PartThree
The Developers of Front Mission
Video Games
A radical new experiment - Front Mission Evolved.
Nearly five years have passed since the release of Front Mission 5: Scars of the War...and the franchise is still alive. While PDD6 has not registered much activity, likely due to commitments to help develop the new Final Fantasy titles, but there's no telling where they will go from here on. A new entry, Front Mission Evolved, which was recently released in Fall 2010 but development was outsourced to Double Helix Games and other companies. This decision came under heavy criticism from long-time fans of the series. Beyond this, Koichiro Sakamoto from PDD6 mentioned that there is a chance of the series returning to its turn-based strategy roots. Can the franchise keep going in the video game realm?
Manga & Novels
Part of Front Mission's vast and successful manga & novel line - 17 years and still going!
The PDD6 writers are proving their mastery of the writing craft with their work on Front Mission Dog Life & Dog Style, the current Front Mission manga series...and one that shows no signs of ending soon. Given the financial successes of the previous book series, Front Mission could make a living in this medium should no more video games be produced in the future. The only question is if any of them will be translated and released outside of Japan...it's a shame none have made it overseas. Apart from their plot connections, the Front Mission books also boast a level of writing on par with well-known fiction novels (which should come as no surprise the PDD6 writers are novelists themselves).
Other Possibilities
Star power - the live-action films, Front Mission and Front Mission: Gun Hazard.
Apart from video games and books, Front Mission could see more expansion in the areas of film and radio. The franchise has had past experiences in live-action film through Front Mission in 1994 and Front Mission: Gun Hazard in 1995. Creating something like an original video animation (OVA) wouldn't be out of the question as PDD6 has developers (particularly their writers) with film industry credentials. The Front Mission: Gun Hazard radio drama in late 1995 was popular, but radio is not necessarily a popular medium for drama these days. Nevertheless, as radios are still in use, who knows?
Front Mission is an unusual beast...a real one of a kind. It's a video game franchise, but it also utilizes various other media effectively to create a bigger picture. In fact, it seems as if video games aren't necessarily needed to tell the Front Mission story. The series has its roots in the turn-based strategy genre of video games, but more often than not it has been open to experimentation and ventures into other realms. It's a well-known and respected series in Japan, but sadly almost a complete mystery in the rest of the world.
And the craziest fact is, the series was created by a group of developers whose portfolio was comprised of nothing but action-oriented games. Despite this, they not only managed to make a successful transition to a completely different genre, but did not abandon their roots, continuing to innovate with their genre-bending efforts. What are the odds?
Click here for Part One, or here for Part Two.