Front Mission 5

[Poofta!]

okay, im a huge front mission fan, i played and beat 1, 3 and 4. so today as im surfing ebay looking for some random stuff, i stumble upon a front mission 5 poster... "Hmmm... Front Mission 5 is coming out, awesome" i think to myself... but then as i look closer, the poster has a date of 2006 release on it. Fuck. after some more research i find out it was out in japan only which makes me very upset...

my question is thus... is there *any* way i can play it in english? i dont keep up with console emulation these days, but are there fan translations out there for ps2 games? does anyone know if square-enix is planning on ever bringing it to the states (i know its unlikely seeing as how its 2 years old and the ps2 is on its deathbed).

i thought the age of not bringing game to us from japan was over (unless its a quirky tokyo train simulator or something about teaching you how to pick up underage high school girls).

damnit this makes me sad, Front Mission 4 was one of my favorites. having bought and almost finished the recent DS rerelease, i really see how far the series has gone, but if theire porting and translating a 15 year old game, why the hell not Front Mission 5!!!


argh.

[Fuyukaze]

Dont bet on it. From what I'd read, SquareEnix had no plans to bring 5 to the states due to the horrible sales and reviews of 4. They did bring it out for the DS which was a real surprise but I'm not holding my breath on them bringing 5 out unless the DS one somehow becomes ultra popular over nite.

[Sudo]

There's a fan translation in progress, but it doesn't appear to be anywhere near complete as of right now.

[Poofta!]

FM4 got poor sales and reviews? wow i was probably living under a rock at the moment. i enjoyed it so very much.

btw... why so few people gave input on this? does nobody care about FM or does everyone just dislike me that much?

[Damaramu]

Nope. Fellow FM fan here. I absolutely love the series. My friends also dug it too. I really wish Square-Enix would reconsider.....at least release it as a budge title or something.

Ah well.

[PapaStu]

Front Mission DS had a fairly small print run and isn't high on the demand scale.

Front Mission 4 had a huge push for it and from what I remember sales were pretty poor. Its never done really well out here as far as I know. Heck there was a Front Mission Online released for the PS2 in Japan, something we'd never see out here thats for sure.

[Sotenga]

Piss this. Why is it that the RPG series about which I actually give a toot (Live-A-Live, Front Mission, Tengai Makyou [which I've never played a game of but looks DAMN impressive and innovative]) are the ones that receive little to zilch attention in America? *facepalm/sigh combo* It's like some cosmic force WANTS me to hate the RPG market. Lousy friggin' sons of so-and-sos... :mad:

Well... is FM5 at least somewhat easily playable despite not having much of a knowledge in the Japanese language? Stupid question, I know, but this seems like the greatest game in this very impressive series, and I really want to give it a try someday.

[Fuyukaze]

Piss this. Why is it that the RPG series about which I actually give a toot (Live-A-Live, Front Mission, Tengai Makyou [which I've never played a game of but looks DAMN impressive and innovative]) are the ones that receive little to zilch attention in America? *facepalm/sigh combo* It's like some cosmic force WANTS me to hate the RPG market. Lousy friggin' sons of so-and-sos... :mad:

Well... is FM5 at least somewhat easily playable despite not having much of a knowledge in the Japanese language? Stupid question, I know, but this seems like the greatest game in this very impressive series, and I really want to give it a try someday.


If you've played many imports, I'd say it's no more difficult then any other strategy game. To enjoy the story, language helps. To enjoy the gameplay, not as much.

[TVs Hasselhoff]

Piss this. Why is it that the RPG series about which I actually give a toot (Live-A-Live, Front Mission, Tengai Makyou [which I've never played a game of but looks DAMN impressive and innovative]) are the ones that receive little to zilch attention in America? *facepalm/sigh combo* It's like some cosmic force WANTS me to hate the RPG market. Lousy friggin' sons of so-and-sos... :mad:

Well... is FM5 at least somewhat easily playable despite not having much of a knowledge in the Japanese language? Stupid question, I know, but this seems like the greatest game in this very impressive series, and I really want to give it a try someday.
If you are going to use a disc image of the game, instead of an actual retail version, check this group out:

http://frontmission.info/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

They've been doing a translation patch of the game that is applied to the disc image. They are pretty far along, only needing to incorporate some of the cut scenes at this point. The patch they offer now tranlsates character names, menus, gameplay (during battle) dialogue, and a few other areas. They have simple instructions to follow for applying the patch to the .iso, and they've got screen to show the before and after.

I'll probably try this in a couple of months, once I get through FM 4. Anxious to try FM 5 myself, as they say it is one of the best of the series.

[Poofta!]

If you are going to use a disc image of the game, instead of an actual retail version, check this group out:

http://frontmission.info/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

They've been doing a translation patch of the game that is applied to the disc image. They are pretty far along, only needing to incorporate some of the cut scenes at this point. The patch they offer now tranlsates character names, menus, gameplay (during battle) dialogue, and a few other areas. They have simple instructions to follow for applying the patch to the .iso, and they've got screen to show the before and after.

I'll probably try this in a couple of months, once I get through FM 4. Anxious to try FM 5 myself, as they say it is one of the best of the series.

wow awesome, this will make me buy a modded ps2 finally. i cant wait.

also, yes, FM5 (if its anything like FM4/3) requires good language skills to fully enjoy since the FM games are so story driven (and the stories are very political in nature).

it just pisses me off the amount of worthless JRPG and SJRPGs we get (half the psp library and almost everything NIS releases on teh ps2) and yet something as big as this cant get even a small print run.

boo.

[Poofta!]

anyone know any updates on front mission in usa?

[kupomogli]

Here's a theory on why Front Mission 4 got poor sales and the reason why Front Mission 5 isn't in the US, no matter how awesome it may be.

Front Mission 4 sucked ass. Big time.

The original Front Mission? Good game, especially for its time. It's got a great story, decent gameplay. Front Mission 2? So much better than the original. Front Mission 3 and the first that received a US release? This game is easily the best in the series, an amazing storyline, and better than the second. Then?

Then Front Mission 4 happens, that's what. The storyline isn't that great starting off aside from that amazing opening sequence and the gameplay is a major downgrade from FM3 and even FM2 so much that it's boring as hell to play. No wonder we didn't receive FM5 over here.

Sorry for those of you who are fans of FM4. I'm a FM fan myself, but I really despise 4.

[blue lander]

I became a big fan of Front Mission after playing Front Mission 3. I bought Front Mission 4 when it came out at full price (something I rarely ever do) and I just couldn't get into it like I could FM 3. The story was dull and too drawn out, and they overcomplicated the gameplay while removing the coolest parts of FM3. Unless FM 5 is a return to FM3 style, I'm not interested even if it was released here.

[Gabriel]

I didn't like FM4 either. It wasn't abyssmal, but it was definitely on the low quality side.

The things which stick out in my mind about FM4 are:

1) The characters now had fixed skills they learned as opposed to the freedom in FM3 to learn any weapon you wanted. Initially, I thought this was a good thing, but when playing the game it forced me to pick a lot of suboptimal stuff.

2) The graphics didn't look very good. It compared poorly even with games of the time. Tactical games aren't typically known for their graphics, but FM3 had made a good showing and this was Square after all. The low quality graphics made the whole game feel weak and like a minimal effort.

3) The new combat engine sucked. It's been a while but I seem to recall it really favored overwatch fire and dual wielding mechs. Combats were very long, drawn out, and full of cheap stuff. It just wasn't very interesting compared to the battles in FM3.

When I got Front Mission on the DS a couple of years ago, I had a similar negative reaction. I was forced to come to the conclusion that FM3 was one of the greatest TRPGs of all time merely by way of a fluke. The norm for the series as displayed by FM1 and 4 was much, much lower.

I still would have bought FM5 and given the series one more chance.

[Kid Fenris]

The story was dull and too drawn out, and they overcomplicated the gameplay while removing the coolest parts of FM3.

Front Mission 3 has an insulting, cliche-riddled, and unbelievably boring storyline, so I hate to think of how Front Mission 4's could be worse.

Come to think of it, Front Mission 3's battles are also badly paced and frequently tedious. It was actually FM3 that made me ignore the fourth game.

[Poofta!]

Front Mission 3 has an insulting, cliche-riddled, and unbelievably boring storyline, so I hate to think of how Front Mission 4's could be worse.

Come to think of it, Front Mission 3's battles are also badly paced and frequently tedious. It was actually FM3 that made me ignore the fourth game.

i think you should try the 4th game... the story is very politically and militaristically driven. very convoluted and vast.

personally the 4th game was my favorite, i liked each new installment better than the previous. to each his own, i guess.

[blue lander]

Front Mission 3 has an insulting, cliche-riddled, and unbelievably boring storyline, so I hate to think of how Front Mission 4's could be worse.

Yeah, but at least it got out of your way so you could actually play the game once in awhile. I spent more time in FM4 wading through reams of plot about things I didn't care about just to get to the parts I did care about (blowing stuff up with giant robots).

[Daria]

I had a friend over the night looking through my games. He asked why I didn't own Front Mission 5. I guess I should have told him that it didn't exist. I didn't even realize it never came out over here.

[fpbrush]

My first exposure to Front Mission series was through GunHazard on emu. I enjoyed the little bit I played of it so I was excited when I found out Front Mission 3 had been localized on the Playstation (back in the day). I kept waiting for the used price to go down--and it never really did so I ended up missing out on it. Fast-forward to now, I recently saw that Front Mission 4 is a measly $5 at GS. After hunting around a bit for one in good condition, I picked it up.

It's too bad they probably won't be bringing 5 over to the US. I've only played a few missions on it but I have been enjoying FM4. I understand what some have said about the drawn out storyline-- but Square has always (for better or for worse) put ALOT of story/dialogue in most of thier games, even if it means getting in the way of the actual gameplay. I don't really mind it so much as I think it's fitting for a military-related strategy game. I would like to play FM3 though, I just never got around to grabbing it!