Front Mission Evolved takes us to the year 2171 where apparently the world is divided into factions that have vast armies and the strongest weapons in their arsenal are giant manned robots (a.k.a Mechs) called Wanzers. The story puts the players in the shoes of Dylan Ramsey, a Wanzer engineer, who gets himself involved in a global conspiracy and all out war.
Considering I’ve never played any previous games in the genre, I didn’t know what to expect. Which on its own is no big deal since the game is a standalone experience, as it turned out that up until now all other Front Mission games were “Strategy RPGs”, and FME is a “Sci-Fi Shooter”. Frankly, the game would only have any real appeal on the Mech enthusiasts, with all its models, weapons and all the other customization options you have available. Now, don’t get me wrong, I Dig Giant Robots™ as much as the next guy, but the constant tinkering with the different armor and weapons combined with the fact that you have to take into consideration the weight of every part and balance it with the power output of your wanzer, makes the whole experience very tedious and unfun. As if adding to this problem, every time you buy a new piece of armor, you have to repaint it to match the color scheme of the rest of the wanzer. This is most noticeable when you choose one of the pre-made loadouts (which are given to save you the trouble of the previously mentioned tinkering) and lose the markings you had on the previous armor pieces.
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| Giant robot - Check Giant missile launcher - Check Giant silly-looking unproportional gun - Check Giant stake glued on to a giant mouse trap - Check *READY FOR BATTLE* |
Now moving on to Quality, Gameplay and Story. All I have to say about the graphics is this: “10 years ago”…well, not really, but they are very cheap. Putting the visuals aside, the voice acting was really decent and likeable. The controls were incredibly unintuitive, I found myself browsing the Controls Layout options many times since the game didn’t mention which button did what, it just mentioned them as “ Press the Shoulder Rocket Button to shoot rockets, then use your Precision Button to zoom in and shoot your enemies with the Machine gun Button”. And just as I finally learned the controls, I got to a mission where I has out of my Wanzer and on foot…Totally different controls HOORAAAY (they were incredibly horrid in comparison with generic shooters). Leaving the controls and getting to something incredibly pointless, the predetermined layout moments. As I mentioned previously, there are layouts you can choose instead of playing around with hundreds of customizations and stats, like sniper, assault, support…etc. and that’s all fine and dandy until you get to some missions where you are made to have a specific part attached to your wanzer. Such examples are the Hover Module that lets you glide over water, which was totally pointless since there were only 1-2 places with a bit of water to go over, and also the Quad Legs (or something) that enable you to carry heavier armor and weapons. Now the thing that made me rage, was that the quad legs are strapped on to you at the beginning of a mission and right after it begins, you get in a boss fight with two very agile mechs that rape you in 3 seconds, since the quad legs make you incredibly slow and clumsy.
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| UURRG, GET SOME! *DAGA-DAGA-DAGA* MOFOS! |
And talking about Boss Fights, man are they frustrating and boring at the same time. Most of the times you are stuck fighting 1-2 enemy boss mechs, with some exceptions. These little brawls are incredibly boring since it takes about 15 seconds to figure out the pattern of the boss and how to defeat it and are even more frustrating since bosses have usually have allot of health and it takes ages to take them down. Aside from these flaws, boss encounters tend to inconsistently change the difficulty of the fights. For example – many of the boss encounters were much more difficult than the final boss. Let’s get to the story, shall we. For starters, the characters are incredibly forgettable. The story itself is the old time favorite cliché “Boy gets in trouble, then gets super powers and grows some balls, saves the world and gets the girl”, but instead of super powers, he gets a giant robot equipped with an “E.D.G.E.” system, which is explained somewhat decently, but I simply call it “The Slow Motion Button”. Some of the important revolving points in the game are the EDGE system, which apparently grants some mystical powers to the user if used properly, also the Orbital Elevators that each Faction of the world posses, a Terrorist organization that ultimately declares war, that will bring peace to all the people of the world. And of course the main reason for our main character to get involved in all of this – his father, who I might mention is seen in the whole game only a few times and each time ending with his death. No, really… in my opinion, that dude died at least three times. Now, all of this might sound incredibly familiar to some of you, specifically those of you that have watched “Gundam”, because its pretty much the same concept, only with wooden mechs, pointless plot twists and bland romantic happenings. The only plot twist that was somewhat good, was at the very end of the game.
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| Diversity? Enemies do not utilize such futile methods. |
Overall, it’s a decent game to keep you busy and perhaps the multiplayer would bring some fresh experience, but for me, it was incredibly boring – the graphics, gameplay and story…just boring, nothing else. For me, it just felt like playing “Bland Cliché Mech Story: The Game”.
