The Front Mission series of tactical rpg's by Square Enix is great! They are tactical rpgs but they are set in a futuristic setting where you control huge giant robots called Wanzers and fight in wars. Here's information on the games...
Front Mission (series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_Mission)

Front Mission 1 - Super Famicom, Feb 24th 1995
Front Mission: Gun Hazard - Super Famicom, Feb 23rd 1996
Front Mission 2 - Playstation 1, Sep 25th 1997
Front Mission: Alternative - Playstation 1, Dec 18th 1997
Front Mission 3 - Playstation 1, Sep 2nd 1999
Front Mission 4 - Playstation 2, Dec 18th 2003
Front Mission Online - PS 2/PC - May 12th 2005
Front Mission 2089 - Cell, Aug 15th 2005
Front Mission 5: Scars of the War - Playstation 2, Dec 29th 2005
Front Mission 2089-II - Cell, Upcoming!


This game rivals the tactical rpg's made by the Yasumi Matsuno/Ivalice/Ogre teams, e.g.: Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc. It also rivals the tactical rpg's made by Nippon Ichi Software: Disgaea 1, Phantom Brave, Disgaea 2, etc.

I've beaten Front Mission 1 and Front Mission: Gun Hazard(action rpg) for Super Famicom, courtesy of fan translation patches. They were great!! Front Mission 3 and Front Mission 4 are the only FM games released in the Usa. I don't know if any fan translation patch exists for Front Mission 2 or Front Mission Alternative, or other newer games.

Square Enix is releasing Front Mission 1st on October 23rd in Usa for DS. Maybe they'll release other FM games like FM: GH, FM 2, or FM: A after that. Maybe I should wait and hope that the Front Mission series will be released by Square Enix in Usa so that I can play a version of it. Or maybe I should just learn Japanese and play this game.

If a rpg game is so amazingly good enough that people are offering to learn Japanese to play the sequel, you best take notice! Who else here is huge fans of the Front Mission series? It's one of the six rpg teams I like best! :)

Hum the cover looks nice...heh. I only played FM3 and enjoyed it but I never played any others. I'd play this one if they rerelease or something. I never tried FM4...was that any good? I remember seeing it for like cheap...and then a month or 2 later it was way cheaper which led me to believe that game probably sucked lol. So I never tried it.

Yea Front Mission 4 got high critical and user reviews, but was overshadowed by other games that year I believe. I don't think the fan base was very large. :)

Yea I thought I remembered it having some decent reviews (nothing over the top). Hmm I guess I'll try and hunt it down. It's probably a whole lot cheaper now lol. I remember seeing it for like $14 somewhere.

You could view random rpg websites or various video game magazines and read a review for a game, but it only reflects one critical review. There are two websites where you see the average(out of 100%) of many critical reviews for a game, plus a average of user votes(out of 100%). Those two websites are metacritic.com/games and gamerankings.com

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/frontmission4
75% from 39 critical reviews, 88% from 8 user votes
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/918883.asp
75% from 43 critical reviews, 77% from 178 user votes

For averages of critical reviews, those are the two websites. What are the top websites where you can see an average of user votes? Gamespot, Gamespy, and Ign are the first ones that come to mind for me. I don't know what else is good though.

Beat Front Mission 1 first! You can buy it for the Super Famicom. I've heard people have made a English fan translation patch for it also.

I've played FM3 way way back in playstation 1. It was awesome.
But then again... I haven't followed up on the FM series that much... :(

You should try beating Front Mission 1 for Snes, it was translated unofficially into english. Then that game was re-released in Japan for PS 1 with bonus features and it was called Front Mission 1st, although I don't know if there was an unofficial english translation. The game is being released a third time, this time in Usa, with the title Front Mission, with bonus features also. This is great! :)

The good thing about Front Mission 2 is that most of the menus are in 100% english (including everything in the network). Even if some of it is engrish.

Just follow a walkthrough so you can fully understand what's happening.

NO.