The original Front Mission raised the bar very high indeed for what we have come to expect from mecha games on Super Nintendo. Just one year later, Square released a sequel - but don't be fooled, Front Mission Series: Gun Hazard is everything but a traditional follow-up. In fact, it's not even in the same timeline as the original and future games in the series; it's a whole new beast that boldly does away with all the original excellent isometric turn-based battles and focuses instead on platforming and shooting antics.
Looking at the screenshots you might be assuming that we've accidentally uploaded assets for the legendary Cybernator (also known as Assault Suit Valken) but we can assure you this isn't a mistake - the reason for the uncanny similarity is because the same core team created both titles. Gun Hazard certainly feels a lot more like an evolution of Cybernator than Front Mission, featuring the same style of mech (sorry, "wanzer") animation. But while Cybernator is a linear experience, Gun Hazard throws you off the deep end and gives you much more in the way of options. Fortunately, if you've already played Cybernator you shouldn't find things too daunting.
The story is a lot more involved than the one in Cybernator. Mankind has entered a time of peace and prosperity due to worldwide cooperation in the ongoing construction of Atlas, an orbital lift leading to a solar power plant that aims to provide cheap energy for every nation on the planet. However, a sudden breakthrough in mini fusion reactor technology has halted the project and soon every nation decides to revert back to their old ways and conflicts erupt over natural resources. It is now the year 2064 and there is an ongoing coup d'état in the nation of Bergen. Players take the role of one Sergeant Albert Grabner of the Bergen Army who is called to assist in escorting the nation's elected President Moss Orwen safely outside the country before the rebel forces of Colonel Ark Hellbrand get their hands on both. After eluding capture, the Colonel puts a spin on the story stating Albert is the one responsible for kidnaping the President and his forces are the true heroes. Without any way to reveal the truth, Albert and President Orwen try to carry out the original plan to escape the country and in their escape end up fighting a mercenary named Brenda Lockhart. All three of them end up captured at Beeg Army Base and a somewhat uncomfortable alliance is made between Albert and Brenda who manage to escape the country using Brenda's Tadpole carrier. These events unfold in the first half an hour of gameplay, which gives you an idea of just how involved the storyline is.
The controls fully mimic Cybernator; Your wanzer can jump, shoot, use special weapons like the hard knuckle, use a shield to block incoming fire and (once you buy a dash and Vernier unit) hover and zip across the land. New to the series and seemingly lifted straight from LucasArts own mecha game Metal Warriors (which was inspired by Cybernator)hitting "Select" will allow Albert to leave his wanzer and move around armed with grenades and pistol. Of course this leaves you very vulnerable, so you'll want to remain inside your mech until exploration demands you to leave it.
The game starts you off in a FN-8G Harby-G, a tiny wanzer that looks more like the loader from the movie Aliens than a proper army vehicle. You will be stuck with it for the initial hours of the game, but the RPG aspect of the game ensures that destroying opponents and successfully completing missions (there are over ninety) will reward you with both experience and money, the former allowing you to level up parts of the wanzer and the latter to pick up new weapons, parts, even brand new wanzer models. Since the game map allows you to move freely back and forth, it is possible to repeat already completed missions to grind for both resources, and if you're up to the challenge you can even complete the entire game with a fully powered up Harby-G. You also need to keep your fuel reserves in check; wanzer HP is replenished with it and you only have a limited supply in your carrier vehicle. Visiting shops is a must not only to browse for goods but also making sure you keep your carrier fuel reserves up. It might seem like you have more than enough to start with, but the more your wanzer levels up, the more total HP it will have - and the more fuel it will need to top up after each mission.
The presentation in this game is top notch, not uncommon for a Squaresoft release in early 1996. If the character portraits give you a familiar feeling it's due to Yoshitaka Amano once again returning to art directing duties, which explains why all the people you encounter wouldn't look out of place in Final Fantasy VI. Wanzer graphics are also neatly animated, with a great variety of both enemy and allied mechanical monstrosities populating the screen. Backgrounds are also detailed and efficiently portray the many locations the game will take you across, from the deserts of Al-Hari, the lush forests of Machu Picchu to the icy wastelands of Sibriska or the war torn cityscapes across the many nations your travels take you, there is certainly a lot to admire. Plus the developer Omiya Soft made sure it used every excuse to throw in a lens flare effect every time the sun is up on the horizon.
One of the most overlooked aspects of Gun Hazard is it unique soundtrack. There are about two and a half hours of the finest SNES music spread across over sixty tracks which snugly fit inside the game's cartridge. They mostly take on militaristic, industrial tones that help to sell the game's presentation. The outstanding quality of the tracks was no fluke; four composers took on scoring duties for this one, namely Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy series), Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger) Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu. The end result is yet another all-time great Super Nintendo soundtrack that remains criminally overlooked.
Some issues do arise, with levels that seemingly drag on for too long with little to shoot at. In fact sometimes there are just too few enemies on screen for the player to actually feel threatened. However, ignoring enemies and pushing forward is also ill advised since it may result in a busted up wanzer before the end of the level. Some players might take issue with the amount of grinding required, killing the same enemies over and over again in order to buy all available equipment available early or upgrading to a new wanzer as soon as they become available. There might also be possible roadblocks where your wanzer simply is unable to take on a certain mission unless upgraded or leveled up. These issues do pop up, but seem a small price to pay to find out what next plot twist will occur on the next mission. Pilots beware: In a few missions Verniers on your wanzer and grenades for your pilot are mandatory for progress, but the game doesn't really gives you a heads up notice about it.
You will eventually get an AI wanzer to tag along in your missions. At this point, Gun Hazard manages to pull something neither Cybernator or Metal Warriors did: two player co-op! By using the game's only input cheat (hit "Down" + "L" + "R" + "Start" on the second controller), player two can take control of the AI wanzer using the second joypad. It is a neat little unadvertised bonus that turns the game into less of a solitary experience.
As you might already be aware, the amount of on-screen Japanese text is rather copious. Without a good understanding of the language, navigating menus is the real titular hazard and missing out the plot that is presented in the cutscenes will diminish the experience. However, hacker group Aeon Genesis released a stellar English fan translation back in 2004, shining light onto the story for westerners and making us wish that the game really had been translated and officially released in the West. By 1996 - and with the first game a no show in the West - the chances of the title arriving in the US and Europe was little more than a daydream for SNES mecha fans. Get your revenge nowadays by using the native cartridge and fan translation patch on your RetroN 5 or Retro Freak.
Conclusion
Front Mission Series: Gun Hazard might not have recieved the attention and acclaim the original did, but despite some design hiccups it remains a very impressive and ambitious product. A stellar plot that would not look out of place in a mecha manga or anime maintains your attention while tuning up and customizing your wanzer with the different special weapons keeps the game fresh, with surprising aural delights coming up frequently. Gun Hazard is the plot heavier pseudo-sequel to Cybernator you never knew you wanted;. a side-story that perfectly demonstrates how much could be squeezed out of the Super Nintendo hardware when it was left in capable hands.
Comments (30)
I really need to somehow get myself these Front Mission games. Been trying to buy the DS remake of the first game on EBAY for a while now, but it is difficult in the UK at a reasonable price (as it's a US release only).
Also never heard of this game until now, but definitely curious to get it if I can. Great review by the way.
@GravyThief Thanks. In my experience, if you like mecha games, these two SNES outings are some of the finest money can buy.
@Shiryu and yet another great retro review. Hats off to you, mr. Lopes.
Played and loved this game. And the original Front Mission AND Cybernator as well. One tiny bit of critique: do I have to post the video again or are you going to do it yourself?
@ThanosReXXX Oh please do, I can't remember the tags again: https://youtu.be/3Yz7epL5ckI ¯(ツ)/¯
PS: Let's see if this works...
@Shiryu it's simple: use these brackets [] and in between them, put youtube:3Yz7epL5ckI or any other video code that's applicable.
Great review,cheers @Shiryu.
Superb game,it actually took me by surprise this one as I had no idea what I was in for when I first played it.It's a shame we'll likely never see games like this made again.
@OorWullie A great shame indeed.
@ThanosReXXX Thanks, it worked today!
@Shiryu You're most welcome. A decent exchange of favors for a great review.
What might be the issue sometimes is that people forget to put the : in between "youtube" and the video code, which is always everything that comes after watch?v= in the full YouTube link. (not the abbreviated one like you used, although the video code was the same). If you forget even one letter, number or sign, it won't work.
Also, you sometimes need to post it, then go to edit but do nothing, and then save if it doesn't work the first time and simply displays the text you typed instead of a YouTube window.
That happens to me sometimes. Don't know if that's NLife or me, but the solution I just described works every time.
@ThanosReXXX Yep, thats what happens to me sometimes too, the need to edit when it shows text. I assume it's some sort of weird coding bug, but oh well, I don't really often need to put up videos in the comments anyway.
@Shiryu Not in the comments, but they would make a great addition to your reviews. Especially for people that don't know these games, so they don't have to go looking for footage themselves, no matter how relatively easy that may be...
@ThanosReXXX You better ask @Damo about it, my videos were usually embedded in the reviews before the website redesign.
@Shiryu You'll have to ask @antdickens about that
Yikes! Need to play this. Love "Target Earth" as one of my absolute favorites on Genesis. (That and Herzog Zwei are the Genesis legacy to me) and Cybernator was a beautiful but simplified follow up, this sounds fantastic.
@ThanosReXXX Did you ever play the LucasArts one? Metal Warriors? I've been wanting to try that one, too. Target Earth is getting an amazing looking remaster for PS4/PC that I need to get as well.
@aaronsullivan I'll have to look that up. Could be, but currently I can't remember. I'll find a video of it and get back to you on that.
@ThanosReXXX @aaronsullivan "Metal Warriors" review is on my "to do" list.
@Shiryu Look at you posting them videos...
@aaronsullivan I have actually played it, since it is on my DSi, which I just checked, but it has been so long ago since I played on that handheld, that I forgot. It seems like an okay title, but I like Front Mission Gun Hazard and Cybernator better.
Yeeeeeesss! I love that game so much! I remember beating it a second time immediately after finishing it haha. (Beat it the second time with the first little wanzer (make belief hard mode)).
It's worth noting also that Yoshitaka Amano worked a bit on the project. SquareSoft at it's climax
By the way, is it me or Brenda kinda looks like Meryl Streep?
@Smokingspoon Hmmm... I don't see it.
I love the artwork for old Square Enix games. They seem much more imaginative and ethereal than all of the CG ingame screenshots (although I like those too) we get today. I would have loved to see a FF XIII artbook with this style.
(T_T )
@Shiryu Her in-game version, I meant.
"Gun Hazard is the plot heavier pseudo-sequel to Cybernator"
Sold
@Frosty_09 My job here is done. And no, I'm not secretly on commission from Square. Also note the first game is nothing like this one in case, but equally brilliant in it's own genre.
@CanisWolfred If only I knew that beforehand, I would have saved over 1600 words on this review.
@Shiryu To be fair, there aren't a lot of Laynos clones in general, but I did grow up with one on the Genesis (Ranger-X, which is the closest thing I could've gotten back then without playing Target Earth (which was the first Laynos, and also pretty freakin' terrible), which was amazing, yet also way too complicated for a 6-year-old who couldn't read the instruction manual).
Plus, I like the Front Mission Franchise (well, 3 and 4. I never played the first two), and when I heard about this, I thought it was just another Gradius-style shmup, which would've been a complete disservice to the franchise, even if it was good. A Cybernator-style game, on the otherhand, makes perfect sense as a spin-off, and would allow for more delicious 16-bit story-telling.
@CanisWolfred I too never got into "Target:Earth"... but that changed a couple of years ago when it finally "clicked" and I played the whole game. It might not be a superior game to "Cybernator", but it certainly laid the groundwork for the series... and to "Gun Hazard" as well. I must sadly admit to have never played the Saturn Leynos sequel which always looked stellar.
PS: "Ranger X" was always pretty cool and unique thanks to the mech/bike dual gameplay.
Yet another game I've never heard of and maybe want! Is the storyline as dark as the mainline Front Mission? Not what I expected from mecha games, but it really set it apart and I'd be tempted to play one in this style with a similar story.
Fellow Target Earth fan, drifting in.,,
@World Not wanting to give out much spoilers.... I would consider using nerve gas on a whole civilian village pretty dark, yep. Life of a Mercenary and such...
@Shiryu Yep, that sounds like the Front Mission I know!
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