It’s quite easy to see that this game was released at a time when Squaresoft was developing many RPGs that were outside the conventional mold of the genre. The action is the backbone of the game, and it’s as good as any side-scrolling shooter released at the time, but the RPG elements, cutscenes, beautiful sprites, story, and electronic music all add another layer to the game. Gun Hazard’s plot, like many of of the other games in the series, revolves around political intrigue, and the use of large robotic war machines, mecha, or as the series calls them Wanzers. The game doesn’t take place in the main continuity of the Front Mission series, which allows it to do its own thing without getting caught up on consistency with the rest of the series, or the series’ spin-offs (Front Mission has a lot of games, and other related media that can make understanding events, and sometimes entire game’s plots difficult). Nowhere is this blending of the genres more apparent than in the game’s story. These elements separate it from many other side-scrolling shooters of the day, because this game feels like an RPG first, and a shooter second. The game offers that same gameplay, but it also adds in many RPG elements, such as experience levels, allies in battle, as well as equipment for your mech. The game was created by many of the same people who worked on Cybernator, which was originally released in Japan as Assault Suits Valkain (which also has a completed translation).

The translation was done by AGTP towards the end of 2004. Better recognize! Translation Description:įront Mission: Gun Hazard is a side-scrolling mech shooter/RPG hybrid. Sometimes I wonder why Uematsu gets all this overwhelming adulation just for composing music for a particularly popular RPG series, but God damn his music rocks.

The soundtrack, provided by a variety of Square talent (but mostly the heroes Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda) is fucking excellent. Hey, do you want your normal gun or this shotgun? Stuff like that. It isn’t the exhausting overwhelming chore like in the other FM games, though. Just to remind you that yes, you’re playing Front Mission, you’re given a wide assortment of equipment you can use to equip your mech however you see fit. At the start your duty is to protect the President from a coup at the hands of a powerful general, but I’m sure that All Is Not What It Seems, as is usually the case. You walk around in your Wanzer and shoot things. This is why I actually enjoy Gun Hazard.Īpparently the same team who did Cybernator/Assault Suits Valken did this game, and it’s pretty apparent from playing them both.

And as a sidescrolling action game, it has nothing to do gameplay-wise (or story-wise, debatably) with the other Front Mission games. Front Mission: Gun Hazard is a sidescrolling action game.

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