Set 12 years later in Alordesh, Front Mission 2: Remake follows the perspectives of three characters – Corporal Ash Faruk of the Muddy Otters, Captain Thomas Norland of the Dull Stags and Lisa Stanley, an OCU intelligence officer. Following a new coup, the three’s stories intertwine as they attempt to navigate the crisis.

Front Mission 2: Remake features revamped visuals and updated music with improved battle scenes. A free demo is available for PC via Steam, but you can check out our review here. It’s since received an update, Ver. 1.0.4, which rebalances the difficulty, makes several improvements to the UI, localization and much more. Head here for more details.

Originally released back in October 2023 on the Nintendo Switch, Front Mission 2: Remake features enhancements over the original in both visuals as well as gameplay. The game, a remake of the 1997 PlayStation tactical RPG, revolves around three characters—Ash, Lisa, and Thomas.

Some of the enhancements in Front Mission 2: Remake include updated music and effects, faster load times by taking advantage of more modern hardware, and support for other languages in its dialogues and menus. The game has also seen updates since its release, including one in November, which brought fixes to the in-game cutscenes and rebalanced the game’s difficulty.

For more details on Front Mission 2: Remake, check out our review of the original Nintendo Switch release.

The difficulty is rebalanced, and information for build-in weapons is available in the Garage and Shop. Fixes for in-game cutscenes in three of the later stages, UI bugs in the Colosseum, the Raven fight, and issues where you couldn’t obtain weapons and monsters through surrender are also live. Some missing sound FX and music have been added, and the localization polished. Check out the full patch notes below for more details.

Front Mission 2: Remake is available exclusively for Nintendo Switch. Check out our review here – we awarded it a 7 out of 10 due to the difficulty and poor localization, which the update addresses. Aside from the randomness, it’s still a fun time, with the remade visuals looking excellent and mechanics lending to compelling battles.

A new major update to ver. 1.0.4 for FRONT MISSION 2: Remake is now available on #NintendoSwitch!

See the complete list of changes below:
– Changed scale for some units
– Skill trigger fixes
– Improved battle UI placement and overall UI improvements
– Difficulty rebalance
-… pic.twitter.com/pNq2mG6iF1

— FRONT MISSION Remakes (@FrontMissionRM) November 22, 2023

Thanking fans for their feedback, it revealed that the team is “hard at work on updates and improvements, including bug fixes and further work on localization to meet your standards.” It also apologized for any inconvenience caused.

In our review for the remake, the poor localization, somehow a step down from the first game, was noted to be a bummer. Of course, combat feeling frustrating due to randomness and a more predictable narrative didn’t help matters. Hopefully, there will be options for easier battles (if not less RNG) with future updates.

Front Mission 2: Remake delivers good-looking visuals and features updated music and effects, support for other languages, and faster loading times compared to the original. Stay tuned for more details on subsequent updates and improvements in the coming months.

Important notice regarding further development of FRONT MISSION 2: Remake pic.twitter.com/zX88ZWua8S

— FRONT MISSION Remakes (@FrontMissionRM) October 13, 2023

Front Mission 2, however (or, as it’s known for this release, Front Mission 2: Remake), has never been released outside of Japan at all. This means that right off the bat, it becomes an easier recommendation to a lot of people – if you have any interest in the Front Mission series, and how it evolved through its various instillments, for example, or if you are SRPG fan, then this release would merit consideration from them simply for existing, because outside of the import scene, this marks the first time they’ve had the opportunity to play this game at all.

Which isn’t to say that Front Mission 2: Remake doesn’t make some improvements over its predecessor in several areas, though. For example, the lack of zoom in attack animations for your wanzers is a welcome improvement that speeds things up relative to the first game, at least a little. The graphics, which already looked pretty great in the original, look even better this time around, making it look like a charming modern game channeling PS1 era visuals might. It’s a look that works for it really well, since it lets it mask its lower budget with a great, stylized aesthetic. Vestiges of said lower budget still remain in several areas – the simplistic geometry of assets in several urban areas, for example, or some lower resolution ground textures – but it’s a good looking game with a stylized retro look that it absolutely makes work well. Choices such as not having those previously mentioned dramatic zoom ins during attacks in combat only further help the game feel better looking overall – those were the parts where the first game’s budgetary limitations most came to the fore (since they were obviously meant to be cinematic and dramatic, and the subpar animations, textures, camera panning, effects, and more all made their lower budget stand out). Thankfully, this game plays more to its strengths, while also improving the overall visual experience across the board.

"The graphics, which already looked pretty great in the original, look even better this time around, making it look like a charming modern game channeling PS1 era visuals might. It’s a look that works for it really well, since it lets it mask its lower budget with a great, stylized aesthetic."

Unfortunately it’s hard for me to be that positive in some other areas. For example, I’m not sure how I feel about the game’s story, which simultaneously seems to want to be taken at least somewhat seriously – but has a naivette to it (not the good kind) that does not seem to merit that kind of consideration. The game’s characters feel much weaker than in the first game, falling into more easily identifiable tropes and archetypes, and this seems to bleed over into the story as well, which goes a lot more predictably than the first game’s did.

Now to be fair, the original game’s story wasn’t high literature either, and a lot of its strength came from its background world building and implied themes. Those last two points hold true for this game too, with an astonishing amount of background depth put into the story, setting, and general world building. But the sequel, in terms of its story and storytelling, does end up feeling like a step back from the original. The characters feel more tropey, the plot feels more predictable, and while there’s still some good world building here, it does lack the impact of the novelty that buoyed the first game’s plot a fair bit. And there is still no voice acting, while the localization feels a bit sloppier this time around than it did with last year’s game, with more typos and errors than I remember Front Mission 1st Remake having.

Then there’s the combat, which is a mixed bag – a pretty big improvement with some interesting new ideas and mechanics, but also retaining the biggest frustrations from the original game.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. One of the most contentious mechanics from the first game remains unchanged in this one – which is to say, while combat still emphasizes you targeting individual parts and limbs on enemy wanzers (the name for the mechs in this game), you still get no ability to directly target those, instead having to rely on RNG and hoping things go your way. In the first game I actually didn’t mind this as much, because the game felt a bit more balanced around that randomness, meaning it never really felt unfair. You’d still get what you wanted, it just took a bit longer than you would have ideally wanted (and the battle got interesting in some unpredictable ways meanwhile). In the second game, combat feels a bit… harder. The enemies seem to be smarter, and they hit much harder, which leaves room for a lot less margin of error. It’s still not game breaking, but it does cause more frustration than it did the first time around.

"These passives you get from the AP, as well as from accruing Honor, are not only interesting enough mechanics in and of themselves, but also help greatly mitigate a lot of the frustration that the aforementioned RNG could otherwise cause."

On the flip side, I really like the addition of the Honor Points system. Destroying enemies nets you Honor Points, which then unlock more passive abilities for your characters, and also enables coordinated moves across your various units – such as the ability to pull off dual wanzer attacks to devastating effect. I also like the AP system, which is fairly straightforward – the more AP you have, the more things you can do per turn, different things cost different amounts of AP, and AP recharges each turn – but does some interesting things that keeps combat fun. For example, surrounding an enemy unit reduces their AP a lot (and they can do the same to you); the AP you have on hand has passive effects too, such as increasing your critical rate, your evasion and counter rates, and accuracy. These passives you get from the AP, as well as from accruing Honor, are not only interesting enough mechanics in and of themselves, but also help greatly mitigate a lot of the frustration that the aforementioned RNG could otherwise cause. To me, while the randomness being around was a lot more frustrating this time around, the new mechanics and systems were also interesting and compelling enough that I had fun playing it.

Is Front Mission 2: Remake a great game? Not really, at least not by the modern standards of the SRPG genre. But it is, and I would argue unlike the remake of the first game, a genuinely good one. There are some pretty glaring problems here – I think the story isn’t as good as the first game’s to begin with, and it suffers in the storytelling aspects as well, from the lack of voice acting to the poor localization. The game’s combat also feels more frustrating this time around, with a higher difficulty level while also retaining a lot of the randomness from Front Mission 1st Remake. At the same time, however, it adds so many interesting mechanics, that not only help mitigate a lot of that frustration, but also make this game a legitimately interesting and compelling one. And it looks great too, doubling down on the stylization aspects of the aesthetic, and culling back on a lot of visual flourishes that would draw unfavourable comparisons to modern titles. At the very least, if you are a fan of the series, and/or the genre, and want to see how it grew and evolved through the years, this release is very much worth looking into – and it does the on its own merits, not just on the back of this being the first official release for this game outside of Japan.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Priced at $34.99 on the Nintendo Switch eShop, the game is currently available at a 10 percent discount, which will go on until October 12. Those who already own The House of the Dead: Remake, Panzer Dragoon: Remake, Cooking Simulator, Thief Simulator, or Green Hell on the Nintendo Switch will be eligible for a 15 percent discount. Those who own Front Mission 1st: Remake will get a 20 percent discount.

Front Mission 2: Remake was originally slated for release back in July before it got delayed to its October release date. Developed by Storm Trident, the remake is based on the classic 1997 tactical RPG on the original PlayStation, and revolves around three characters—Ash, Lisa and Thomas.

Alongside bringing the classic game to a modern audience, Front Mission 2: Remake also features enhancements, like updated music and effects, faster loading times, and support for other languages in dialogues and menus.

Storm Trident’s remake is based on the 1997 PS One tactical RPG Front Mission Second, available only in Japan. The story is set 12 years later and focuses on three characters – Ash, Lisa and Thomas – as a crisis erupts in Alordesh. In addition to revamped visuals and modernized battle scenes, players can zoom in and rotate the camera during battles.

The remake also has updated music and effects, faster-loading speed and support for other languages in the dialogues and menus. You also have new options for Wanzer colors and camouflage. Check out the last trailer here to see the game in action, and stay tuned for more details before its release.

In addition to the same storyline, turn-based combat and Wanzer customization, players can expect “modernized” battle scenes. Considering the original’s visuals, having the remake zoom in and dramatically showcase each Wanzer in combat is pretty cool. Players can also freely pan the camera around the battlefield.

If the revamped visuals aren’t enough, the soundtrack and in-game effects have also been updated, while the dialogue and menus are available in other languages. English and Japanese are a given, but you can also choose French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German and Traditional Chinese.

Front Mission 2: Remake planned to release on June 12th for Nintendo Switch. However, it’s been delayed, with plans to release it in Q3 2024. Stay tuned for more details and updates in the meantime.

“We want to ensure that we have sufficient time to add as many functionalities as possible while proceeding with proper implementation and tests, to meet your expectations for a modern-day remake.” It told fans to rest assured that it’s “fully committed” to a polished and “faithful remake” of the franchise.

A new release date couldn’t be specified, but the team is “working tirelessly to complete the project as soon as possible.” The current plan is to release it in the third quarter of 2023. Again, this isn’t guaranteed, so further delays are possible.

As the name indicates, Front Mission 2: Remake is a remake of Front Mission Second, which was only released in Japan for PlayStation One. Developed by Storm Trident, it retails for $34.99 and features improved visuals. There’s also a free camera to zoom in, additional language support, new color and camouflage options for the wanzers, and much more. Stay tuned for more details and gameplay in the coming months.

Important notice regarding the premiere of FRONT MISSION 2: Remake pic.twitter.com/Hw1rAmoTrN

— Forever Entertainment S.A. (@ForeverEntert) May 26, 2023

Set 12 years after the first game in Aldoresh, a coup de tat by the Armed Forces has begun. Three members of the Oceania Cooperative Union – Ash Faruk, Thomas Norland and Lis Stanley – are the focus. The first two attempt to flee with their wanzer units while Stanley arrives to help free prisoners of war.

In addition to the classic turn-based combat, the remake sports a free camera for zooming in. There are also new options for coloring and camouflaging wanzers, a revamped soundtrack, and support for additional languages. Since Front Mission Second never launched outside of PlayStation in Japan, the remake should be a good way for fans to experience the classic.

Stay tuned for more details and gameplay en route to its release. Check out our review of Front Mission 1st Remake in the meantime.