when neither of the mini stories really have anything to do with the other. The Elsa story could've been told without Darril side at all and vice versa. The pure fact that none of the two teams really met up with each other in the end shows that this two story approach was unnecessary. It's almost like they force the two story approach just for the sake of having two teams in the gameplay. Not a good idea. If you don't care for the story or the characters in the story then something is bound to get a low score.

We need to plan our investigation. Front Missions 4 provides a large array of characters. A total of 12 characters each divided into two teams of 6 members evenly. The Durandal team led by Elsa and the U.C team led by Darril. As you can guess this makes Elsa and Darril as both main characters. Despite the fact that the game boast 12 different characters, the game itself doesn't go much details on who these characters are or where they are from. Usually a good rpg story tries to developed their character histories and involved them into the storyline. Just to make the characters more interesting to the players. Something that this game failed to do. Even the main characters are poorly developed. No real story moments were used to tell any of the characters past. There might be a hint of someone having a bad past but that's it. It's hard to really find someone in this bunch that you would like to call your favorite character in the game because all of them are just plain bland.

Wanzer ready for take off. In terms of the graphics, the game looks dull, dark, and boring. The characters are presented only through avatar like portraits of their faces. The story background for the most part is done in a 2-D artwork. Most of the 3-D visual animation will come during the battle maps and battles of the game. There are some 3-D visual story animations before and after a battle map but these visual aren't very appealing at all. The Wanzers are probably the only thing drawn and design with good details. What's impressive about the Wanzers is the pure fact that every time you upgrade your Wanzers with new parts and guns, the Wanzers actually reflect those changes on the battle maps. The battle maps themselves seem poorly designs with lack of details. During fights inside the city, the surrounding seems empty with no people or cars around which we know that's not true. The colors used in this game are very dull or at the very least the presentation of the colors comes off very dull and dark. I believe the colors in this game are the biggest negatives in terms of visual graphics. Story presentation in a 2-D format doesn't help as well.

Armor wanzers reloaded. Musically speaking there's not much of different tunes and themes that one can hold dear to their heart in this game. The most common theme that you will remember or get familiar with the most is the battle map theme. Outside of that there's nothing that sticks out at all. The presentation of the story doesn't' help too since this isn't a heavily driven drama story that calls for dramatic musical moments in the story. Sound effects aren't very strong too since the story is told through a 2-D dimension dialogue and there's no world exploration. The only sound effects you will mostly hear are during the battles with wanzers moving around and machine guns and rockets going off. Voice acting is present in this game and the voice acting is done quite nicely. No complaints here. Judging this section is hard because while playing this game, you don't notice the music at all. I suppose that should be an indication right there.

Surrounding the enemy! Burn baby, burn. Game Information    Genre: Strategy Rpg    Publisher: Square Enix    Disc: 1 DVD Disc    Memory: 35 KB    Players: 1 Player Mode    Digital Control: Yes    Analog Control: Yes    Rating: Teen    Release: June 2004 Despite the futuristic look of Front Mission 4, the game still plays like the basic fantasy strategy rpg game. You have the basic battle maps and the placement of your fighters on those maps. Once placements are done and complete, you move your fighters through the squares of the map in a turn base situation. Once movement is complete for a fighter you then pick which commands to use. Attacking your opponent fighters are done through rockets and machine guns instead of the usual sword and magic. The concept of the turn base strategy rpg game is still there, just the setting of it is different, from fantasy to modern day time period. The interface of the game is pretty easy to learn and understand. The only hard part in the beginning is learning how to customize your Wanzers and Pilots to the point where you have maximized their potential. Once you have that done the game becomes quite fun. AP:Action points are the foundation of this game. For every action that a wanzer does in the game from moving to attacking will consume AP. How much AP is spent depends on the action or movement that the wanzer has taken. Once AP is used up the wanzer can no longer take an action. Even if a wanzer has ended it's turn and still has AP left to consume. That wanzer may still take part in a round of attack if it is part of a linking system. A good player should be able to use AP and still have AP left over so his or her wanzers can do extra turns as part of a linking system. Skills:Skills are one of the building blocks that makes this game enjoyable. There are three types of skills. Battle skills are activated randomly during battles. Passive skills are skills that will only be in effect as long as they are equipped. Command skills are skills added to a pilot's list of available command. You are required to buy skills and equipped them in this game. So skills isn't automatically earned through level ups. Links:Without a doubt one of the most unique features in this game is the linking system. The linking system is a system where you can link other pilot's wanzers to a particular pilot wanzers in an offensive or defensive linking system. The concept of the linking system is that if a wanzer does an action in an offensive attack and that wanzer has other wanzers linked to it, those wanzers will join in on the attack. The same applies to defensive links. If a wanzer get's attack by an enemy and it has wanzers linked in a defensive linking system then those wanzers will attack by defending the wanzer that was attacked. Whether or not wanzer that is linked to the main wanzer does an attack in a linking system depends on whether or not it has enough AP to spend. Think of the link system as a combo system. Wanzer Set Up:To simply put, this is the place where you buy or upgrade your wanzers with new weapons and body parts. You can also customize your wanzers look and colors a little. You can also change your wanzers armor type as well as the name of your wanzers. Setting up each of your wanzers to have a balance team is the key to winning each battle stage. Pilot Set Up:Next to the wanzer setup, the pilot setup is the second most place where you will spend before each battle. In pilot setup, you'll be customizing the link set up for each pilot and buying new skills and setting them up. Ensuring that your pilots have the proper links and skills will make each battle easier. If I were to rate the game in terms of difficulty, I would say it rank from medium to hard. From the beginning to middle of the game, the battles on the battle maps are quite a challenge. You don't have enough skills points, your Wanzers aren't up to date with the best armors and weapons, and your links haven't been set up to their full potential. But by the time the game draw close to the end, you should have a team of super Wanzers that can take on any challenge. This game in my opinion is very simple to learn and play but can also be a very challenging game. Not a whole lot of features in this game but for the limited amount of features, the gameplay is good. I enjoyed the gameplay and I believe most would too.

Score: 8/10

Customizing wanzers parts The extras in the game are broken up into two different categories. The first one is where you have to talk to various people or complete certain battle map stages within a set condition to unlock cool unique weapons or wanzers in the game. Some of the stuff you get is useful while some aren't. There aren't a lot of these secret extras in the game and most can play this game without really doing them. The second and last extras are the simulations that you get from playing through the game. The simulations are basically extra battle maps that you can play to help level up your characters and earn money because you can't repeat any of the in-game missions over again. I'm not even sure if you can call the Simulations as extras as it's almost a requirement to do them in order to make money and level up your characters properly. Still since you aren't required to do the simulations, it's considered an extra. The simulation battle maps are broken into two group base on the two teams in the story, the Durandal Simulations and the U.S.N Simulations. Each side has a total of 12 Simulation Battle Maps. This brings the total of Simulations to 24 extra battle maps. That's pretty good. Lots of extra game time will be put into the Simulations. Incentive for replay comes from a Game Save+ option at the end of the game. You can start a new game by loading that option once you finish your first game. But this time you will have all your money and EP points loaded up in your new game from the previous game you just finish. It's not much of an incentive for playing this game again but it's something. When I look at the overall package of extras and replay, I don't see something that is truly a great value. As such I will rate this section base on the value that I think it has to the game.

Front Mission 4 isn't the big hype rpg game that you would expect from Square Enix. In a summer where Final Fantasy XI pretty much still dominates the market and the headlines, Front Mission 4 is the perfect rpg game for those that need to take a break from Final Fantasy XI or need some sort of new rpg to chew on before Star Ocean 4 comes out from Square Enix in late summer 2004. But don't expect Front Mission 4 to be the rpg game that will greatly satisfy you over the long haul. Final Score: 6.3/10