First off, check out the new page titled The End and read it. Don’t forget to comment on it, and we highly recommend that you do!
Anyhow, onto the July stuff. If anyone’s been playing around with the new Front Mission 2 patch, we uploaded a new zip file which includes a full script of the story event…in English! You can pretty much play through the video game now and not get lost in the story! Of course, we do intend to get that last 30% into Front Mission 2 so you don’t need to read a novel-long script. There are some things we are tinkering with about the three versions of the video game, so we can update our patch conversion tool to work with any of them! Long story short, there’s some new technical issues we have to deal with regarding the video game’s releases. If you ask me, you’re better off with the History or Ultimate Hits versions. Why? There’s more than enough that was changed from the original aside from loading workarounds (this will be detailed in a later post) that it’s kind of pointless to play the original Front Mission 2.
As you can see, we’re not simply doing a translation of the reference book, Front Mission World Historica – Report of Conflicts 1970-2121. We originally planned on doing that back in 2009, but after our eventful journey in discovering the truth behind Front Mission (read our Front Mission as a Transmedia article for more details), we changed our objective. Now, instead of being left out on the 30% of the story that wasn’t covered in the video games, Front Mission: The Declassified Documents was changed to cover the whole picture instead. The teaser above talks about the piloting interface known as the S-Type Device as seen in Front Mission First and Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~. It’s also shown in the other video games, but we’re using these two examples because we imagine everyone outside of Japan is familiar with them. Those who played the latter should know that the S-Type Device has some severe drawbacks to using it. A bit disturbing when it’s described, but you don’t see how messed up it really is…until you dive into the expanded universe (go read the transmedia article)! It is only here that you realize what Lynn Wenright says “Only his basic vital functions and instincts remain.” when she reveals the dangers of the S-Type Device! We’ll have more of these kinds of spoiler-y material released soon!
Lastly, here’s a list of things we’ve worked on, or are working on, since this whole project started on December 2007. We would like to remind everyone that the video game stuff aren’t the only things we have worked on. Remember, Front Mission is not just about the video games alone and is one transcendental creation known as a transmedia (seriously, go read our article on it)!
- Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~, complete localization
- Front Mission 2, partial localization (70%)
- Front Mission Alternative, partial localization (user interfaces, game data)
- Gun Hazard Radio Drama Series, complete translation
- Gun Hazard Commercial Film Documentary, complete translation
- Front Mission video series
- Front Mission: The Declassified Documents
- Compilation of scripts for recurring cast in the video games (excludes several entries due to lack of accessibility)
- Articles: video games, developers, localizations, transmedia, merchandise, and advertisements
- Packaging: Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~ (cover/label/manual), Front Mission 2 (cover/label), and Front Mission Alternative (cover/label)
- Spreadsheets: wanzer data and miscellaneous information about the video games
Aside from the Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~ stuff, nearly all of the above things were worked on since early 2010. Everyone on the team wishes that we could produce more things, but alas, this isn’t a full-time job for all of us. But hey, at least we try our best. If it weren’t for us stepping up and trying to translate Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~ in the first place, Front Mission would have remained a complete and very misunderstood mystery to the rest of the world, wouldn’t it?