In case you are wondering, yes, this is a review of the 1995 original. Not Scars of War. Not Evolved. Not Online — and certainly none of that recently-released Remake nonsense... Just Front Mission: the little SNES mecha tactics gem with outsized charm that spawned a 15-game, 30-year-old franchise.

In it, you play Lloyd Clive – a wanzer (read: giant robot) pilot for the Oceania Cooperative Union (OCU, for short: one of the game's super-powers) who leads a recon platoon tasked with taking a look at an United States of the New Continent (USN: the other super-power) munitions factory. As is often the case, the seemingly simple task turns deadly when Lloyd's unit is ambushed by USN forces lead by Driscoll: a wanzer powerhouse, who not only defeats Lloyd's teammate and fianceé, Karen Meure, but also detonates explosives within the facility, razing it to the ground.

The USN uses the munitions plant battle as a pretext for declaring war on the OCU which, in turn, pins the blame for the provocation on Lloyd and boots him out of the military. Dispirited by the loss of his ladylove, Lloyd loses himself for a year, finally surfacing as a washout gladiator in the seedy town of Barinden. There, he is contacted by Olson – an OCU colonel who promises Lloyd a chance to avenge Karen's death. All he has to do is agree to lead the Carrion Crow, an OCU mercenary unit, and – y'know – help win the war.

In terms of structure, Front Mission is a fairly linear, isometric, turn-based, tactical combat game with limited RPG elements.

The gameplay loop sees you arrive in a town — where you can visit a bar, buy wanzer parts at a store, fight for money in the arena or cobble together new wanzers out of components you own. Then you undertake a mission, then move on to a new town and so on and so forth... If the mechanics sound simple, it's because they are: in terms of gameplay complexity, Front Mission is fairly straightforward.

In all other respects, however, the game shines with brilliant intensity.

The hand-drawn, pixel graphics are gorgeous; the plot, character design and dialogue — outstanding — giving you a cast of NPCs with real depth and a bittersweet story that just doesn't get old; the mission design keeps you on your toes with optional objectives, rare components that might drop from defeated enemies and opponents quite up to the task of taking you to school if you make one too many mistakes. And all of said goodness is swathed in timeless tunes from Yoko Shimomura (who "has been cited as one of the most well-known video game music composers"); and Noriko Matsueda (who scored Front Mission 2 and Final Fantasy X-2) that could have been composed 30 years ago or yesterday.

Rounding out the "pros" column is RPG-lite character progression (whereby you shape an NPC's development by equipping them with types of weapons you want them to get good at); and skills (which trigger randomly during attacks, but are selectable by the player when an NPC's ability levels-up). Between well-designed mechanics, a great story and hundreds of wanzer parts and weapons, Front Mission offers an experience that is, at the same time, easy to grasp but difficult to put down.

In terms of "cons," honestly, there are only two: one is the outdated nature of the gameplay, which depends too much on random rolls (for accuracy, skills and damage) and not enough on player skill; while the other is the fact that – long as it is (between 30 and 40 hours) – Front Mission is so good that it never feels like enough. The game has so many "this is it, right?" moments that do not conclude the gameplay that – by the time the end finally arrives – you kind of wish it was one of 'em...

If you've never delved into the franchise but like mecha, turn-based tactics titles or simply Great Games; or have played later Front Missions, but are curious How It All Started, I highly recommend playing through Front Mission at least once.

It's the sort of experience that couldn't be made today: a game that surpassed the software and hardware limitations of the day with little more than the sheer desire to excel.

How to play

To experience the awesomeness that is Front Mission, you'll need two things:

•  1) an SNES emulator (I recommend ZSNES, at https://zsnes.com/); and
•  2) the Front Mission rom (use teh Google, Luke);

Pig recommends

• -while it sorta lacks the focus and emotional punch of the original, Front Mission 3 (1999 / Playstation) is a fun enough play; while Front Mission 4 (2003 / Playstation 2) gets pretty darn close to the original, in terms of a good plot, fun gameplay and likable characters; if you want to give 'em a try, I recommend PCSXR (at https://ps1emulator.com/) and PCSX2 (at https://pcsx2.net/) as emulators of choice; keep in mind that both will need the Playstation 1/2 BIOS files to work;