Kobaia Is de Hundin (Day 335)

ANOTHER GAMEPLAY VIDEO?!

Front Mission 3 is next on the agenda and I've already clocked about 4 hours of gameplay. I've played a pretty significant amount of it before but for reasons that I can't recall at the moment I completely stopped playing it and ended up eventually losing the save data. I'm surprised that I didn't finish it the first time because so far I'm taken aback by just how fast paced the gameplay is, especially for a strategy RPG and especially for a Front Mission game.

My favorite part

 I loved Front Mission 4 (and liked the original game a lot too) but if there was one thing that frustrated me about it, it was its relentlessly sludgy pace. Missions were very long and laborious and combat animations were slow and needlessly lengthy. In addition to this, the combat preparation phase was incredibly involved and time consuming. I can forgive that aspect of the game though, because that was a big part of what I found so engrossing about the game. The level of strategy present in choosing the right parts, weapons, pilot skills, and computers was intense. Unfortunately these parts and components were quite expensive and the funds acquired from standard missions was seldom enough to cover them--which meant I had to do simulation missions to acquire additional funds before I could move on. These simulation missions were often just as long as standard missions.

Kazuki's wanzer in all its purple majesty

In Front Mission 3, missions are very short and focused, at least so far. Animations are concise, effective, and satisfying. Destroying enemy wanzer parts awards you medals which contribute to upgrading the proficiency of your weapons. You'll also frequently learn new combat abilities while in combat. I like this method of learning new abilities because you get to see the effect of the ability just as soon as you learn it. It's exciting when something new activates in combat because it strengthens your pilot's options in combat immediately.

As far as I can tell, Front Mission 3 doesn't have traditional levels and instead determines the strength of your wanzers based on parts, upgrades, pilot weapon proficiencies, and combat skills. I have to wonder why Front Mission 4 returned to the traditional level system. It really did introduce some cool new mechanics (I particularly liked pilot links) but I sort of wish it had retained some of the features introduced in its immediate predecessor..

I'm not far into the game just yet so I've probably displayed some ignorance on its mechanics, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I expect it'll take me some time to get through it, but I don't imagine I'll hit any roadblocks since I'm enjoying it quite a bit.