Front Mission 2 Remake Playthrough #1 (No Commentary)
15Front Mission Series: • Front Mission Series
The 2023 remake of Front Mission 2, via Steam. This game was never officially released in the West until now and while there was an attempt to fan translate the original PS1 version, it was never completed. Thus, I do not have videos for the original PS1 version.
Please note that this is segmented and edited.
Notes
This game has awful sound mixing. It’s like I’m playing a PS2 game. I’ve applied a compressor to the audio so I don’t blow your eardrums out every time I fire a shotgun or destroy a part.
You can’t zoom out. The UI is really quite something.
This game has several mechanical differences compared to Front Mission 1. All weapons have limited ammo, which I consider to be a baffling anti-player change, dodge is based on your mobility stat which itself is influenced by weight. Weapons do one of three types of damage and each body, arm and leg part has differing resistance to these damage types on top of their innate defense value. Shields are arguably completely busted in how effective they are but you can’t guarantee their use and now you have to deal with AP limiting your actions.
There is also an honor system that rewards you with special abilities for keeping your units close together as you destroy targets and the skill system was totally reworked.
This game has a fairly rough early game but not really for good reasons. Not as a strategy game, anyway. It’s still a slot machine like FM1 was but due to wanzers being made out of paper, particularly their arms, the RNG is super punishing in the early game. Sometimes you just get smacked into the ground with a string of bad rolls and there’s nothing you can do about it aside from reloading.
Regarding training Ace: It allows for some improved options during mission 3 but I don’t bother maxing him out because it’s a giant time sink. It’d be worth it if you got experience during the training matches and applied to more than one mission but you don’t and it doesn’t. I do the first match because of the dialogue and to get the extra money but move on afterward.
Regarding the Arena: You don’t earn experience fighting in it. Thanks to the skill system and RNG in general, I had a win rate of 50% during the first arena section. Almost all of my losses involved the opponent having a skill streak and destroying both of my paper arms while almost all of my wins involved me having a skill streak and destroying their paper arms. I didn’t bother with the team matches when the arena first becomes available because I simply could not win them.
00:00:00 Intro
10:59 Mission 1
29:27 Mission 2
1:04:09 Training Ace
1:27:23 Mission 3
2:08:18 Mission 4
2:29:27 Mission 5
3:01:24 Mission 6
3:33:32 Mission 7
4:07:35 Mission 8
4:44:41 Mission 9
5:27:11 Mission 10