A surprisingly good mech shooter.

Foreword

Let me start out by saying that when I found out the Front Mission series was heading back in the direction of third-person combat after the interesting advancements it made in it's turn-based installments, I was a little bummed out. Add that to the fact that it had been handed off to Double Helix, a company with no mech shooter experience, and a less than promising track record, and I had pretty much written this game off as a flop. I'm happy to say that I was wrong.

Graphics

The graphics in Front Mission Evolved are pretty much what you'd expect from this sort of affair. In the brief moments while your energy recharges or you're waiting for a cutscene to trigger, it's hard not to notice some of the muddy terrain textures and odd graphics abnormalities. Fortunately, you won't spend much time sitting around, and once you get sliding (or as the game calls it "Skating") around, you can see where the graphics team spent their time. Everything from the bullets coming at you to the trails of missiles are rendered in a way that effectively conveys what's coming at you, without letting your screen get cluttered, and believe me, that could happen real fast .  
As for graphical glitches, Unfortunately I did notice a fair bit of frame tearing in certain points in the campaign, as well as some models not rendering properly. Thankfully, these little hitches rarely last long enough to be problematic, but they are noticeable.
 

Story

The story is unfortunately where Front Mission Evolved falls apart. The story has you following Dylan Ramsey, a impulsive young engineer doing research on Wanzers (read "Giant Robot") when the city you're working in is attacked. You then go to save your father, who is closer to the attack on the city. This pretty much just serves as a general background for you to get into your

wanzer and start the story, though some characters from your past do come back into the scene later in the game. Thankfully, your wanzer is special (stop me if you've heard this one...). It has a special AI system named Wizard, which among other tasks activates your E.D.G.E. ability. This ability allows you to slow the world around you down a la bullet time, helping you dodge bullets and take on overwhelming odds, and somewhat justifying how a engineer fresh to combat in wanzers is able to take on wave after wave of bounty hunters and enemy armies for alone.

 
While it's clear that Square and Double Helix are going for a more character oriented story then the other installments of Front Mission, the Japanese story style jumbled into a western style action shooter leaves it feeling jumbled. I feel like this stems mainly to the fact that the story seems to assume that you've put as much thought into the world as they have, and have thought ideas they never really share with their audience. The resulting storyline ends up as a series of slightly distorted story segments awkwardly jumping from one to the next with minimal to no correlation. The facial animation during the cockpit scenes and group meetings seems like it was pulled out of Square's Kingdom Hearts series, with all the characters animating in an overly exaggerated and rather cartoony fashion. This lead to several sad or tense moments causing me to crack a smile, further breaking the illusion that any of this could conceivably happen.
 

Audio

The audio in Front Mission Evolved does exactly what you'd want. During the combat, sounds of ricocheting bullets and missiles flying at you help enhance the feeling that you're piloting this wanzer. However, my main trouble is with the voice acting. The voice acting in this game is borderline comical, with awkward pauses and great expositional sentences in almost every cutscene. This is summed up beautifully in one Commander Mosley, a near Shatner-esque character who takes pauses in between every sentence, really driving home the voice talent on this project.
 
 
 

Gameplay

A departure from the last installment in the series and it's turn-based setup, Front Mission Evolved's fast-paced combat leaves you with a general feeling of satisfaction. With controls that could most easily be compared to the Armored Core series, Front Mission Evolved does alot of things right. The movement of the mech in combat, and the ability to aim at the high speeds you sometimes find yourself strike an engaging

balance, challenging but manageable. Very few times throughout my 10+ hours with this game did I feel like the mech was not doing what I was telling it to do. My only gripe would be that during the boosting, the turn speed on the mech can lead to some frusterating moments of charging at an enemy to deliver a devastating melee attack, only to find yourself sliding right by him. The game also has segments out of your wanzer, these moments seem to play like a third person shooter for the playstation 2, with nothing feeling all that engaging. However, these moments do do a good job of breaking up the mech action.
 

 
These slight nuances of control really do nothing to derive from the best part of this game, it's combat. FME has the standard mech game system of region based damage in place. However, aside from the rifles you unlock later in the game, none of the guns really have the accuracy to effectively focus down one piece. This resulted in me basically holding down all fire buttons and keeping my reticle on the enemy until there was an explosion before turning to the next. Doesn't sound like your style of play? No problem.

The newest installment comes packed with customization options for your mech, allowing you to build it however you please. From 4 legged striders to hoverbase chariots, giant bazookas to arm-mounted switchblades, the choice really is yours to define your gameplay experience. My personal recommendation to you is to swap parts around whenever you get the chance. The game does a good job of encouraging you to switch up how you play regularly as well, with certain missions requiring certain set-ups to complete them. Steady unlocks of new items and upgraded items throughout the story progression helps your wanzer improve both cosmetically and in strength up until the game's climax.

Conclusion

Overall, Double Helix's first endeavor into the long running series of Front Mission leaves me excited to see what they'll do with it next. Though I still yearn for my turn-based Front Mission's of old, I was pleasantly surprised with this installment, and would happily buy another. Though the story and audio are rather lackluster, the gameplay and visual entertainment provided more than justify this as at least a rental. Though as of yet I haven't put any time into the multiplayer (Network issues) I would still recommend a rental to any of my friends, and a possible buy to anyone who enjoys replayability similar to that of an Armored Core game. Front Mission Evolved is an engaging and enjoyable experience, but if you're looking for the type of story you find in other Square Enix releases, your money is best spent elsewhere.