i am a huge fan of this game but as i live in Europe we never seem to get front mission released Ive only ever seen the third game in the shop here in england Ive played the fourth game to i download it i am now playing front mission 1st on the ds. i really want to play front mission 5 as Ive heard its the best one they made yet but i don't understand japanese lol.
Tough luck mate, only a handful of gamers really dig the Front mission games, it's probably coz alot of gamers don't quite dig that turn based battle system FM uses. It's like this, the concept behind a TBS (Turn Based Strategy) games is that its kind of a cross between chess & your typical RPG, although alot of people accept & undestand the concept behind RPGs, many people has little or no grasp of chess (that includes me, I can't undestand how a freakin' board game got so kewl for over 700 years now when it has so many nuances that take years to understand & master sheesh! You chess players please bear with me I know I have no right to bad mouth your sport but that's how I really feel about it, sorry) so naturally when a gamer comes across a game with chess-like elements they'd avoid it, even if the game has such a compeling plot line. I myself am a die hard FM fan I've played the original FM (Front Mission later re-released as FM 1st) on the SNES. I'm one of the few Filipinos who got a hold of a game copier/loader here in the Philippines. It was never released in the US or Europe (I think) & was entirely in japanese except for the battle menu options but still even if I didn't understand the story thw gameplay really got me hooked & I was finished the whole thing unaware of what really happehed hehe. Anyway some guys ROM Hacked the thing & translated it but I won't delve too much on it coz I don't know if the forum will allow it, just play FM 1st they're practically identical 'cept in the original you only have Llouyd's plot. Now about FM3, since you mentioned it, I really have mixed feelings towards that game. Yes, it's the first game that has an event happening here in my homeland The Philippines, but it had alot ofholes that need filling. First, although the Philippine scenarios were all make believe, there really is (actually, are) anti-government parties running amuck here, particularly in the Mindanao regionas well as in Luzon but I won't discuss this in detail as this post is already so so looong. Anyhoo, the PLP leader's name, Bamarm irritates me in all 7,107 islands of our country no such name exists therefore the assholes at Square made up a name. Also, the bithcy rich girl Pha Luis, has a butler!! We don't hace butlers here, only you Englishfolk & Americans have them, clearly the guys who made this game have no clue as to what we Filipinos are! Another thing, the soldier Manaro had his name poorly translated from the japanese text, it should have been Manalo not Manaro!! And the Soldier who turned his back on his country's army, Jose Estrade was obviously named after our country's second to most corrupt president Joseph Estrada, but what irritated me was that instead of using a character graphic that looked like the asshole the programmers used a character graphic that looked like one of our country's National heroes, Andres Bonifacio, what was Square hitting at HMMM?!!! Finally, you said you wanna play the other FM titles but couldn't coz their in japanese?? That's actually no problem, if you're really well acquainted with the FM titles you already played then you should use that, all of the FM titles are basically the same, ofcourse you may miss out on the plot. Or if you've got the time, search around the net for documentation that teaches basic japanese, trust the language uses over a hunderd thousand characters but you REALLY don't need to learn 'em all. You just need to learn the 2 basic forms of written japanese, the kanas Hiragana & Katakana once you learn them your one step closer to learning the language! Next find material that teaches the languages grammar, trust me this one's easy as japanese grammar is similar to english. Next find yourself a good japanese word prosessor there're a ton of 'em in the net as ROM Translators uses 'em. Once you get across learning japanese, I suggest you play the Super Robot Wars series (there're 2 english titles in this series on th GBA). The're way better than the FM series coz instead of playing with make believe robots piloted by make believe pilots, you'd be playing with pilots & mechs based on popular Mecha (that's what the Japanese call giant freakin' robots btw) AWESOME!!!
