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> Results: Front Mission
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The ESRB Says
Fantasy Violence: GamerDad used his tweaked bots to destroy enemy bots! Language: Mainly mild usages such as 'hell' and 'damn', but frequent enough to be remarkable. SNES and Playstation fans of strategy games might already know about this 12-year old game. You play one of two sides - the OCU or USN - and command squads of 'Wanzers' (sort of like walking tanks) in battle. The storylines are distinct, making for nice replayability, but the core gameplay is identical. Each side takes turns moving and attacking as is typical in strategy games, with the added feature of locational damage that pairs up with the weapons used by the attacking bot. The ability to customize your bots for strategic attacks is one of the best parts of game, and certainly adds to the depth and replayability. Each mech has a body, legs, right and left arm. Each part has its' own health meter and you can attack each section individually - and outfit your mechs with weapons and armor to take advantage of that fact. This leads to many strategic opportunities in terms of how you plan for attack and defense on the various missions. The DS port is very nicely done - the graphics translated nicely and the menus and character dialogs are easy to navigate and understand. The plot does a reasonable job of carrying the game - but this isn't a strategy-RPG: the focus is on the combat system, which holds up just fine. There are many hours of solid strategy gaming here for fans of the genre.  
Some games assume that certain characteristics suggest ages of characters - so adding stronger language might make one character that looks like a teen seem older than another character that looks like a teen. That seems to be somewhat the approach taken in Front Mission: the language is mild overall, but characters who are 'older' use words like 'hell' and 'damn' to suggest a more coarse and battle-worn persona. It never gets to the point of taking the game beyond a E-10+ rating and 10+ GamerDad Age Seal, but it was noticeable. As for violence, the game is a fairly standard turn-based strategy game in which (with one exception) nobody really dies so long as objectives are met - you just limp off the battlefield to repair your bots.
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