Front Mission Evolved Q&A With Square Enix Director Shinji Hashimoto

There have been a lot of rumors and speculations regarding what sort of features Front Mission Evolved (FME) will be having, and fans have analyzed officially released videos over and over again to look for clues regarding the next installment of the Front Mission series.

The fine folks over at Japanator and its sister site Destructoid wanted these rumors and speculations laid to rest, so they asked Square Enix Director Shinji Hashimoto a few questions regarding the upcoming Front Mission title, including some of the burning questions fans wanted to ask about the game. Some select questions after the jump:

Will there be a strategic or tactical element in Front Mission Evolved’s gameplay? Will the player be able to control a squad or be part of a larger operation?

The players will be able to enjoy tactical battles in the online multiplayer mode, where players can customize the allocation of roles such as snipers, assaults, and medics in each team. We’ll be sharing more information on multiplayer in the future.

The game apparently offers on-foot action alongside the Wanzer-piloting. Just how much can the player do when he’s outside his Wanzer? Will he be able to get in and out of it at will? Can he hijack other Wanzers?

During the single player mode, there are several missions in which the player character will exit the Wanzer to explore surrounding buildings and areas. Due to the map design and story, however, the player cannot get in and out of the Wanzer nor hijack other Wanzers at will. The third-person action as the pilot is exciting for any shooter fan, though.

One of the conflicts that came out of the original design concept was balancing the flow of the game and difficulty. It is difficult to keep consistency in the story when you can leave your Wanzer at a moment’s notice, while at the same time possibly creating impossible situations if, say, you were to lose your Wanzer in a boss fight because you decided to jump out. Additionally, retaining the graphical scale of both “worlds” – on-foot action and battles with huge mechs – would have been very difficult. We decided on a design that allowed both game types to be optimized graphically without sacrificing the fidelity of the game’s next-gen aesthetic.

So yeah, you can’t go GTA on another Wanzer, and there will still be ideal Wanzer class roles like in Front Mission 4 and 5. While not completely ruled out, the idea of having hybrid classes may still be possibility, but will possibly be balanced for fair gameplay. The full interview can be read at Japanator. More details on multiplayer game classes over at the FME devblog.

[via: Japanator, FME DevBlog]