What Is Front Mission?
Developed by Square Enix, Front Mission is a video game franchise that is considered a massively multiplayer, third-person video game. The series was first launched in 1995 for the Super Famicom. Due to its tremendous popularity, Front Mission has made 15 releases since then. In May 2005, Front Mission was initially released in Japan for gaming consoles, such as the PlayStation 2. Although Front Mission was developed in Japan, the entire series was developed with a global audience in mind. Front Mission has numerous storylines influenced by countries, concepts, and real-life challenges. The latest release of Front Mission’s main series games was Front Mission 5: Scars of War for PlayStation 2. The overall series’ most recent release was in 2010, which is the Front Mission Evolved for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It was released internationally and is available in all retailers.
History and Background of Front Mission
Toshiro Tsuchida is a visionary and the mastermind behind the development of the Front Mission series except for Front Mission Evolved. The beginning stages of his career started with Masaya, and he had produced well-known classics, such as Langrisser, and Assaults Suits Valken. Eventually, he started his own venture after resigning from his current company. This led him to create G-Craft, the first company behind his most ambitious project – the Front Mission game series. Heavily influenced by vintage games like Rashomon, Full Metal Jacket, and Ghost in the Shell, as well as the real world itself, Tsuchida made a more realistic approach to the future of the world. In 1994, he created Front Mission. Although it took a year to formally release Front Mission on Super Famicom in 1995, Tsuchida and his team of writers started plotting out the game series slowly but surely by pieces. As Tsuchida wasn’t satisfied with introducing the video game through stories, he made an effort to ask different media platforms to publicize Front Mission. Some of the media platforms included radios, films, and books. Similar to how expanded universal material handled serial dramas, all media platforms worked together to publicize the entire storyline.
Types of Front Mission Games
Front Mission games have two main types, namely, Non-Numbered and Numbered. By definition, Non-Numbered Front Mission games include playouts as real-time action-based video games while Numbered Front Mission games feature playouts as turn-based strategy video games. Here is a classification of all Front Mission main series games for your reference:
Non-Numbered Front Mission Games (Spin-Off Games)
Numbered Front Mission Games (Main Series Games)
Front Mission Trademark Renewed
On April 6, 2021, the registration of the Japanese Front Mission trademark publicly appeared on the Chizai Watch Website. The website indicated that Square Enix had filed a trademark renewal on March 19, 2021. Many Front Mission fans around the globe will now have a valid reason to celebrate since the company renewed the trademark of Front Mission in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, and the U.S. last March 2021 according to Gematsu’s Twitter account. While the trademarks of Australia and the European countries for Front Mission are classified as Category 28 consisting of physical games and toys, the United States and Japan have Category 41 which comprises provisions for video games.
Prior Trademark Registration
Before the recent trademark registration, the last time Front Mission was registered was in 2009. Within a year, Square Enix registered Front Mission Evolved, which eventually became a third-person shooter game for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in 2010. In 2019, Front Mission had added a spin-off game through Left Alive. Square Enix’s Front Mission game series has roots as a turn-based RPG strategy game. The newest version in the main game series is Front Mission 5: Scars of the War released in 2005 for PlayStation 2. As mentioned, the final release of Front Mission so far is 2089: Border of Madness for Nintendo DS. The most recent storyline to receive an English localization are 2004’s Front Mission 4 for PlayStation 2, and 2007’s primary sport for Nintendo DS platforms.
Can We Expect a Revival of Front Mission?
Front Mission’s trademark renewal exclusively highlights physical games and toys in the European and Australian markets and video games for North America and Japan. It’s a positive sign that a possible development is in the making that will include international localization. At the moment, you can only wait and continue to look forward to hearing some promising news from Forever Entertainment. Although a Front Mission revival may not happen any time soon, you shouldn’t be discouraged. Square Enix Japan has several fantastic games under its collection that any remake would totally be worth the wait.
Final Word
Forever Entertainment is aggressive when it comes to remastering or remaking more obscure video games. Some vintage games that it has given the remaster/remake treatment include SaGa Frontier, Trials of Mana, and Secret of Mana. You can thus expect Front Mission to receive the same loving treatment.
