Square Enix's latest story driven, mech-based strategy RPG is their best yet.

Almost everyone in the world is familiar in some way or another with Square-Enix's Final Fantasy series. In many ways it is almost overbearing with the amount of FF titles that have been released over the years. Combine that with all the press that the Final Fantasy games receive yearly, and it is no wonder some of the other Square-Enix titles, slip under the radar. One franchise in particular has already accumulated four games and a fairly large cult following worldwide; of course I am talking about highly acclaimed, yet hardly talked about Front Mission series. The fourth installment of Front Mission makes its way to the PS2 for the first time during the gaming machine's current reign.

For everyone that has not played any of the Front Mission games for the PlayStation, don't feel bad because you are far from being alone. Front Mission is basically a turn-based RPG/Strategy game that uses giant, butt-kicking mechs as the main characters on the battlefield. The giant mech are the strategy portion of the game, while the mech pilots provide the RPG elements of the game.

Front Mission 4 opens with some seriously stunning CG. It is true that nearly all games these days have CG in their opening scenes, but I have not had my jaw drop like this since Final Fantasy X first blessed my television screen. And here is the best part; the game doesn't stop looking drop-dead gorgeous after the opening scene is finished. During battles the game looks absolutely spectacular with fantastic detail of the mechs and the surroundings; even the horizon looks amazingly real, stretching across the background as far as the eye can see. Once mechs engage with one another in combat there are tons of different, extremely detailed animations depending on what weapons and other various items each mech is equipped with. This makes the battles enjoyable, because as your squadrons get bigger you don't see the exact same sequence of attacks and counter-attacks over, and over again; keeping the battles fresh and exciting. (Well as exciting as turn-based strategy can be!)

This brings me to the actual battle system. As stated earlier, Front Mission 4's battle system is done with a turn-based system. Battles take place on a 3-D map that is essentially a giant 3-D grid. Combat consist two combat phases, which are called the Player Phase and the Enemy Phase. As one might expect from the names of the move phases, you do all your moves and actions during the Player Phase. All actions and movements are dictated by a pool of points that each one of the pilots have. Each pilot can only attack once per round, regardless of how many action points each pilot has. During the Enemy Phase the only thing that can be done is to watch the computer's turn. At this point, it's entirely hands-off, and only the stats of the pilot dictate how well they will defend, evade or even counter-attack.

All in all I can not say enough about this game. Front Mission 4 t is truly a title that has captured all the great aspects of multiple genres. Along with beautiful graphics and extremely deep gameplay mechanics, Front Mission 4 also has a very captivating storyline that keeps you fairly involved with the development of the pilots throughout the game. Front Mission 4 is fairly import friendly, for all you importers out there, with most of the major cut-scenes being in English, as well as some of the major menus also being in English. But for the people out there that don't happen to have a Japanese PlayStation 2 lying around the house, make sure that you are first in line to pick this wonderful title once it gets a release date in the English speaking countries. Fans of giant mechs, strategy titles or RPGs, shouldn't hesitate to pre-order this game. Furthermore, if you have never been able to get into Strategy RPGs much, you should seriously give this title some thought. It's literally good enough that it could change your opinion!