Front Mission 4 Preview

Turn-based strategy games rarely get to hog the spotlight. Game developers don't make many of 'em, and the ones that are made are usually cheap, boring, or both. If that's the case, you ask, why hasn't the genre been abandoned?  

Because when it's good, it's really really good.  

Fans of the underrated Front Mission series will attest to that. Only recently have I became a fan of the genre, but since that time I too have fallen for the Front Mission games. They're deep, long-lasting titles with a lot of challenge.  

Square-Enix continues the saga with Front Mission 4 for PlayStation 2. It follows in the footsteps of the Final Fantasy series by offering improved gameplay, improved sound, better graphics, and a story that's told through spoken dialogue. Text boxes still appear on-screen, allowing the player to read along if he or she wishes to do so. At this point it's hard to comment on the dialogue. Some of the voice actors are great. Their voices match the look of the characters, and the actors recite their lines with more sincerity than we're used to hearing in games. (Yes, I know Metal Gear Solid is movie-quality, but how many games can you list that are on that level?)  

Other actors, however, are a lot more annoying (likely on purpose), and don't seem very talented at all (hopefully not on purpose).  

The demo was split up into four parts, three of which included gameplay. The part that didn't include gameplay was story-only (real-time footage, mostly dialogue), and centered on three characters who stumbled upon some treasure. The treasure is owned by a crooked leader, so the three hopeful heroes decide to take the money and live the good life. The catch is that they must win a few dozen battles first before moving to the Caribbean.  

Mobile suit battles are never easy, but Front Mission 4 is downright brutal. You won't need the mind of a chess master to play the game, but you will need to think hard about all the variables before making a move. Battles can be tackled in a number of ways, and each way can have a positive or negative outcome, depending on how efficiently you manage your units.  

Battlefields are big and usually contain more open space than necessary. From a gameplay standpoint this means nothing.  However, the extra space does add to the realism of the game. You never feel as though the world and the battlefield are separate as you might while playing a standard RPG. Technically Front Mission 4 is a strategy game, but aren't all turn-based strategy games RPGs? If it has EXP, a leveling system, and a large cast of characters, what else could you possibly call it?  

The basic controls and gameplay elements mirror titles like Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Player movement is not in real-time, it's in squares. One square equals one space. Several blue squares appear on the battlefield, and as long as your legs aren't destroyed (which can happen), you'll have the ability to move several spaces per turn.  

After making your move another set of squares will appear. This time the squares are red, and in war that color symbolizes only one thing: death. As you can probably guess, each red square indicates how far your attack range is. If a red square is not touching an enemy, you are out of range and cannot attack.  

Luckily, all actions can be reversed prior to attacking or ending the unit's turn, making it easy to go back and adjust your position.  

The demo was long, but the goodness could not be savored forever.  It's only a taste of what the final game will bring. Reports indicate that the game will be no less than 40 hours long. Surely some gamers will play their hearts out in hopes of proving the estimate wrong. But I will choose to savor the experience and enjoy however much gameplay the final version brings. It's one mission I definitely won't miss.