Front Mission Evolved sees players control and do battle with giant humanised robots known as Wanderpanzers (Wanzer for short). But like most Front Mission titles, the focus on the mechs takes a backseat to the story, which follows Dylan Ramsey, an engineer for Diable Avionics who is recruited into the USN Army to avenge the death of his father. It’s a story that’s more than slightly cliché, and the characters have such bored facial expressions and uninspired voice acting that it’s a struggle to care about them and their plight. The futuristic setting and the technicalities of the Wanzers themselves are at least attention-grabbing, so it’s a shame that they are used as a supplement for the main storyline rather than the other way around.
The Wanzers in Front Mission Evolved control much like any other game in the giant robot genre, if slightly clunkier and unresponsive. As you can imagine, your Wanzer isn’t exactly a lean, mean, bot-killing machine, and if it weren’t for the dash button the game would be a sluggish, frustrating affair. As far as your offensive capabilities go, you have melee attacks and long-range attacks, varying from sniper rifles, light machine guns and missiles. Depending on where the weapon is located (for example, on your Wanzer’s right left shoulder or its right arm), will change which shoulder button will activate which weapon. It’s a little bit annoying, then, that you are only able to zoom in by pushing down on the right control stick. While an understandable decision on the developer’s behalf, it’s something that we never really got used to through our playthrough of the game, and we can imagine players who are used to games that map the zoom function to the shoulder buttons will find this strange too.
Additionally, in a rare move for a game centred around giant robots, Front Mission Evolved contains the occasional stage in which players can take control of Dylan himself, briefly transforming the game into something more recognisable to fans of the genre. It’s a very basic take on third-person shooters though, and more than anything it feels tacked-on at the last minute.
Wanna see my Wanzer?
It’s a good thing Double Helix Games decided not to rework this title as a squad-based mech shooter though, as the game’s AI isn’t wonderful. As you’re usually tagging along with a couple of other members of the USN Army, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this would make combat situations easier. While they do prove themselves useful at times (and actually seem to be able to defeat enemies) they do sometimes behave questionably, like crossing the length of the battlefield to run a circle around you and run elsewhere for no reason. It’s a blessing that your partners have infinite health and ammo.
Further adding to the mediocrity of the whole package is the unimaginative, repetitive level design. Levels are linear and take place almost wholly outside, treating players to the same view of buildings and skylines while they clank around in the Wanzer. That’s not to say that Front Mission Evolved is a bad looking game at all; the lighting effects, details and multitude of explosions in your surroundings are quite pleasing to the eye, but the real eye candy is, of course, the Wanzers themselves.
Enough explosions to rival a Michael Bay flick.
As in previous Front Mission titles, players can customise their Wanzers, although the purpose for this is more for operational enhancement rather than improving its visual appeal. Players are forced to comply with very strict power and weight ratios when deciding which parts to use though, which takes a lot of the fun out of the process.
Interestingly, the parts that players have to choose from is decided on their military rank, which increases as the game progresses or, in the style of Call of Duty, increases depending on how many hours you sink into the game’s multiplayer mode. Prepare to spend a long time though, because defeating other players and winning games (which take on average about half an hour) don’t score you too many points. In fact, it becomes somewhat of a chore.
Front Mission Evolved isn’t a completely terrible title by any means, but it lacks the shine, polish, and all-around interesting gameplay of several other third-person shooters on the market. In its favour however, is the customisation feature which is really quite interesting, if you are willing to work within the very strict guidelines. On that note, several players are likely to get a kick out of the ability to turn the Wanzer into a technicolour mess. Other than that though, Front Mission Evolved isn’t really worth racing down to the shops to buy or rent, unless you really like explosions.
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