Front Mission 1st Remake (Switch) review "Missiles are still the best/most annoying tactic."

This franchise has had its ups and downs, but this is the remake of the original that started it all, so that’s got to count for something. The good news is that it does. Forever Entertainment has not only kept the feel of the original but has kept from over-embellishing with the Switch’s ability to produce some good-looking visuals. This is the one that made a fan of you, so strap in. Let’s see what she’s got!

First thing you’ve got to know is that Front Mission was always intended to look this way. If you don’t know the SNES outing and the translation patch that helped it go international, here’s a quick rundown: Front Mission 1st is a Real Time Strategy Role Playing Game. Real mouthful, huh? When you’re looking at the screen, you’re either seeing a scene with characters, texts and options or a diagonal grid of tiles that resembles a cardboard playfield. This was a clever way of utilizing the SNES’ limited performance and storage capacity.

Even called “remake”, this game is presented as the definitive version of this game. To that end, all of the assets reflect the designs that inspired them, except for a definite shift toward the modern end of the design spectrum. The character portraits that graced the SNES have been upscaled and touched up for modern resolution displays. The soundtrack by Yoko Shinomura (think Super Mario RPG) and Noriko Matsueda has been lovingly updated, but somehow I didn’t entirely enjoy some of the compositions. It wasn’t my favorite soundtrack then, and that hasn’t changed, even though I would say it comfortably communicates all the militaristic tension you would expect from a war game.

Front Mission utilizes a triangle combat strategy (no, not that one), which has three types: Melee (fists, tonfar, etc.), Short (guns), and Long (missiles). Practicality suggests that long range outmatches everything else, which leads to frustrating but unavoidable realities of combat. What’s the point of a wanzer that can deliver a multi-ton right cross when it has to traverse 8 or 6 miles to get to the chump who’s about to fire off a rocket that can end it all in one or two hits?

Early on, this isn’t a problem, as it's early in the war, and Wanzer technology is supposedly in its infancy. Everyone’s accuracy is less than stellar, but by the end game, a single missile can spell doom for just about any wanzer, not the end boss. To counter this you’re given the option of tweaking enemy damage output and hit point totals with the aid of multipliers. At New Game, or New Game+ for those who have already gone the distance, you choose a “rank” and an associated multiplier.

So you can make it pretty easy on yourself: Enemies have half health and deal half damage. Everything else is double, triple, quadruple…you get the idea. With New Game+, your characters keep their skills, and you keep your machines. Whatever the best was in your last completion, that’s what you’ve got to work with. If you’re in for that sort of pain, order up!

Where’s the problem in all this? Cheese, and rather a lot of it. Unfortunately, the balance of combat with a team full of missilers is going to make short work of those who have less of them. I imagine some scenarios are going to be nearly impossible on higher difficulties, but that’s not my idea of fun. Here's my strategy-de-jour: Once your team is deployed on the field, you move them, like chess pieces, into weapons range, and then take as many turns as necessary to expend your ammo supply. Then you run back to your supply truck, resupply and repeat until you or your foes are annihilated. Weee.

Thankfully, one of the attractive points of Front Mission is its commitment to the role-playing genre: Story is important. You get to choose how “Clive,” the protagonist, and his teammates develop as warriors by choosing what they use in combat. As your characters level, they obtain certain skills that make targeting wanzer body parts possible; enable melee fighters to go before the fella who’s going to swiss cheese them with a round of pellets; switch to another fist or gun after their first volley, etc. The list of short, but it does manage to keep things moderately interesting.

Front Mission 1st: Remake diverges from its SNES cousin by bringing along the new, secondary campaign that introduced on the DS. The option to play this opens after your first playthrough. It was really compelling to me on the DS and still is. As you play the second campaign, you delve into the exploits of a team who fight on the opposite side of the war you just won. How much emotional mileage do you get out of the romantic angst? Well, it's okay. Really. It's not Robotech, but it's not bad.

Even with all of its imperfections, I'm inclined to agree that this is the definitive version of this title. Especially if you consider that it is also the legal way to play it. It might have had a higher value if they had included an art gallery alongside the soundtrack. At the price, it’s worth your time, especially if you dig mechanized combat. This is the Front Mission you remember at its best.

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Community review by hastypixels (June 02, 2023) Wisdom comes from effort and mistakes.