Nintendo's latest Direct had too many reveals to keep track of. While big announcements like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, and Fire Emblem: Engage are going to be talked about for months to come, smaller reveals have already started to slip through the cracks. One such reveal is that remakes of the first three Front Mission games are heading to Nintendo Switch over the next year or so.
A turn-based tactics mech game franchise that first debuted in 1995, the Front Mission series has a lot of history behind it. Over the last nearly three decades, there have been 15 individual Front Mission releases, ranging from big mainline titles to smaller-scale spin-offs. While the series has primarily stuck to its turn-based roots, it has strayed into just about every other gaming genre imaginable, from MMOs to side-scrolling platformers to RTS games.
The History of The Front Mission Series
Originally released in Japan on the Super Famicom in 1995, the first Front Mission game only came to the US when it was ported to the Nintendo DS in 2007, nearly a decade later. In this turn-based tactics game, players take control of a squad of Wanzers, mechs that have four distinct body parts, each with their own health bar and purpose. As players make their way through Front Mission's campaign, they'll be able to obtain new gear for their Wanzers, which can be equipped between missions. This first Front Mission game is being remade, and is set to release on Nintendo Switch in November.
The first Front Mission spin-off would release in 1996, and sees the franchise take on the side-scrolling shooter genre. Titled Front Mission Series: Gun Hazard, this entry adds a job system to the franchise, and a few other action-RPG elements. Front Mission 2 would then be released a year later, returning to the tactical gameplay of the first game. In general, Front Mission 2 takes its predecessor and expands on it, giving the game a much larger scale, both in terms of narrative with its three playable protagonists, and its gameplay with even more customizable parts and differing objectives. A remake of Front Mission 2 is set to release on Switch at some point next year.
The franchise's second spin-off, Front Mission Alternative, also released in 1997, and takes the series into the realm of real-time strategy. Swapping out the usual grid-based system for an open, real-time map, Front Mission Alternative gives players control of up to three Wanzer squads. While most of the gameplay sees players control their Wanzers from above, a Cockpit Mode gives the player the opportunity to control their mechs directly via a first-person perspective.
1999 saw the release of Front Mission 3, which scaled things back a little from its numbered predecessor. Scenarios are much smaller-scale, and the gameplay puts more of an emphasis on RPG elements than strategy. Front Mission 3 does introduce the Double Feature Scenario path, which allows players to play through two different scenarios simultaneously. Front Mission 3 will also be getting a remake on the Nintendo Switch, though no release date has been given yet.
Another two mainline Front Mission games would release in 2003 and 2005, being titled Front Mission 4, and Front Mission 5: Scars of the War. The franchise's fourth mainline entry acted as a return to form, bringing a lot of the most beloved elements from Front Mission 2 back, while Front Mission 5 continued to expand, bringing new features like Wanzer Skills and auxiliary backpacks to the game.
A mobile phone game, Front Mission 2089, was eventually ported to the Nintendo DS in 2008, bringing the tactical gameplay of the mainline entries to handheld consoles. An MMO titled Front Mission: Online was released in 2005, adopting the third-person shooter genre with fully-rendered 3D environments and free movement. This third-person, 3D gameplay would then be used in Front Mission Evolved, a tentative reboot of the franchise released in 2010. The latest Front Mission entry is Left Alive, a 2019 stealth game set in the same universe that received pretty scathing reviews due to some severe technical issues.
Front Mission Remake is set to release in November 2022 for Nintendo Switch.
