Last weekend, Station B held an online "High Energy Video Game Festival 2022".
With the epidemic still raging, E3 being cancelled this year, and the CJ venue being transformed into a square cabin hospital, an online exhibition that can bring us many new games (cakes) is rare and very kind.
In fact, this high-energy video game festival has brought many domestic independent games and demos with many themes, as well as traditional manufacturers such as Capcom (and even the appearance of the Three Princes), and among the many new games, there is a very maverick - "2089: Border".
"2022 to do a dead end of robot themes?"
This trailer shows us a city near the future, when people's daily production was no longer manual, and the appearance of humanoid mechs liberated a considerable part of the productivity, and this mech was used more in war.
Whether it was a girl who had been transformed into a human body, or a mercenary who was still drinking soda and bragging about the communication channel at the previous moment, after feeling the earthquake caused by saturated fire cover and enjoying a short rest, as warriors, they rushed into the battlefield filled with smoke without hesitation. Yes, even in 2089, the strife has not disappeared from the world.
Although the content of the trailer is not much, the more core players should recognize it, which is a derivative of SE's IP "Frontline Mission" that has been silent for many years.
For a little fun, 2089: Frontier is an all-platform game that SE outsourced to Chinese game studio BlackJack Studio. Maybe you haven't heard of BlackJack Studio, if you mention the mobile game "Fantasy Simulation" and "Heaven and Earth: Ghost City Revisited" also produced by this studio, I think most gamers should not be unfamiliar.
These two mobile games are still the head products of domestic SRPG revenue
Of course, today's topic will not revolve around this studio, and I would like to talk to you more about it - why did you choose "Frontline Mission"?
Do you remember Mission Front?
In 1995, a small island called Huffman rose up in the center of the Pacific Ocean due to volcanic activity, and in subsequent scientific expeditions, the island was found to contain a large amount of ore resources, which also led to a war for sovereignty around the world around the 79 square kilometers of this unowned island.
Europe formed the "European Community (EC)", Russia integrated most of the allies of the former Soviet Union to form the "Republic of Zerftra", Australia and Southeast Asian countries formed the "Asia-Pacific Common Union (OCU)", and the entire Americas formed the "United States of the New World (USN)".
In 2025, Dr. Randolt of the University of Wallenstein, with the support of the German weapons manufacturer "Schneek", invented the first humanoid weapon wanzers in human history (derived from the German word Wanderpanzer), in the setting, this mech positioning of about 4 meters high is close to that of large metal exoskeletons, it has the flexibility to simulate human movements, and is also equipped with auxiliary wheels on the feet, which can wade through mountains and waters and march at high speed on flat ground. The modular design also allows it to be freely modified/equipped with common parts to cope with different combat situations.
Human warfare has since entered the era of the Wanzers.
This is the backstory of "Frontline Mission" released in 1995, at that time, the SRPGs of fantasy genres such as "Fantasy Simulation War" and "Royal Knights" occupied the mainstream of the market, and the theme of this game gave players who were used to fighting slimes, orcs and dragons a taste of freshness.
What's more interesting is that many of the fictional stories of "Frontline Mission" are being staged in today's real world in a very visual way. For example, in the second Huffman War in 2090, the first generation of "Frontline Mission", it was mainly the battle between OCU and USN, and outside the main plot, some detailed plot texts talked about the war between ec and Zaft Republic around Ukraine.
At the beginning of the establishment of several major communities, the whole world was shrouded in the clouds of the Cold War, but in 2034, a unified war broke out in Africa, and behind this war was actually the power game of the community.
In the African Unification War, the Wanzers, who had not yet been implemented at that time, were put on the battlefield with a multi-party default attitude, they relied on armor superiority to slaughter infantry, rely on mobility to defeat the armored forces of the time, and the rich external armament also brought good air-to-air capabilities, and the excellent record proved that the Wanzers were widely used on the battlefield and successfully mass-produced.
It is this complete worldview and the political drama in the story that is not playful (and even quite far-sighted) that makes the empty but not completely overhead world of "Frontline Mission" seem more real, and this sense of reality is also brought into the gameplay of the game.
It is undeniable that "Frontline Mission" learns the essence of many excellent works, such as the game has a three-dimensional battlefield, terrain and height difference will affect the action of the mech, the performance of weapons, some similar to the "Royal Knights", but also test the player's ability to line up.
And the form of commanding mech combat is somewhat similar to "Super Robot Wars", but compared to the super robot system's sense of blood that must be shouted out, "Frontline Mission" focuses on real robots, as mentioned earlier, the mecha in the game is only about 4 meters, and has a modular design.
There is also a corresponding embodiment in the gameplay, each mech has a body, left / right hand and foot four parts can be modified, adding different components will affect the basic attributes of the mecha HP, defense, hit rate, movement, etc., the hand can install machine guns, rifles, melee weapons to change the attack mode and fire coverage, shoulders can also choose external arms or armor, in addition to considering the strength of the components, players should also consider the proportion of part weight and output power, the body is too heavy to lead to the inability to attack.
In combat, the durability of these 4 modifiable parts also replaces the traditional health bar, and the durability of different parts will have a corresponding negative impact, such as the body HP of the driver will cause the body to be directly knocked down, the left/right hand will be blasted to invalidate the corresponding armament, and the foot explosion will greatly reduce the mech's mobility.
Even if it is put into the current SRPG, the design of parts free modification and destruction special effects is also very fresh, this set of gameplay is not only in line with the game's world view and plot, has a fairly good sense of substitution, and also highlights the focus of SRPG "cultivation" and "strategy" in terms of gameplay, and has gone out of its own way.
Coupled with the role setting of Amano Yoshitaka, Yokoyama's delicate real battlefield and mecha setting, the first work of "Frontline Mission" ushered in a "bright future" that was acclaimed and popular - Famiton gave a high score of 31 points, unlike most of today's large factory works can enter the golden hall, relatively loose points, at that time, famitong, who had just been published under the name "Famitong", was very restrained in scoring this piece, and the masterpiece with the previous game "Royal Knights 2" was only 34 points.
Shortly after the release of the first series, Square announced that the sales of the game had exceeded 500,000. Of course, "debut is the peak" is not a good thing for a game.
So why did it stay silent for so long?
If you look at the rapid decline of the "Frontline Mission" series in just 10 years, fans will inevitably have a sense of helplessness to be wrapped up in the wheel of the times - all of which rely on the overall decline of SRPGs.
Looking at the 5 orthodox sequels of the entire series, you will find that both the graphics performance and the gameplay system have made greater or smaller progress, such as "Frontline Mission 2" abandoned the SFC platform to Sony's PS1 platform, the game screen directly evolved from pseudo-3D to real 3D, and all mech battles will play combat animations similar to the current real-time calculus according to the armament they carry and the location, the effect is very amazing, of course, the price is quite long reading discs and half-minute animations.
In terms of gameplay, the 2nd generation also introduced the setting of assistance, and the mech that has completed the action can launch a rescue attack with friends within the attack distance, which further enhances the strategy and requires the player to consider more at each step.
In "Frontline Mission 3", the production team obviously learned the advantages and lessons of the previous game, in addition to retaining a more immersive 3D battlefield, it also greatly reduced the superfluous actions in the mecha battle animation, and the overall performance was clean and neat, which was more in line with the portrayal of the realism of this series of humanoid mobile weapons.
"Frontline Mission 4" and "Frontline Mission 5", which landed on the PS2 platform, combine the advantages of Japanese SRPGs and American SRPGs, and add a similar XCOM action point setting, becoming the two most comprehensive works in the series.
Higher and higher development investment in the end but not in exchange for the "Frontline Mission" commercial performance of the step by step, the sales of the five canons were 500,500,000,302,000,200,000, one was not as good as the other, so that the then merged SE realized the dilemma of this series, after which the launch of the orthodox work of "Frontline Mission" was shelved, and SE also set its sights on a broader track.
"Frontline Mission" on the one hand to launch novels, comics, live-action movies, radio dramas and other peripheral derivative products to maintain the heat of IP discussion, while also seeking a new way out, such as in 2005 mobile phone launched a "Frontline Mission 2089", did not shake the original gameplay, but the character mecha portrayal became a more two-dimensional anime and manga style, this work was later transplanted to the NDS platform.
There is also the online game "Frontline Mission OL" launched in the same year, which is no longer a traditional SRPG gameplay, but has become an action shooting game, players can operate and modify various well-known airframes in the original game to fight on the battlefield, and also inherit the unique part destruction gameplay of the series.
However, for the series players, the drastic reform of the gameplay is undoubtedly a betrayal, limited by the production cost, SE finally did not hand over an answer sheet that most players were satisfied with, and "Frontline Mission OL" was hastily stopped after 3 years.
2010's "Frontline Mission: Evolution" and 2019's "LEFT ALIVE" also did not choose to continue the old way, but built the core gameplay with the popular third-person shooting and stealth, especially in "Survivor", the mecha seems to have become a supporting role, but the appearance time is only a small part of the overall process, just look at the cover and general gameplay introduction drawn by Yoji Shinkawa, you will mistake it for a derivative of "Metal Gear Solid" is not too much.
"The Survivors" ended up neither acclaimed nor acclaimed
So for frontline mission fans and even SRPG fans around the world, an original sequel is really a long time to wait, which can also explain that many people will be so excited to see "2089" that is also titled "2089".
Of course, until the official product is available, I can't say whether 2089: Frontier will be satisfactory. Although it will land on multiple platforms such as mobile terminals, PCs, and consoles at the same time, judging from the resume of the production team BlackJack Studio and the Purple Dragon games behind it, this is most likely to be a (mobile) game containing kryptonite elements.
At the Nintendo Face-to-Face Meeting in February this year, Forever Games announced that they were about to remake The 1st and 2nd generations of "Frontline Mission", which is good news for fans of the series. Perhaps in the near future, this SRPG, which has been hidden for many years, will be able to regain its life in the criticism of contemporary players, improve again, and bring us more stories.
At least I want to look forward to it a little.