Great game, but could be much better!
The gameplay is awesome; you can change every piece of your Wanzer (Giants robots, but more realistic them the anime type of robots). Every body part has an engine that determines the amount of weight that a Wanzer can carry. Every piece (there’s leg parts, right/left arm parts, body parts, backpacks and weapon such a machine guns, rifles, bazookas, missiles, rods, knuckles, and other) has it’s own weight and you must configure your wanzer by watching this. A body part determines also the evasion of the wanzer. The legs change the movement rate, evasion. There are even “tank like legs”, these “legs” will make the wanzer better in mud areas. And the arms parts change the accuracy, and some arms have even weapon attached in it.
The backpacks can make you carry items, raise engine power, repair wanzer and even jetpacks that will make jump really high (make you wanzer move vertically to reach higher grounds).
The Pilots setup is great too, making you choose the skills that you want to learn, and believe me, there are tons of skills! There are skills that will make shot more rounds per turn, heal more, immune of a type of attack, better with a type of weapon, and many others. You buy these skills with EP. EPs are gained in the end of every battle. The battles are amazing also; you act in turns, in chess like map. Every character has it’s own AP. AP are used in movement and attacks, making you think in every action of your Wanzer, in the next turn you receive an pre-determinate number of these APs. APs and APs charge can be raised using EP. You character receive EXP after destroying any opponents. These EXP make you character Level Up, this will make him more accurate and evasive.
There are only two poor things about this game: its graphics, too much gray, and no details. And the “downgrade” occurred since Front Mission 3; in this one you could even get out of your wanzer.
The game would shine brighter if it was better crafted! With better graphics!