Front Mission (DS)

If you are reading this it is likely that you may not have heard of the Front Mission series as all of the games in the series have been poorly marketed towards North American’s. I’m not joking when I say this, a quick youtube search for NA Front Mission titles yields no results sans a trailer for Front Mission Evolved. If I were to tell you that of all the games in the series (there are five in the main series and about five more offshoots.) we’ve only received the following:

• Front Mission - October 23, 2003
• Front Mission 3 - March 22, 2000 (Rereleased for the Playstation network on December 21, 2010)
• Front Mission 4 - June 15, 2004
• Front Mission Evolution - September 28, 2010
  • A list of all games and Release Dates can be found here.

So how does that make you feel? I’m sure by now you have noticed a few blanks in that list and to most of the English speaking Front Mission fans chagrin it leaves many blanks as the story for the entire series of games was written long before the games were made, meaning that missing out on even one game leaves some fairly sizable holes. Due to the Serialized nature of the series not only were there the games but a novel and radio drama series all of which added to the overall story of the mainline Front Mission series. I’m not here to analyze the series though, I’m here to review a strategy game about flipping walking tank robots!

Awwwwwww Yeeeeeaaaaah!

Front Mission (or Front Mission First depending on localization) for the DS is a port of the first game which until recently was unreleased anywhere outside of Japan. Prior to the release of this DS port the only possible way of playing the game was to either import the game and play it in a modded or Japanese console or to download a translation patch for a rom of the SNES game and play it on an emulator. There were several downsides to playing an emulated version:

1. It’s very, very illegal.
2. You aren’t experiencing the game as it was originally intended, being that the script and translation are done by enthusiasts without the direction of Toshiro Tsuchida
3. With the PSX rerelease of it an additional storyline and elements were added that are absent from the SNES version.
4. Also it is incredible illegal to play/download romnomnoms (in the U.S. at least).

Royd is very angry in the fan translations.

The Story of this game isn’t told from the point of view of a single man, it is told from the perspective of two men from differing backgrounds and from two different forces. One man serves the Oceana Cooperative Union (OCU) is a supranational union of Australia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. The other serves the United Continental States (UCS) which is a Supranational consisting of all countries in North and South America. You can play either story right off the bat, the only difference between them (besides the story) is some minor gameplay elements and improved character portraits.

Choose your destiny!

The main story of Front Mission is the story of Royd Clive a soldier working for one of the worlds super powers the OCU. One day while on a recon mission to investigate a UCS warehouse with his fiancée Karen and his best friends Ryuji and OCU Soldier they experience strange goings on which result in Karen being kidnapped, and the warehouse being destroyed by a mysterious man. They are all blamed for the destruction of the Warehouse and are court martialed as political turmoil erupts into an all out war between the OCU and UCS. Meanwhile Royd, Ryuji, and OCU Soldier go there separate ways all wanting to find something to occupy their new free time with. Some time passes and Royd becomes a gladiator of sorts battling his Wanzer (It’s short for Wanderpanzer a German word meaning “Walking Tank”) for money in an arena. He is approached by a Colonel Olson of the OCU who gives him the opportunity to lead a mercenary group to aid the OCU. From there on it’s explosions, romance, existential crises, and  odd uses of the term “gaggle”.

I’m sure he’s doing better then this guy.

The Second story of the game has you following the exploits of Kevin Greenfield a member of an elite unit called the Black Hounds operating under the UCS. He happens to fall in love with another member and because of this botches a very important mission and is stripped of his rank. Two fellow Black Hounds members he had befriended chose to leave the unit to follow Kevin and all three joined the regular standing army. While the OCU story follows Royd as he tries to find out who kidnapped Karen and oust the UCS from Huffman Island the UCS story follows Kevin as he attempts to weed out corruption in the UCS government while seeking the woman he fell in love with.
As I mentioned earlier the series was serialized long before it was made and was made to be one huge drama set in a contemporary setting. So I feel that this is a game series where it is worth mentioning that there are many drama bombs that get dropped almost as much as Skrillex drops the bass. This isn’t to say that it makes the games bad, the dramatic nature of them builds tension and in my opinion makes it more enjoyable as you are always wondering what is coming next.

Sorry.

As a strategy game Front Mission is pretty straight forward you move your units around Pseudo-3D environments and you have two means of attacking the first is by attacking directly by moving up next to a unit and initiating a close range attack which can consist of attacking with a machine gun, a rifle, or punching the enemy until it dies. The other way of attacking is indirectly which is done with bazookas or missile launchers, the range of the weapons isn’t set and some have more or less range the others. Wanzers are made up of four components, legs, a right arm, a left arm, and a body all with there own set of hitpoints. There are three possible outcomes of any battle,

1. Neither Unit is Destroyed
2. Enemy Unit is Destroyed
3. Player Unit is Destroyed

The Fields are pretty similar to those of the older Fire Emblem games.

The only possible way to destroy a unit is to destroy the body of the Wanzer. Generally this means attacking multiple times are Pilots lack any sort of precision and their hits land randomly, this can be remedied with skills which are learned by repeatedly attacking with a weapon or a certain type (i.e. Repeated attacks using a Machine Gun will yield a machine gun related skill). While you move your units around the map battles occur in a more personal manner. When you initiate combat you are brought close up to both units and watch them attack, or attempt to attack one another. The ultimate objective of every battle is to destroy all enemy units which is simple enough.

AIM FOR THE HEAD! …or is that for zombies?

Outside of the battles you can travel to and from any town you have been to and in these towns you can buy or sell parts and modify your Wanzers, battle in an arena for cash, talk to townspeople, and receive mission objectives. While this may seem silly at first at different times in the game events occur in these towns that can get you special Wanzer parts/weapons or can get you a new pilot to use, so exploration is encouraged as most pilots will require you to do something in order to get them to join you.
Like most strategy games your units are only as good as the equipment they carry, so Wanzer Customization is a major element of the game. Like I mentioned earlier a Wanzer is made up of four major parts a body, 2 arms, and a set of legs. You can combine any set of Wanzer parts as you please, do you want a Wanzer that is just one big gun? You can do that. Want a Wanzer who can shoot lots of missiles and move really fast? You can do that. Grappler arms? You can have em’. Besides being able to slap together whatever robot(s) you want you may want to change their load outs in order to better complete a mission.

It’s usually best to build the Wanzer around the Pilots strengths.

Front Mission for the DS is a great turn based strategy game that I highly recommend to anyone who is either looking for a game that has a great story or happens to like any sort of strategy game. The game is fairly easy to learn and typically by the end of one of the campaigns you will have developed your own style of playing (like making all your units physical attackers and punching everything to death). The compositions for the game are top notch as is the art style, this is because Front Mission DS is actually a port of the PlayStation version so everything looks pretty good aesthetically. Overall Front Mission is a great game that everyone should get. So what are you waiting for gogogogogogogogogogo!

You know you want to roll around in a spider-bot and blow stuff up.

Holiday Shopping tips: How to Identify bootleg DS games

RP for Radically … Poor?

With the Holiday shopping season hitting full swing and many clamoring to get those last minute deals before Christmas it is now more so then any other point that people are more susceptible to accidentally buying a bootleg game. The internet is the prime suspect for perpetuating these fakes most notably Ebay and iOffer which are both poorly policed for people or groups which sell bootleg copies of any product. Typically the games are offered at unbelievable prices or set up as auctions where they wind up selling for significantly more then the game normally sells for. A prime example of games going for that which they are not valued at is the Pokémon series of games; the Pokémon DS series of games will often be found floating around one of the auction websites for prices ranging from $5-$10 or start an auction at .99 cents.

I’m obviously Masochistic.

I being a glutton for punishment purchased several of these bootleg games to better gauge the quality of them at this juncture. As I mentioned in my previous review the quality of bootleg games are increasing and to the untrained eye very often a bootleg game will pass under the radar long after it had been purchased and it’s warranty or return period has expired. The game can experience no end of problems ultimately dependent on the quality of the fake purchased, these problems are not limited to:

1. Contact Issues: When inserting the game it will not be noticed or read by the Nintendo DS.
2. Save Corrupting: After a period of time averaged at around two months or so the save may corrupt and you will lose all your data.
3. Incompatibility: The DSi, DSi XL, and 3DS will not read the game and in most situations will give you an error message.
4. DOA: if the fake is of exceptionally poor quality the game will be dead on arrival.
5. Poor Build Quality: As with a DOA bootleg the quality of the game may be poor enough that instead of utilizing flash memory the game may instead use a battery which will inevitably run dry. Commonly the bootleg will be made of materials which are of subpar quality.

There are other a great deal of other possible problems but these are the most notable ones and the ones most commonly encountered in the purchase of a bootleg game.

Now that I have turned you away from the prospect of knowingly purchasing a bootleg game I shall now explain how to identify aforementioned game. We shall begin by discussing the Label as that is commonly the first thing you will see (in assuming the game you purchase does not come with a case). The first and most telling feature of a fake game in general is the wrong art on the game, very often bootleggers will take the art from the cover and just shrink it down to label size and slap it on there.

It’s like they don’t even try sometimes.

It is imperative that before the purchase of a game off a non-reputable site that you familiarize yourself with the label arts for the games and the cover art for the case so you can spot early on whether the game is a fake or not. A google search will usually yield the desired results and if upon doing the search you feel wary of the game then I recommend contacting the seller and asking to return the game.

Now upon further examination of the label you should see the following in these EXACT places:

1. In the lower Left Corner the games rating (i.e. E, E10+, T, M, etc)
2. In the lower Right Official Nintendo Seal
3. On the very top you should see Nintendo DS ™
4. In between the rating and the seal you should see any other marking indicative to whatever company published or made it (i.e. The Pokemon Company, SEGA, etc.).
5. At the bottom should be a code that begins with NTR and ends with USA, and example would be Pokemon SoulSilver’s code which would be NTR-IPGE-USA

Ballin'

Before advancing to the back of the cartridge lets look at the label as a whole. Is the label off kilter? Is the label a little to round? Is the label just not there? These three things are signs of a fake as real Nintendo DS games have their labels factory cut and pressed.

Now onto the back of the cartridge, on the back you should see embossed into the back of the game the Nintendo Logo, the code NTR-005 PAT. PEND., and below that you should see a code in ink that may fade over time so you will have to shine light on it at an angle to see it. The code will be nine alpha-numeric digits that make up  the games serial code and will ALWAYS be on the cartridge. Typically fake cartridges will be lacking in all three of those marking on the back of the game, however some high quality bootlegs will have often have the Nintendo logo and NTR code embossed on the back, though very often they will be larger then they should be. In my experience I have never encountered a bootleg with the ink serial code below the NTR code, so that can be a telling feature of a bootleg game.

Now if by this point you have not found anything out of the ordinary you will have to look at the games contacts to see if there is a serial code of varying digits or if it only has the words “Nintendo” on it. This is a slightly more unreliable way of telling, because there are Nintendo DS games that do have either of those two on them. Typically if the game does not have the serial code you can consider it a fake. Just use this means of checking with a grain of salt as unlike GBA games you cannot just pop open the game and check the board for the logo and code and know its legit. Fake DS games will always label the board with the Nintendo logo, which is why you, depending on the game, have a 50/50 chance of being right in using this method in determining the legitimacy of the game.

The best way to avoid getting a bootleg game is to exercise both caution and prevention. On Ebay and other websites you will notice that some items are being sold in countries they are not native to and this is generally a warning flag for a bootlegger, the usual culprit will be Hong Kong, China as it would appear they mass produce bootlegs and set up many identical accounts to sell off their goods. These bootleg games will usually be sold without their original cases and instead will be sold in tiny plastic cases. Another warning flag you will notice is the awkward descriptions that will be given to describe the product they are selling;

Example:

“The game is used, 100% new,
no box and manual,only cartridge,Games are in English.
This game has been tested carefully and found to be working perfectly! Please assured to buy. If you encounter any problem,please feel free to contact us. we are here to assist you at any time!Thanks

English Version
Play on any Nintendo NDS or NDS Lite  or ndsi or 3ds”

Oh and all cases should have Nintendo DS embossed in it.

It is not to say that they aren’t cooperative when you attempt to return the game, but you should avoid purchasing english games from countries that are not english speaking. I advise exercising the same amount of caution as recommended in my previous shopping tips, i.e. don’t buy games from places that you are not native to or have dubious/awkward descriptions.

Well Have a Happy Holidays!

Hands on with Dragon Quest IX

Dragon Quest is one of the longest running and most recognized Nintendo franchises. The latest installment is being released next month (July 11th to be exact) on the Nintendo DS, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies. Jesse and I had a chance to check out the game and were impressed. One of the things I was most excited about was the multi-player mode, which allows your character to transfer to another world in you friend's DS. Once there you can cooperate in battles, but also have complete control of your character if you want to wander and explore on your own.

Another aspect that appealed to me was that there are no random battles. When traveling along on the map you see the enemies in the area, and can approach or avoid if you prefer.

Overall I enjoyed sampling this game and will definitely be picking it up next month. For more details check out Nintendo's promo video here.