…is a lot of time for things to change. And change they have!
Back then, the PlayStation 2/Gamecube/XBox era was still kicking around. Japanese gaming hadn’t completely gone mobile, but then again the whole world wasn’t into the mobile scene yet. And for those of us who grew up playing Japanese games (80s kid right here!), you probably are reminiscing about how good they used to be right now. But we digress.
6 years ago, we were a bunch of hardcore, passionate Front Mission fans who really wanted to see Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~ in English. We were also fans who really wanted to understand what defined the franchise, as we believed there was far more to Front Mission than what any of us outside of Japan knew.
6 years later, we honestly can say that Front Mission is truly one of Japan’s best-kept secrets. It’s almost criminal how roughly 80% of the franchise never saw the light of day outside of Japan. There’s so much to like and to learn from about Front Mission that we believe could profoundly change the lives of others like it has for us. It’d be great if we had all the time in the world to bringing the rest of the Front Mission brand out here, but we don’t have that kind of time these days. More resources would be nice as well, but then we’d be in big trouble if we made a Kickstarter project out of this!
Nevertheless, we’re happy that so many of you fans have supported us throughout these 6 years and for that, we thank you! From the emails we’ve received, it’s nice to know that our efforts to educate all of you on Front Mission have worked and are still working. Front Mission never was just a bunch of turn-based strategy (TBS) games, or just some generic mecha-based franchise. If it were, we probably wouldn’t go out of our way to “enlighten” about what the franchise really is! We just think all of you fans should be more vocal about your support for Front Mission online haha!
Six 6-year anniversary tidbits:
Visitors – 794,106
Game Downloads – 241,109 (overall) / 203,788 (Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~) / 37,321 (Front Mission 2)
3 Most Viewed Articles/Analysis Pieces – https://opticalgarbage.com/frontmission/upload/FrontMissionAnalysis.pdf / https://opticalgarbage.com/frontmission/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAnalysisOfTheOverseasHandlingOfFrontMission / https://opticalgarbage.com/frontmission/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDevelopersOfFrontMission
Most Common Fan Response – “Wow, I didn’t know all of this about Front Mission. I thought it was just a series of TBS games and nothing else!”
Most Common Fan Request – “Can you translate EVERYTHING Front Mission? I’ll donate to you or support whatever Kickstarter you come up with!”
Most Common Fan Question – “Do the Front Mission developers or Square Enix know about your projects?