As the main story progresses you'll travel to different locations around the island to engage the enemy and move the plot along. The over world map of Huffman Island is pretty low-budget, and it doesn't look like it has seen much of an upgrade since its SNES days. Inside each city you can manage your units, purchase equipment, train in arena battles, visit the bar for gossip, and get your next mission. It's essentially an old menu-based system which mainly features the same backdrop and occasional character portraits popping-up during conversation. You'll spend a lot of time in town poring over lists of equipment upgrades and various stats, perhaps even as much time as you'll spend in combat itself.

There's enough extreme mech customization available in Front Mission to make giant robot fans - or seasoned RPG veterans - salivate. If you don't fall into one of these two categories there's a good chance your eyes will glaze over when presented with the overwhelming number of upgrade options for your small army. In between practically every mission you'll have the opportunity to upgrade weapons, switch out body frames and other mech parts, replenish much-needed items, and micromanage your stats down to an infinitesimal scale. Want to equip your mech with tank treads instead of legs? No problem. Feel like mounting huge missile turrets on your shoulders? It can be arranged. You can pile up as much gadgetry on your mech as the body frame weight limit allows. If you want to avoid the scrap heap, upgrading your small army of mechs becomes a constant and inescapable ordeal. It's fun to soup-up your primary mech, but dealing with upgrading an entire squad of hulking metal giants before every battle eats up precious time and patience. Eventually, staring at screen after screen of stats to compare which rocket launcher is the best deal or which armor provides better protection without maxing out your weight limit becomes a tedious process. On the other hand, clunking out headlong into another battle to test your new gear upgrades is a gratifying endeavor.

The graphical style is rather drab and industrial looking with lots of muted grays, browns, greens, and beige colors. Those with a great appreciation for high-quality isometric pixel art will find the visuals slightly nostalgic and fun to get a closer look at. Unfortunately, in most areas the game looks like it could have been pulled off on the Game Boy Advance, but it works. It's not the prettiest DS title by any means, nor does it dazzle, but Front Mission has a lot of personality regardless.

Front Mission's two main campaigns are excellent, but there's not much else here in terms of extras which is slightly disappointing. The arena is only useful for earning extra cash in the main game. The local multi-player duel mode stinks since it's basically the same as the arena only with two players rather than a full turn-based map battle mode - which would have done wonders to ramp up the fun factor. When it comes to gameplay, Front Mission excels at turn-based robotic combat. If you don't get tripped up by the depressing visuals and mind-numbing stat management, there are many hours of enjoyment to be gained from this package.

By Nathan Meunier
CCC Freelance Writer

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