Publisher: Squaresoft
Developer: Squaresoft
Release Date: 12/18/1997
Date Played: 7/2/2020
Region: Japan
Time Played: 1 hour
What’d you think?: Most Front Mission games are turn-based tactical strategy games. The alternative to that is, apparently, a real-time strategy game. But the only thing real about the time I had playing this game is how real bad it was. Squaresoft must have missed the turn-based systems too much, because this may as well be turn-based. Your platoon of three mechs plod through the jungle like they were wading through waist-high molasses, and their glacial pace of movement feels even slower when one of the three’ll briefly pause walking or make lateral steps so as to maintain spacing from their platoonmates, which happens constantly.
The pacing issues are compounded by the choice to put directing where you want your mechs to go happens on a different screen than the one where you sit back and seem to have little choice but to watch the events you set in motion play out. If there’s micromanaging to be done, I didn’t know how to do it. I feared the language barrier would break this game for me, but I stumbled on an option to put the menus all in English, so I was able to really discover how slow and frustrating this game is.
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crtOmqb-6Ls
