/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.2552984]

Jesus fuck... This mecha PTSD simulator. What the fuck.

This game is great though. But holy shit, I'm getting a bit salty whenever the computer just luck cheats and reams a 2 pack of missiles right through your Body armor.

[Anonymous No.2553071]

Missiles are OP at the beginning but become less of an issue later on. Upgrade your armor and start farming that Short experience for Royd.

[Anonymous No.2553093]

Items are your friend. Use chaff to negate missile attacks or flash grenades to stun launchers before they become a problem.

You could also increase your units' move range to close in quickly by reducing weight/increasing power and using legs with a higher move stat.

[Anonymous No.2553265]

>>2553093

How are land mines? Can your mechs trigger them and are computers retarded enough to step on them?

[Anonymous No.2553316]

>>2553265
I don't remember there being land mines in Front Mission.

[Anonymous No.2553326]

I really like the style and vibe of the game. I hate that it's like rock paper scissors though battle wise.

[Anonymous No.2553357]

>>2553093
>>2553265
Mines are pretty bad. They only affect the square they're planted on and you have to lure the enemy onto it.

But yeah, flash grenades are stupid OP. Long range stun that can last multiple turns as long as you don't attack them? Yes please!

Smoke and chaff are decent at what they do. Acid bomb is pretty meh once your short specialists start learning skills; they put out so much damage, it's ridiculous.

Don't forget to have a good supply of healing items on all your units.

[Anonymous No.2553361]

>>2553357

Is there anyway to repair a trashed limb once its put to 0 HP? Pisses me off when they blow up a good arm.

[Anonymous No.2553414]

>>2553361
Head over to the repair truck.

[Anonymous No.2553487]

>>2553414

Hm I'm gonna guess this pops up later in the game.

[Anonymous No.2553523]

>>2553487
It's a couple levels in. It's not missable though, so don't worry about it.

[Anonymous No.2553658]

>>2553523

Actually just got it. And holy fuck the next level is bullshit. There's like 3x Mechs with twin fucking Egret Shoulder Launchers. Cancerous to the max.

[Anonymous No.2553703]

>>2553658
Welcome to Front Mission, enjoy getting raped. Beef up your defense skills, spam your items, and use agile mechs to take them out at close range.

[Anonymous No.2553943]

>>2553658
Wait till you get to the Hell's Wall stage, after that though the game's easy as shit.

[Anonymous No.2554035]

>>2553703
>>2553943
it was easy for me since i made 3 of my pilots get most of the XP while the rest act as bait/subhuman shields.

>>2552984
i wished muh waifu was a mecha brain too.

[Anonymous No.2554074]

>>2554035
>i wished muh waifu was a mecha brain too.
Not when she is used as the mecha brain of the one who killed her in front of you though, unless you like that kind of thing.

[Anonymous No.2554103]

>>2554035

EZ there plot spoilin'.

[Anonymous No.2554105]

>>2553703

I thought that pilots themselves had an agility rating? Also, are there certain parts that increase agility or does it just matter what your Weight to Power ratio is?

[Anonymous No.2554478]

>>2554105
Some parts will increase or decrease the number of squares you can move. Power to weight matters some but leg parts matter the most.

[Anonymous No.2554692]

>>2554105
The agility stat is poorly named. It actually only increases the damage mitigation when you guard.

[Anonymous No.2555239]

>>2554692

Ahhh I see. So it doesn't actually increase a dodge percentage or anything?

[Anonymous No.2555453]

>>2553357

How the fuck long do Chaff Grenades stay active? I'm getting blown the fuck out by EGRET spam. Christ its gay. I think I just may have to grind money at the coliseum and min/max my Wanzer parts.

[Anonymous No.2555490]

I love this game just for the modular spritework they use for the mechs. Are there any other games that do this?

[Anonymous No.2555508]

>>2552984
Were some/most of these games Japan only? How many have been translated?

[Anonymous No.2555517]

>>2555490
what do you mean? aren't most srpgs in isometric view so you can better see every unit if they get behind each other?

[Anonymous No.2555521]

>>2555517
I meant the mech designs. The bits of the mechs all come together to make whichever combination you want, while still looking good.

[Anonymous No.2555534]

>>2555521
Oh, I see then. I had a mind fart.
It looks like they achieved that by overlaying a bunch of sprites together on top of each other. This technique wasn't used much on the snes because hardware limits, which is probably why they had to do the attack animations in an entirely different screen.

[Anonymous No.2555536]

>>2555534

[Anonymous No.2555545]

Is Front Mission 3 a good starting point? Would I be missing much by skipping 1 and 2?

[Anonymous No.2555562]

>>2555508

Officially translated? You can get:

Front Mission DS (This is a DS port of Front Mission 1 from the SNES)

Front Mission 3 (Official translation, available on the PS1)

Front Mission 4 (Official Translation, available on the PS2)

Every other Front Mission game has a fan translation patch though :)

[Anonymous No.2555575]

The stories are mostly independent from what I remember.

I'm sure they take place in a similar world, but I honestly don't remember.

Storywise is fairly irrelevant to Front Mission.

3 is a great game. I would suggest it as a starting point instead of the SNES games.

[Anonymous No.2555596]

>>2553658
Its not a hard game by any means. Its a pretty simplistic SRPG about positioning. Diversify your wanzers. Don't load a missile launcher on everybody just because you can. Have different wanzers for different purposes, that way they're great at that one thing, and they level faster in that skill type to get better abilities. I never tried using flash grenades or any of the other items people are mentioning, but I beat the game without having a wanzer blow up more than a couple times, always to chance missile fire. It happens, you move on because with superior positioning, missiles are really the only thing that can possibly fuck with you, and if you sit around long enough for missiles to take out enough wanzers to lose the mission, you fucked up bad. You got this, just stop focusing on what you can't control, and focus on what you can.

[Anonymous No.2555598]

>>2555575
Cool, thanks. I have a PS1, but not a SNES, and I'm not a fan of emulation, so that's why I asked.

[Anonymous No.2555647]

>>2555239

no it is purely defense, without a shield it doesn't really do anything. There is a world of difference when having a very high agility+shield to guard against an attack. There isn't any enemy except the last boss who can break a 9999 agility guard with a shield.

[Anonymous No.2555695]

>>2555647

After equipping all of my Wanzers with shields, I'm noticing the current mission I'm on, Mission 6, is going slightly better each time. Save the random two pack of missiles that busts Roid's chest armor instantly. Thanks RNG.

[Anonymous No.2555716]

FM 4 really sucks. The graphics are so desaturated I can hardly see the mechs. I found myself fast forwarding, and the battles still take too long.

[Anonymous No.2555907]

>>2555239
Each wanzer part also has an agility rating that has a small bearing on a unit's ability to dodge. It's not listed when selecting parts so it isn't really important.

>>2555508
>>2555562
For games that weren't officially translated:

Front Mission: Gun Hazard (SNES) was full fan-translated by AGTP. Occasionally mislabeled as Front Mission 2. Side-scroller in the same vein as Cybernator/Assault Suits Valken.

Front Mission 2 (PS1) was fully fan-translated, but only part of the script could be re-inserted. The translation patch comes with a text file that has the non-inserted script that you can follow along with.

Front Mission Alternative (PS1) is not translated. An RTS.

Front Mission Online (PS2/PC) had an English beta test, but never got an official release. Heavy teamwork based MMO-TPS. Servers were taken offline years ago.

Front Mission 2089: Border of Madness (DS) is not translated. Uses the Front Mission DS engine with a few improvements taken from the previous games.

>>2555545
It's a good enough starting point. It's the first game I started with. The in-game internet references the fallout from the events of the first two games but is purely for world-building. The main story makes no reference to the previous games.

>>2555647
Agility does slightly increase damage mitigation if you are guarding without a shield, but having a shield definitely helps.

[Anonymous No.2556039]

>>2554074
>NTR is kill
noice.

[Anonymous No.2556242]

>>2555545
I started with FM3 but as much as I liked it I can't really say it's a good starting point because it's far too easy, easier than FM even, you're gonna have trouble when you pick up the other games because the enemy and generally the system is very unforgiving most of the times compared to 3 where you can get Wanzers and skills out of the ass and most of the time completely for free.

Story wise, starting with any game other than FM will probably give you problems because FM is basically the biggest and most important part of the lore and it's always referenced in other games both directly and indirectly, FM2 is one of the most recent in the FM timeline together with FM3 and they're both conflicts that are separated from FM's Huffman Island war but are also a consequence of it, FM2 is so full of references and recurring names/characters that even with the short recaps in the game you still won't understand much about the Huffman Island war and people if you didn't play FM and thus you won't understand why certain very important characters act the way they do.
FM3 is kind of it's own story but it's tied to 2 for some things, FM2 already mentioned some of the happenings of FM3 if you check the Network and read the news which is neat because all the games are very tightly connected and also because even if it's background lore it helps you understand how the world is shaped in FM2 compared to FM3, consider FM3 some kind of sidestory compared to bigger conflicts like FM or FM2.

FM Alternative is actually the earliest FM storywise but plays completely different as it's a RTS, I also dropped it because I didn't like the gameplay, which seemed to me very solid for its time however so if you know Japanese and are interested in the lore you should play it.

[Anonymous No.2556267]

"That would never happen. Japan would never start a war."

why is this the only line I ever remember

it's like "Kill all the Japanese" in Code Geass

I never remember any of the other lines

[Anonymous No.2556308]

>>2556242
>60 hours on first campaign of FM3
>Can't advance without learning all available wanzer skills even though I know the game's easy enough without them

This is the true pain of autism.

[Anonymous No.2556319]

>>2556308
are you getting platinums every mission?

[Anonymous No.2556330]

>>2556308
>Learning all the skills
>in FM3:Ryogo with Machineguns

[Anonymous No.2556334]

By the way, the DS version of Front Mission 1 has a second totally different campaign included. It was originally from the PS1 remake of FM1 but I don't think that ever got translated.

[Anonymous No.2556336]

>>2556319
I'd say 9 times out of 10. I don't really pay attention to what goes into a platinum rank, but I know turn count is part of it, and I've spent lots of turns in some fights I saw the opportunity in to try and skill farm.

>>2556330
Yeah Ryogo's crazy strong. Probably has the most kills of my squad, though Emma's probably close.

I really don't like how some of the skills aren't clear about what's required. when it says 'melee', I don't assume I need a shield equipped to learn the move.

[Anonymous No.2556339]

>>2556336
there aren't many factors in your ranking.

The biggest one is turns. Less turns, better rank.

The next biggest one is skill. The worse your skill grade with the weapons you're using, the better your rank will be. If you're too good, your rank goes down.

The third thing is objectives. if you do not complete all the optional objectives, you won't get the best rank.

[Anonymous No.2556432]

>>2556339
I don't know how I get platinum rank as often as I do then. I've farmed skills on every single character, I'd be surprised if they weren't bringing my points down, and as for optional objectives I didn't even know there were any. I just do everything that seems like it needs to be done and it works out, I suppose. Like was said by others, its a very easy game.

I wish FM2 was fully translated in game, rather than needing a file to read off of for things. I played about an hour of it and loved it, but it lessened the atmosphere a bunch in that state. Though I guess with a whole other campaign left in FM3 I've got a lot to do already.

[Anonymous No.2556439]

>>2556432
>I played about an hour of it
Of which 50 minutes were just attack animations

[Anonymous No.2556442]

>>2556439
I remember those taking forever, now that you mention it. Probably couldn't put anywhere close to as much time farming in that as I have in FM3.

[Anonymous No.2556448]

>>2556442
It's rather impossible to grind or farm skills in FM2 due to the system and difficulty of the game.
Wish I could find the special edition of the game somewhere, those longass battle sequences are a pain in the ass when you just want to replay through the game.

[Anonymous No.2557127]

>>2556432
it's totally possible you're actually getting silvers and not platinums

[Anonymous No.2557203]

>>2557127
I've only gotten 1 silver and one bronze, as far as I can remember. Both were from farming melee skills with just the stock punch. Ryogo + missile backup cleared every mission so far without any problems, though I try to switch it up when I can and use everybody.

[Anonymous No.2557861]

>>2555453

Finally beat stage 6. After buying the best parts for all of my Wanzers and especially buying shields, things got easier. I also plugged up the forest path so only one Missiler could fire at a time. Taking it to those guys in close combat is so damn important!

[Anonymous No.2559791]

Is there any way to calculate how far a mech can move from its w/p? Does height of terrain come into play?

[Anonymous No.2560672]

>>2557203
I think there's actually three different types of character, that are like Assault, Short Range, and Long range/Missile, which learn different skill categories at different rates. Assault learns melee combos, Short Range learns skills for like shotguns and machine guns and long range is for single shot rifles and missile packs.

Kazuki is an Assault Character and Ryogo is a Short Range character, so you get interesting results if you swap them back and forth. You can learn say, tackle, double assault, and rofup, and have them start with a punch, chain to a tackle, chain to a double assault, then chain a rofup off the machine gun part of the double assault.

Or use long range part targeting attacks like Leg-Aim and punch-cripple specific parts.

fun stuff ;)

[Anonymous No.2561456]

Since I have no ps1, does fm3 still hangs during some mission during emulation ?

I use epsxe (i know it's pleb tier , but then Iam a pleb).

Also, is ds port for FM1 is good ?Some time it runs slow on emulator.

[Anonymous No.2561794]

>>2552984
You are literally retarded if you think this game is hard. The game is already piss-easy even if you decide not to use items or the repair truck. What the fuck is wrong with you?

[Anonymous No.2564698]

Playing 3 tonight.
Just started - never heard about series before.
Fuck - nice square technology and sound with fucking mecs :D fun
PSP

[Anonymous No.2566001]

>>2561456
I've been playing on mednafen for a little while. I've only found one point where the game hangs. It's during the mission where you have to get to the center of taipei. I had taken too long in a mission, alerting enemy forces to my location. After this mission you get a choice between two different missions, one is to continue on your regular course but there will be lots of enemies, or change course and join up with the support team. If you choose to join the support team the game freezes. This could just be in my version however.