Front mission

Front Mission DSGenre: Strategy, with a little RPG thrown inPremise 6/10Gameplay 7/10Visuals 4/10Audio 6/10Appeal 9/10Overall 6/10The remake that brings back what we expected: an awesome game.Premise: 6/10While not spectacular, the plot/setting is at least believable, and characters act accordingly. Most of the events are easy to follow, and i've never thought 'Why did character A do that?' It's a war story, so you've heard it before, but you will not be cheated out of time if you do decide to care about the story.Gameplay: 7/10The main activity of this game, IE what you will be doing most of the time, is fighting. Fighting is done through turn-based combat that most strategy board-type games use. Stylus use is optional for the most part, but i find it a little easier than just the d-pad. The controlls are really easy to get used to and accurate, but they do have downssides. Responsiveness is an issue. Sometimes you'll click on an ally, and it'll take the cursor somewhere else, or scroll for no reason. Mostly a minor inconvenience. The difficulty is low at first, and pretty consistant throughout the game, except at certain points where the bosses are, where the difficulty decides to randomly shoot up. The level design is pretty good, with the levels matching descriptions of their missions, and making you form strategy before going in and blowing stuff up. While not major, mastering the ground type effectively will make the game a little easier. The only multiplayer is the 'duel' feature, which is fun to see how you rank against other people, but sadly there is no co-op. The second part of this game is menus. In town, on the field, world map, these things are everywhere. They are pretty easy to navigate, but the setup/shop menus could have been better designed. It still works pretty well, but you will find yourself asking once or twice 'Why didn't the put this in this menu?' You will spend a lot of time customizing your panzers.Visual: 4/10This is a remake of Front mission for the SNES, but i expected a little graphical upgrade. The graphics, like panzers and menus, are small, hard to see, and you need to be accurate when you use the stylus. Panzers can be hidden behind buildings, making gamplay suffer, but mostly i was wondering 'Why can't I see all of my units?' If the graphics were improved upon, the experience would have been made more enjoyable. Backgrounds/artwork is pretty decent though.Audio: 6/10Not great, but not bad. Most music isn't very noticable, but the town music is a little annoying. Sound effects are fine, things that shoot go 'pew pew' and explosions blow up. Nothing Spectacular.Appeal: 9/10Being someone that likes strategy games, i loved this game. It makes you think about what you need before a battle, else you are destroyed. You have to use eaach person with what they're best at to succeed, and replay value is pretty decent. I find myself going back and using different setups to see how well i can do with different people, and its slightly addicting.Overall: 6/10While that may not seem like a great score, i thoroughly enjoyed it. Fans of the old Front missions will love it, and it's great for a long car ride, plane trip, or Just to pick up.