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bad, bad, bad

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 15
Date: August 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the most awfull games i have ever played, it's very very slow, and u can see right away that they did not put much heart in to the making of this game.
The characters are lame, thes story is simple, there is way too much innecesary talking, and the cinemas are tedious, never ending, and down right horrible.

I like Square games, but this time they just left me down.

What happened?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: September 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

After playing through FM3 at least 20 times, when I had heard Square Enix was going to be making FM4 I was extatic. Finally after long months of waiting I was able to finally purchase the game. After about 8 hours of gameplay the game found itself amid the rest of the trash on my bedroom floor. What happened?? How could FM4 be such a disappointment? All Square had to do was keep all the features of FM3, create a new intriging storyline, boost the graphics, and thats all she wrote. They boosted the graphics, started a decent storyline (from the 8 hours of the game that I played) but took out way to many features that made FM3 so great. They completey destroyed the customization system in this game. Pilots skills are basically pre set. It doesnt matter how long you practice with your weapons anymore bc you can only get skills for the beginning weapons your characters start our with. Wanzers designs are sub par at best and very generic. Forget about trying to capture enemy wanzers. They completely removed that feature from the game. So no more slicing and dicing captured enemy wanzers (one of the coolest features I thought in FM3) They got rid of the net surfing. I am sure plenty of ppl thought this feature was annoying and useless in FM3. Well it never really affected the game so if players didnt like the net they didnt have to use the feature. The net would only reward players who took the time to surf and discover all the hidden training maps and programs you could download. Remeber this review was only written based on 8 hrs of gameplay. But for me thats all that was needed. They really killed the skill system in my opinion. And that was the top reason why I loved FM3 so much, for its EXP and Skill system. This game will never touch my PS2 again.

front mission 4 boring

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 10
Date: August 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

this game is good but after a while it gets very boring. The certain squares u are able 2 move sucks, and way 2 mush talking in the game the little talking heads wont stop poping up. but is is rated teen so maybe teens think better of this game.

Engaging

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 19 / 19
Date: July 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

As a major fan of Front Mission 3 for the PlayStation I was excited upon hearing the news that Square-Enix was making a sequel to my favorite single-player tactical-strategy game. The only thing missing from Front Mission 3's excellence was great graphics. With the arrival of Front Mission 4 on the PlayStation2 I thought the rough-graphics problem would be solved and I'd have the perfect game.

Unfortunately life has a way of playing dirty tricks. Oh sure, the graphics are much improved over FM3 with greater detail and far smoother animation. But the colors are downright bland! Also, many areas in the game appear overly dark, making it a challenge to view the screen easily unless the lights are off. I suspect the developers were going for realism here.

The length of the game disappointed me as well. For the amount of time spent working on your characters' skills and statistics the number of actual plot-developing missions is minuscule. There are only 29 stages in all! By comparison, FM3 contained a staggering 128 stages played out through two scenarios! Admittedly, FM4's stages are bigger and take longer to complete, and there are simulator battles to play. But FM3 had simulator battles, too!

Now that the bad is out of the way let me let you what was good about FM4:

Graphics - already touched on this. MUCH better than FM3 except for the colors & lack of lighting.

Sound - the most refined part of FM4. Heavy, realistic, perfect. Great use of bass!

Music - very appropriate for the events onscreen. High quality.

Speech - the main characters now speak in select cut scenes and the voice-overs are extremely well done. The accents and voice tones are very accurate to their respective nationalities. No bad acting here!

Battle System - more involved than in the last game. The Link system adds a fun new level of strategy to the gameplay. New specialized backpacks increase combat options.

Customization - a slight increase in variety of weapons and parts. Better colorization options but the blandness + darkness at times makes it almost moot.

Control - takes some getting used to, but adequate. In a tactical, non-twitch game like this it's not a detriment.

Battle Maps - daytime shifting and weather effects add new depth to missions. Battlefields are significantly larger than in FM3.

Character Skills - no more randomness in acquiring new battle skills to help towards victory! Instead characters buy skills they want as they become available! The challenge is getting the funds needed to afford them.

And finally, FM4's greatest improvement over FM3...the chaotic E-mail/virtual net system is gone!

I'd have to say FM4 doesn't match the gaming experience FM3 gave. Don't get me wrong...it's a fantastic game for as long as it lasts. The plot is solid. Just don't expect as huge a jump in quality as I did or you'll be disappointed.

Didn't build on winning formula

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

FM3 had great controls and had an engaging story. What I felt was missing was the ability to zoom in just that little bit more and see some great graphics--if Square had simply upgraded the graphics this would have been a winner. Everything is too small. The camera is too far away. I like the added details to various conventions (moving mouths on talking heads, etc), but the heart of it is the fights and what looks like great battle fields is too far away to enjoy. Don't make the failing that Lucas did for the new Star Wars films--get IN there, zoom IN! Take a hint from LOTR: Landscapes and closeups are possible!

Simply alright

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Because I bought the game, I REALLY want to like it. However, I can't go right out and say this is a great game because it truthfully isn't.

The game is much like Final Fantasy Tactics, only with mechs. To the uninitiated, this means a tactical turn based strategy game in which you maneuver mechs on a battlefield. The mechs can be given various abilities and equipped with a variety of weapons that range from bats to machine guns to bazookas.

The customization of these mechs and their pilots is probably the most interesting part of the game. You are given the options to buy different body parts for the mechs and pick weapons from all across the spectrum. Likewise, you can train your characters to have better speed, skills and various other attributes.

The major focus of the game is the battles. The battles can be lengthy, lasting upwards of an hour in some occasions. They can be exciting as you are forced to stress your brain on how to overcome situations. Where you place your mech, how you link them (make them act concurrently with one another) and the action you take can alter the course of the battle. However, I found I began growing tired of battles.

Unfortunately, the battles are all there really is to the game. Roughly 10 hours into the game, I realized there was no real story. While the game has a story, it isn't very intriguing and doesn't do a good job of drawing the player in. Likewise, the characters are relatively one-dimensional and don't really appeal to my emotions.

As I said, I wanted to love this game. It looks fun, it has a lot of customization and it offers a good amount of strategic depth. However, it just is not that much fun, nor that interesting. I'll recommend it, but only at the 20 dollar price. At 50 dollars, there are MANY better games to buy.

Worst Square / Enix game I've ever played

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: September 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Square Enix is the gold standard in quality games, but this one is a huge let down. The graphics are crap. The story is pointless, and worse, SLOW. But the real sin here is that the gameplay is so tedious and un-fun. Wish I could say it was better.... but its not. Might be worth $10 bargain bin purchase, but even that is questionable.

Fun game for turn based strat fans

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: June 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

For those who've never played a Front Mission game before: Enormous mechs. Tons of weapons, armor and computer options. Turn based strategy. The Front Mission series alone incorporates all three, and thus has a collection of players devoted to it. If you don't like all three, however, the chances are slim that you will fully enjoy this game. The game has much more serious involvement than your average turn-based strat game: even by the end, you will continually be discovering new ways to customize and operate your wanzers. There's no way to jump into the game and immediately be good at it: "trial and error" is a phrase you will get used to, and very quickly at that.

For those who've played previous Front Mission games: The game, while remaining fundamentally the same, has changed in enough ways to mark it as an entirely different approach to the same ideas. The most obvious change is the Link system: it introduces a new variable when deciding where, when and how to use your wanzers and forces you to take the enemy's linking abilities into consideration when choosing your defensive tactics. With enough AP and the right positioning/turn order, a single wanzer can attack upwards of 6 times in a single turn (the highest I've seen is 9, with a shotgun). The other marked change is in the way characters progress: no more gaining proficiency with a weapon through repeated use. Instead, you purchase upgrades to your computer system through a pre-planned route, which may be expanded upon by purchasing computer upgrades in a store. If you stick to the pre-planned route, you will find your characters locked into a set path based on the skills they receive: lots of shotgun abilities and evasion skills obviously points toward a lightweight, evasive wanzer armed with shotguns. The benefits and detriments are obvious: the game starts you with a fairly balanced team that works well, but also makes it annoyingly tedious to change the fighting style of ANY of your wanzers. Expect to repeat simulations like crazy in order to fully customize your team.

OVERALL RATINGS:
Graphics: 6/10. The FMV is nice, but the in game graphics are reminiscent of very early PS2. Character portraits, while animated, are still portraits. Animation is, however, smooth, and almost all the cutscenes are accomplished with excellent use of the in-game engine.

Sound: 8/10. The voice-overs aren't spectacular, but are more than acceptable for a video game and help to fill out the characters' personalities. The music is very well done, although there wasn't nearly enough variation. The actual sound effects are fantastic: metal against metal, etc. is very accurate sounding.

Controls/Interface: 5/10. The controls are great and mostly intuitive, but the interface itself is a mixed bag. The combat interface is pretty intuitive, although at times your eyes will get confused as to which part of the display you should be looking at. Combat between similar looking wanzers gets confusing, especially when linked teammates are all fighting (whose bullets are those?). The non-combat menus are what get really annoying. My biggest problem is the seperation of the purchasing screens from the organization screens and the load times between: you can de-equip and purchase/replace equipment for all your wanzers at the same time, but you can't equip a weapon/part/item you already have from within the same screen. You can set skills, purchase new ones and upgrade computers from the same screen, but if you want to purchase a new skill set, you have to go to the computer store, and at the computer store, you can only see a bare-minimum of information about the pilot you're buying skills for. ANNOYING!

Gameplay: 9/10. Although a beginner could pick up the game and survive the battles, in order to truly progress and make the money necessary to customize your wanzers and pilots, you have to utilize an enormous level of strategy which makes playing the game fun. A dozen different elements make your choices in each phase of combat exciting. There's no way to effectively summarize the gameplay other than to play it, so rent it if you're unsure.

Storyline: 6/10. I've come to expect a level of quality from Square Enix that this game doesn't match up with. While better than the filler that generally occupies turn-based strat games, the story had so much more potential than was actually realized.

Replay value: 5/10. My save file said 36 hours when I beat the game, although at least 3 hours of that was the game sitting around while I ran errands or ate. I did, however, plow through the game with a minimum of grinding (so I didn't do a lot of customization, etc.), so those dedicated to creating the ultimate wanzer team will find they have plenty of time to do so. The catch, however, is that you can restart the game with your old team once you beat it: those who already took the time to maximize their teams will find little to do on a second playing, while people like me still have places to go, so the net gaming time is probably about the same. FM4 is the kind of game you won't want to replay for a month, but will seem fresh and exciting again after that month has passed.

Turn based -a la- F. F. Tactics

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Front Mission 4 is a brave attempt to rescue Turn Based combat. I'm crazy about it since many games today are real time and my personal favorite is turn based.

Well, if you liked FF Tactics, you'll enjoy FM4. I'ts an RPG which follows two story lines and of course, all the battles are designed for you to equip and tune up your robots. They are not luxuries, they're a must if you want to survive.

PROS: if you like turn based ... HEY ! ... here's one at it's best!.
Long battles makes a lot of time to develop your strategy.
Immersive, wait until you learn how to use the link system ! you'll learn what "UNLEASHING POWER" means!
Sci-Fi, Mechs, Explosions, Story, what else do you want?

CONS: Mixed graphics, everything is amazing but when you try to read gray text over gray background... you have to squint... BR> Some battle situations may end up with a lot of time wasted on moving your units.
A single enemy unit needs several turns to be destroyed.

As in real life, some times you need things to go faster, but you can't do that.

Some times, one hour(+) each battle, is just what you need...

If you are an Action-oriented gamer, try this one, you might lear that strategy is FUN.

PS: If you think this game gets too difficult is probably because you are not going to train on the simulators and/or you are not equiping your units well... take your time ! ENJOY!

Pretty good, but...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you liked Front Mission 3, you'll love Front Mission 4. It has the same basic gameplay, military/espionage/mystery storyline, etc.
One thing you'll love is the link system. This allows you to link characters' attacks together. For example, if person A is linked to C and D, when A attacks C and D automatically attack to (assuming they're in range.) C and D use AP for their attacks, but then they still have their turns to use a recovery backpack or something.
The only thing I really didn't like about FM 4 is YOU CANNOT CUSTOMIZE YOUR CHARACTERS!!! Remember in FM 3 the more a character used a certain type of weapon, the better he got with it? Well, in FM 4 the skills, weapon levels, etc. are different for each character, which means a couple will be good with machine guns, one will be great with missiles, etc. Of course, this means you will have a balanced party, but in the previous game I had all my people equipped with shotguns and did very well, thank you.

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