Front Mission 4

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2004-06-20 01:37pm

My god, have you seen this game!? A friend got it yesterday and it's an obscene overdose of beautiful and awesome. I actually had the privilage of playing it for a few hours. Being a FM3 veteran I had some basis for judgement.

The battle system is intuitive, and the learning curve is almost nil. The battle animations are elaborate, but NOT time consuming! Also, unit movement can be fast forwarded!

The pilot management system is much improved over the sluggish FM3 system IMO. Characters actually have an experience level that improves their piloting abilities. No more mindless leveling of weapon proficiency. And everyone gains EP when an enemy dies.

The story. It was quite possibly the best thing about FM3, and from what I've seen, it seems to play a major role in FM4. They put a LOT of effort into developing the alternate history of this future world. While everything seems rediculously implausible, it also seems undeniably real. Just the way I like it!

In short, FM4 has my seal of approval. And now it pushed me over the tight-wad's cliff. I have GOT to get a PS2 now. And this magnificent game.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2004-06-20 03:57pm

And the two opening movies (The cinematic and in-engine one) both kick mucho ass.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2004-06-20 04:05pm

SylasGaunt wrote:And the two opening movies (The cinematic and in-engine one) both kick mucho ass.

There's another cinematic if you just let it sit at the main menu. It shows the Germans scrambling to defend the base. But yeah, the first one was awesome. When that wanzer skated through the smoke, spun around and spiked an enemy mech to death, I almost jumped out of my chair.

Much awesomeness.

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2004-06-20 09:04pm

Just got it myself, a few days ago. My only gripes with FM4 in comparison to FM3 so far are the indestructable terrain (you used to be able to destroy obstacles to reach an enemy), lack of salvage (enemy pilots refuse to eject and will fight to the death now), and the lack of the in-game Internet. Being able to browse the Web and read all of the news information (as well as e-mail and goofy hacker sites) directly was one of the more interesting parts of FM3. Of course, I hear that all of these missing things were the result of the development team being split between this and Front Mission Online, so it's understandable if that's the case.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-06-20 10:23pm

A /well-implemented/ internet would be nice. FM3s was horribly slow, was like they were trying to simulate future dialup or some shit. One thing I'm VERY glad they tanked is part upgrades...good LORD those were annoying, every time you got some niggling arm-acc boost or something you had to run through every last wanzer and tweak at it. Only thing I really don't like in FM4 are the UCS bits, mainly the...third one, I think. I'm all 'uh...old parts...no money...relatively shitty pilots since you don't get to use them much...against WHAT?'

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-06-20 10:45pm

So does the US come off as the bad guy in this one too?

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-06-20 11:36pm

US was only the 'bad guys' in FM3 if you picked Alisa's path. Emma's path has you working with the UCS, or USN as it's called at that point in time. Anyway, at this point no one knows WHO the hell is the 'bad guys,' except that Zaftra's heavily involved (Russia). And traitors in the German army. Oh, and Venezuela's a bastard. UCS might end up in a war with the EC (Europe), but it looks like they might be being prodded by an outside force. I'm not done with the game yet, so I can't say more

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2004-06-20 11:49pm

White Haven wrote:Emma's path has you working with the UCS, or USN as it's called at that point in time.

What's interesting is that the UCS is still called the USN in the Japanese version of FM4; it seems that Square-Enix's current translators took exception to the Engrishy "United States of New Continent" and changed it to something more acceptable. Front Mission 3 did this to a degree, as well; some websites in FM3 called the USN the "United States of Neoamerica," while others retained the Japanese name.

Also, FM4 is a sort-of prequel; it takes place before FM2 and FM3 (2096 as opposed to 2102 and 2112, respectively). I'd have expected with the hanging plotlines (especially in the Alisa campaign) that it would have been a sequel taking place ten years afterwards (when Ravnui's new Imaginary Numbers were ready and MIDAS research would continue).

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-06-21 12:09am

White Haven wrote:US was only the 'bad guys' in FM3 if you picked Alisa's path. Emma's path has you working with the UCS, or USN as it's called at that point in time. Anyway, at this point no one knows WHO the hell is the 'bad guys,' except that Zaftra's heavily involved (Russia). And traitors in the German army. Oh, and Venezuela's a bastard. UCS might end up in a war with the EC (Europe), but it looks like they might be being prodded by an outside force. I'm not done with the game yet, so I can't say more

Not really, in the end the U.S. was the bad guy in Emma's scenario as well. I mean, ferchrissakes, you invade the U.S. in the last mission of her scenario.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2004-06-21 12:43am

Joe wrote:So does the US come off as the bad guy in this one too?

There are good guys? With all the intrigue and backstabbing and WMD development going on, I was under the impression that all five empires were bad.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-06-21 08:14am

Lazy Raptor wrote:
Joe wrote:So does the US come off as the bad guy in this one too?
There are good guys? With all the intrigue and backstabbing and WMD development going on, I was under the impression that all five empires were bad.

Good and bad depends on perspective anyway, it's all relative. If you could pick which of the sides to play on, then it'd be interesting. I did, however, get the feeling the USN in FM3 were going for a sort of Nazi Germany like badness. The EC seemed to stay on the sidelines, IIRC.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-06-21 08:19am

I dunno, they made MIDAS, and hey, that was some spiffy CGI. I can't go hatin a country that gives me some good CGI, now can I?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-06-21 08:22am

MIDAS was a funny bomb. I still can't figure out how it worked...

Given I never really finished the game, what was the stuff with the shuttle about in the FMV when you leave the menu alone for a while?

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-06-21 12:58pm

The shuttle was hilarious. Final board you do a frappin orbital drop from a shuttle, land right on top of some weak-ass police forces, blow them to scrap, and end up doing an expose on the entire conspiract from a big press conference. Decidedly uninvited.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2004-06-21 01:48pm

hmm.... no destructable objects, no salvaging and NO INTERNET??? GRRRRRRR!!!

being an incredible FM fan i´ll get it anyway.