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Completed Let's blow shit up with giant robots like it's 2112 - Front Mission 3

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
UPDATES

1 - The One Update. You're on it.

2 - The Socratic Dialogue Update

3 - The Hairdresser's Shoah Update

4 - The Down There Update

The Missing Update


5 - The Operation Chink in the Wanzer, part One, Update

6 - The Operation Chink in the Wanzer, part Two, Update


7 - The Operation Chink in the Wanzer, part Three, Update


8 - The no, the other Russians, Update


9 - The What The Hell Is Going On Here, Update

10 - The Shitty Update

11 - The I'm Running Out Of Things To Call These Update

12 - The Full Disclosure Update

13 - The Angry (Angrier, if that was possible) KabukiKazuki Update

14 - The The End Update
------------------------------

So, the other day I came across this post. Since your friendly neighbourhood serial killer Double Helix made sure that the possibility of any kind of Front Mission sequel was squashed like a bug with a vengeance (apparently it wasn't enough nuking the place, Americans also had to fuck up Front Mission), I thought "why not go with the next best thing?", so getting ready for a new Front Mission 3 play-through I found myself, when it occurred to me that it could be a good idea to share the good word with the fine, discerning gentlemen of the Codex, who can surely appreciate incline when it's staring right at them. And so, here I am, trying my hand at this for the first time, and probably set for a ridiculous failure. But still.

Anyway, enough with the platitudes and the unsolicited excuses.

I presume most of you are familiar with the game (we do have a considerable selection of avatars from the series in this very forum), but just in case: Front Mission 3 is a game about driving giant robots in order to beat the living shit out of other giant robots. And helicopters. And tanks. And parked cars. And walls and barriers. And people. And anything in the way really. All of it while navigating through dark, ominous conspiracies in a geopolitical scale that could very well lead to massive wars, the use of terrible WMD, and enormous loss of life. But mainly it's about making things go boom.

And without further ado, let's get this started.



JDF Test Facility, Okinawa Ocean City

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"System check completed. Load the pilot data into the system."

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"Roger. I'm loading the pilot data now."

I leave his name as the default, Kazuki Takemura. Yes, I could have named him Arseblaster or Pompousius Escato III Esq., but the poor fella has enough coming his way without me adding to it, let's give him at least some respite.

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"Load confirmed. The final test for the SHUNYO will now commence. We're ready on our side. Kazuki, activate the wanzer."

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Fellow gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the future of war and mayhem, the Shunyo Mk111. Look at it closely, because by the end of the game, you are going to learn to hate that motherfucker's guts for all the times you will have to fight certain character using it. Until WE get to use it, and then you will love it. In the meantime, we only get to drive daddy's Rolls-Royce for a bit and then we have to give it back.

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"Activated"

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Activation confirmed. First, we'll check movement. Move to the designated area."

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"Roger that."

And so, it begins...



All right maybe it's time for professor Kuattro to explain some things. If the robot's happy dance when he destroyed those two rust buckets didn't distract you, when you use a weapon against an enemy, you get a bit of experience, and a lot more when you destroy it, as marked very clearly in the screen.

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I wouldn't like to presume anything, this being a reunion of bright minds and all, but in case it need explaining, gain enough experience and you level up your weapon skill for each weapon type (shotguns, machine-guns, launchers, rifles, melee, cannons? flamers? Some I might forget, some I might have invented, we'll find soon enough). The better your pilot skill is at that particular weapon, the better he is at killing things with it.

And also, every time you destroy an enemy wanzer part, you see some little medals piling up.

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When you have accumulated a given number of little medals, your pilot gets a big chocolate medal, and some more APs with it. Right now, more APs are a bit useless, but in the future, as we will see, they will become quite handy.

Okay, back to the stories.

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"It's a good wanzer. Great performance, I must say."

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"Yes. It's our finest yet."

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"Hey, Dr. Koike Yokosuka Base wants these shipped right away. Anything you can do to help?"

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"I called a cargo helicopter. We'll deliver 2 new wanzers for now."

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"Hi!"

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"Hey, Kazuki. Impressive, as always."

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"Thanks. You did great, too. You were under a tight deadline."

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"It's a chance for us to be involved in the Japanese Defense Force. Receiving a part of the national defense budget would be great."

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"That wanzer is an assault type. Isn't it aggressive for a purely defensive army?"

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"Maybe they're gonna start a war."


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You should cut your hair.

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"Ryogo?!"

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"That would never happen. Japan would never start a war."

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Excepting all those other times. I should know.

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"At least on the surface."

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You should cut your hair.

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"We've been sending out forces more often. There have been more civil wars within the OCU since Alordesh."*

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"Like when we sent out our wanzer teams a few years back?"

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You should REALLY cut your hair.

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"Back when we had no decent wanzers, and got wiped out?"

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"We learned from that experience. But our military policy remains purely defensive."

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"Yeah, it's not like there'll ever be a war in Japan."

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You should... no? Okay, okay.

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"Hey, Ryogo. What are you doing here!? I thought you were working in Yokosuka."

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"What do you mean, "what am I doing here?" I'm here to deliver some construction wanzers."

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Seriously, you look like a girl. It's pretty confusing.

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"There's a major construction project in Ocean City. Ryogo is delivering the wanzers for it."

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"Anyone can do that. Why you!?"


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Whoa there. Don't scream at the lady dude.

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"The boss trusts me, dude."


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Oh god. Okay, never do that face again, please.

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"You begged and pleaded, right?"

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"Hey, how did you know?"

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"Why don't you take your job more seriously?"

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Okay I'm feeling some anger management issues here. Why do you keep screaming for the stupidest reasons?

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"I'm not listening!"

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Okay maybe he deserves the aggro.

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"Kazuki will accompany me to Yokosuka Base for wanzer delivery. It'll be around midnight when the cargo is ready. Get some rest until then."

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"Workin' late again, Kazuki? You workaholic."

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"You have work to do, Ryogo. Take the wanzers to the site."

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"Alright, alright. Hey, come with me."

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"Why should I?"

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"Because we're buddies! Come to the residential construction zone with me.

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...

Okay! This seems like a good time as any to stop things.

So, first of all, my manifesto:

What I can't promise:
  • I will add witticisms and other funnies in order to not just deliver the straight story, otherwise it could get rather dull, Front Missions (and Japanese games in general) not being particularly famous because of their stellar writing. But I'm neither especially witty nor funny, so I cannot tell you what will be the end result, but I really, reallylike to believe that I am. So be prepared. Just... be prepared.
  • I am extremely lazy. I can't promise regular updates. Hell, I can't promise there will be any updates, specially if I find writing them a hassle (even writing this was a bit of a hassle, but I had fun with it in the end so...). I'll do my best though, for my loyal followers. That's you.
With that out of the way, audience participation time.

As you could see, I recorded that first mission in it's entirety. I had thought first of only recording the combat sequences between wanzers, but then I realized that would be a couple dozen every stage, which is not really doable. So the options are, either I do it like that, recording the full combat, or I do it through screenshots. The first method has the advantage of being much easier for me, and the (dis?)advantage of me not being able to insert my stupid commentaries during combat, because I can't be arsed to start editing videos, I don't do this for a living. The second method, apart from being preferred by those amongst you that adhere to the ideas of Ludd, has the definite disadvantage of sending much more work my way, but hey, at least I'll get to make silly jokes between image and image.

So tell me which one you prefer, so that I can feel bad when I ignore you and do whatever I please.

Also, this being and RPG and serious :incline:, it contains C&C that none of your gaijin so called RPGs can ever aspire to equal. And you get the honour of expressing your opinion about that.

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The game contains two different storylines, one where we pair with the ex-Russian scientist Emma and the USAN (if we go with Ryogo), and another where we go with Kazuki's adopted sister Alisa and we end up working closely with the People's Republic of Da Han Zhong (if we ignore the damn fool). I think. Give me a break, it’s been almost 15 years since I’ve played this game.

So, my friends, tell me. Tell me which story would you like to see in this Let's Play, and tell me why it's Emma's.

No, seriously, we are going with Emma.**

* Confused about that? Maybe you should go and play Front Mission 2 then. Or wait until a handsome, smart and dashing Spaniard decides to give it another go after being a stupid git and deleting all his saves half-way through that game, and posts about it in this very forum. Also does anyone know if I can create links that allow you to point at different parts of your own post? That would be pretty freaking useful right now don't you think? Oh come on, you only need to search for "Alordesh" and you'll be back where you were in no time.

** I prefer Russian women. Not that it matters, they are both Russian because they are sisters. Oh shit! Did I spoiler it?
 
Last edited:

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,465
Location
Shaper Crypt
It has giant robots, it has turn based combat, it just lacks terrible VN sections and atrocious porn to be perfect LP material.

Go and kill, comrade. Maybe you'll give me motivation to finish RTW and to do the LP I always dreamed to do:



We Westerners could have beaten the Japs to death in the genre, if only we kept at it. IF ONLY
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
it just lacks [...] atrocious porn to be perfect LP material.

It could always be arranged :smug:
But I'll save it for if I ever feel like attracting a more numerous audience.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update 2 - The Socratic Dialogue Update

Residential Construction Zone, Okinawa Ocean City

Against our better judgement, then, we follow the young lady to the construction site.

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"Here we are."


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"Wow, this is a huge project. How come there are so many JDF soldiers?"


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"They're supervising the project, you dummy."

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"Why is the military supervising a city reconstruction project?"

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"Heck, I don't know. Maybe only the JDF can handle the type of work. *beat* We're dropping off the wanzers from Kirishima Industries!"

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"Hey. We're taking them underground. Leave them there."


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"Yes, sir. Please sign right here."

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"It's dangerous here. Go straight home."

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"Thanks Much! Let's go Kazuki."

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"..."

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"Anything else?"

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"Oh... No, sir."

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"What's up with you? Let's go!"


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"What are you thinking?"

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"Oh.. It's nothing."

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"What, were you thinking about Alisa again?"

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"Oh, cut it out!"


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"Yeah, she's not related to you by blood, but she's really cute. Man, if I had a sister like her..."

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"Don't even go there."


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"Well, let's go. We're in Okinawa, dude! Let's have some fun!"

Well I don't know about you, but I've just had enough of this. If I transcribe every single inane conversation this insufferable people have just so they can dump all the exposition they're carrying in their pouch, we'll be here until Christmas and I'll go insane in the process. Besides, if you're reading this I'm assuming you've played the game and know the story already. So from now on, you're getting the abridged version of events, and I'll only pay close attention to the more important dialogue (or not even that). If you don't know the game, and want to know more about the story, that's what the comments are for. Ask and ye shall receive!

Let's get to killing things as fast as possible.

So, since the young lady suggested that we go out and have some fun, we decide to go back straight to the Kirishima Industries enclave so that we can get back to work as soon as possible. We get the snazzy wanzers that we used in the tutorial into the snazzy helicopter that we saw in the introduction, and we get them to the snazzy JDF base with a girl's name that is waiting for them. But when we get there...

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This being a video game, the automatic defence turrets get, well, automatically activated to defend the base. So it falls onto us, being the only two blokes really armed in this whole big, military station full of soldiers, to take care of them. We'll see later that they do have big weapons, it's just that they can be arsed to use them right now.

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Shitty turrets with shitty machine-guns, and we're still driving our Shunyos (we have two, as a matter of fact). Long story short...

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Yep, that's about right. Another inconsequential fight.

The JDF Special Forces arrive and, curiously, don't immediately engage, confusing us with the attackers, but tell us instead to sod off because a military station that is under high alert since it has just suffered some kind of explosion is not the place for some civilians to faff around. Kazuki, being the insufferable prick that he is, gets on their faces, and is promptly and satisfactorily told to get the fuck out of there or get shot. I vote for shooting them and making the lady the protagonist instead. Anyone with me?

Back at Kirishima, we receive an e-mail from this mythological Alisa that tells us that she's just been stationed at Yokosuka Base Lab, that is, the one that just blew up. Since reasonable, sensible protagonists make for very short video games, Kazuki takes the decision to run to the base's gate and throw a tantrum at the guard to try and get in, to which the soldier reacts with Spartan stoicism, telling him to get lost. It's almost as if Front Mission 3 is a military propaganda game that is trying to make you love their personnel.

NOW we decide to go to the bar, because drowning our sorrow in alcohol is, once more, the decision that well-adjusted people take when things don't go the way they would like to. And suddenly plot.

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"Can we talk?"

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"?! Who are you?"

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Kazuki, don't be rude to such a beautiful lady. Hey girlie, how 'bout a date?"


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Wait. Is she a lesbian?

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"You're investigating the accident."

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"I'd rather investigate you."

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She is! I thought Japanese were fairly homophobic.

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"Ryogo, shut up!
(To the woman) Do you know something?"


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"Maybe. We can make a deal."

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"What is it?"

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"I need your help."

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"I'm listening."

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Will you get on with it.

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"I'm Emir Klamsky. A USN radiation scientist."

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Hehehe.

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Get it? Klamsky. Like in...

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...

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"USN!? Wait, this is OCU, Japan! What's an enemy country's scientist doing here!?"

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"Hey Kazuki, business people come in and out. Scientist are business people. Hey, why are you in Japan?"

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You've just tried to anticipate the blonde's answer, and then asked her the same question. Will you stay silent woman?

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"I wanted to learn more about the accident. I need your help for my investigation."

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"What do you want us to do?"

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"We'll take the wanzers to the accident site."

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"Can a USN scientist go inside a JDF base?"

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"You want us to sneak onto the site?"

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"Yes. We'll prepare the wanzers. What do you say?"

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"Hmm..."

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"(Hey, Kazuki. You're going with her to the base, aren't you?)"

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"(There's no other way to find Alisa. How about you, Ryogo?)"

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"(Can't turn down an offer from such a beauty.)"


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"Are you guys done?"

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"We'll do it, Emir. I'm Kazuki Takemura. This is Ryogo Kusama."

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"Kazuki and Ryogo. You can call me Emma."

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"When do we leave, Emma?"


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"Right away. Come with me."

And off we go, to infiltrate a military base that has just suffered a massive explosion and is, therefore, on high alert, following the instructions of a blonde woman who confessed to being a foreign agent not five minutes after meeting us in a bar. We have a saying in Spanish, "Two breasts have more pull than two carts". This would probably be an egregious example, I would say. Whether the breasts, in Kazuki's case, are Emma's or his adopted sister Alisa's, we might never know.

We bamboozle the guard at the door by pretending to be delivering some wanzers and then threatening to leave them at the gates if he doesn't let us through, which he subsequently does. Talk about the Japanese and their sense of duty.

We decide to take an elevator down to the under-levels of the base, and we manage to remain unchallenged as we stroll around this military base at our leisure. Until we find what we were looking for.

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A big-ass crater. And then, as Kazuki asks Emma what is the meaning of this, we get found.

And we finally get to kill people, thank God.

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Two machine gunners, two melee fighters. Nothing to be

particularly worried about. It's the first real fight of the game after all.

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In this corner, the Kasel M2, specialized in punching things hard. It's not particularly durable for an assault wanzer, but it's quite mobile and packs enough of a punch, literally, that if you let it get closer to your more flimsy wanzers, it can give you a nasty surprise.

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And in this corner, the Jinyo Mk110, which we already met during the tutorial, specialized, in getting killed. By the end of the game, you'll have learned to love the sight of this merry rust bucket, because when you see the enemy deploying them, you know that we are about to cream them.

Let's also take a look at what we are working with, since we don't get the luxury of going around with Shunyos for the rest of the game.

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Kazuki gets the ZenithZenislev, an assault wanzer. A bit of an oldie, but pretty mobile, and has a couple of jacks up its sleeve that we'll get to see in a moment.

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Ryogo gets the Kyojun Mk107. Again, quite outdated, a bit slow and not that durable. But a BEAST if you get just a bit of luck. Again, more about that, in the future.

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And Emma gets the Drake M2C. A useless piece of junk, like all American engineering. Slow as a galleon, but without it's weaponry; flimsy as a paper bag, but without it's utility; the only redeeming quality of it, that it has enough power to carry the very heavy launchers of the game.

Let's get to it.

We take cover in our starting position and wait for the enemy to come to us, like the cowards we are, while Emma starts delivering the pain with her missile launcher.

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Like so.

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Why attack the Jinyo, when I myself said that the Kasel is much more dangerous, you may ask? Because I'm and idiot, I might answer.

That particular Jinyo, in addition, doesn't move anywhere. The one furthest to us starts advancing, and the Kasel closest to us decides to have a frank exchange of opinions with Kazuki.

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Kazuki might not have mastered the finer arts of philosophy but he covers his lack of skill with an enviable passion in defending his positions.

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Ryogo, for his part, has a more roundabout rhetoric technique, but is still quite effective in supporting their thesis against the Kasel's attempts to put holes in it. Emma meanwhile is very fixated on a spitting competition with the Jinyo, so she will not be joining the discussion at this moment.

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And so it goes.

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Until the Kasel realizes it doesn't have any legs to stand on, nor arms, so it relents and concedes the point.

Now, when an enemy has low morale you can force them to surrender, which is quite a nice bonus to the money you normally get from combat, either by surrounding him with your 4 wanzers, or attacking without killing him. I only have 3 wanzers right now, so the first method is out, and he was so low on health that the second was impossible, unless I made one of my pilots step out of the wanzer and attack it with their pistol (and even then it probably would have killed them anyway). Later on one Jinyo also wanted to surrender, and I didn't manage to do it, even though the pistol method would have worked. Why didn't I do it? Well, because, as I might have mentioned, I'm an idiot, and I completely forgot I could do that.

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With dreams of glory in it's mind, the lone Jinyo that has slowly been making it's way to us joins the fray.

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But it's speedily put in it's place by the harsh reality. And a hail of bullets.

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And hey, we even get to see our first weapon skill level ups.

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Conveniently softened up by Emma, the second Jinyo topples over after Kazuki sneezes in it's general direction. I told you they are lovely to see in the enemy's hands. And now all that's left is a Kasel.

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Which gets put down with extreme prejudice, thanks to the appearance of our first skills. In this case, Tackle I, having no relation whatsoever to the penis.

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And we also get our first Ace level up, with it's associated AP increase.

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Easy, wouldn't you say?

With that out of the way, our intrepid spiesprotagonists decide to continue to delve deeper into the base, in the search of an exit, but they are defeated in their quest by the wiliest of enemies, a closed door, which allows two Jinyos and a Kasel to ram themselves up our exhaust pipe.

Not much to say about it. We take positions in the central chamber where we are, and unload on anything that comes through the gate.

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Front Mission 3 introduced the pilot as a separate entity. They can be hit by certain skills, and attacks can sometimes force them to eject. if you manage to kill a pilot, it's wanzer count as surrendered, and you can even board it with your own pilots. of course a giant clumsy robot has a pretty hard time hitting a human being, but still, it can be done!

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Ryogo gets his first skill, thank fuck.

Turn 5, enemy reinforcements arrive, another Junyo, another Kasel. Like lambs to the slaughter. I actually had to restart this the first time around because the Kasel reinforcement managed to two-punch Emma down, because as I said her American wanzer is utter crap and also because I'm rusty as fuck and I forgot to cover her adequately.

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Yep, looks about right.

Oh, and remember when I said that the Kyojun could be quite a beast. Yeah, about that.



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Another job well done, if I say so myself.

We finally get on open air again, and we manage to arrive at the base's main gate without any more unpleasant surprises. Once there, the JDF rises the entrance big barricades in an effort to stop us.

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Because hey, if a closed door managed to thwart our advance for thirty seconds once, what can't a BIG closed door do? Just keep trying and trying until it works, like Japs and world domination.

They even call reinforcements, our dear JDF SF, so if we don't manage to take the two tanks and a single Jinyo (hehe) that are all that stand between us and freedom, we might have trouble.

We advance on the valiant Junyo, and once again... beast, meet poor sod, poor sod, meet beast.



Like a giant robot on fire.

Ryogo didn't manage to end him, but Kazuki did, this time with a polite cough.

The two machine gun tanks can be a pain if you let them loose, especially since they are a bit harder to hit than wanzers (missiles, for example, have a hell of a time touching them), but we dealt with them with élan, and therefore we got out of there before the SF reacted.

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We also got a slap on the wrist for receiving too much damage and having too high of a weapon skill level, because this game was made by petty tyrants. Not that getting a lot of platinum medals makes any difference in Front Mission 3, but it's the principle.

On the way out, we see a transport helicopter heading some other way, so we ignore it and move on.

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"This is the main gate. The target has escaped on a transport."


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"Pursue them at once! But avoid direct combat. Capture them when they leave the city!"


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Do you remember when I talked about hating the Shunyos because some ass-hole who you have to fight three times drives them? Yeah, look at that face, because you are going to see a few more times. Cunt,

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"Roger."

We get back to Kirishima without any trouble, and once more, plot happens.

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"Emma, there's no time. Tell us what happened."

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"I guess you have the right to know. I work for the USN. I do research for the military. A device in development was stolen a while ago. I've been searching for it with FAI. Then, I heard about the explosion in Yokosuka."

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"The accident is related to your device?"

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"That's all I can tell you for now."

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"Did the JDF steal the device from the USN?"

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"..."

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"You saw it. It's not normal. The JDF is hiding something."

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"Yeah. They did try to kill us."

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"Now Alisa is missing because of them!"


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"...Alisa?"

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"Alisa is his sister. They're not really related, though."

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"Shut up!"


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"We don't even know if she's been hurt. Don't worry too much!"

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"But she was inside the base!"

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"Alisa's fine. She's smarter than you."

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"..."

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"Can't you ask your dad to do something?"

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"No. He'd never help me."

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"Man, lighten up."

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"He'd kill his family for the JDF. He might've been the culprit behind the accident."

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"Alright, fine."

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"We need to get out of here. You can come with me, or escape on your own."

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"Wait, you're leaving us!?"

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"We should go with you. Besides, I have more questions for Emma."

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"Yeah, I agree."

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"Okay, then. Let's get out of Yokosuka."

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"Where to?"

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"My party is waiting for me in Honmokufuto, Yokohama."

And on that hopeful note, we leave our party ready to move out. We're given the chance to setup our wanzers, but since we can only buy items and not wanzer pieces right now, it's useless to us.

Boy was this long for three measly stages. Next one I'll have to put just one.
 
Last edited:

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,156
Oh my, Front Mission 3!! :love:

It was one of my favorite games of my infancy. The fact that it had one of the most absolutely grimderp plots ever done by Square made it extra-charming.

Not that plot was ever a strong point in FN series, in spite of a story that carried along during 5 games and went full retard during the last one (although to compensate it had an awesome gameplay).

Assuming you're strong-willed enough to cover the entire route (nevermind both), will you let the Codex to make up the composition of the party's Wanzers once that option becomes available, or will you do it yourself?

EDIT: Also, quite surprised to find you're a Spaniard as well too, Kuattro .
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
It was one of my favorite games of my infancy. The fact that it had one of the most absolutely grimderp plots ever done by Square made it extra-charming.

It's one of my favourite games of ever, especially for the plot.

Assuming you're strong-willed enough to cover the entire route (never mind both), will you let the Codex to make up the composition of the party's Wanzers once that option becomes available, or will you do it yourself?

I hadn't thought about it but yes of course, why not? I have made a bit of shopping in this update already, but as you say our options right now are rather limited and nothing can't be changed easily. I'll add a small annex at the end of every update to keep track of what we have.

You and everyone, feel free to propose anything, from Wanzer names and colours to builds, and I'll put them in.

With a couple of conditions:

1 - I'm not very good at this game, so if I see something that think, or verify, is not going to allow me to advance (like making a Rekson our point man, giving it a fist and sending it ahead of the pack; or trying to complete the game with six missileers. I'm sure there are hardcore tacticians out there that can do it, but I'm no hardcore tactician, I'm just some guy), I reserve the right to say "nay".

2 - I'm ready to grind if we need to buy shiny, expensive toys, but if I get tired of it, we'll have to make do.

3 - If I get a really bad craving to play the game (hey, as I said, it's been almost 15 years since I played it last), I cannot promise that I'll start playing without waiting for build proposals. I'll try to take it out on the simulator, though.

EDIT: Also, quite surprised to find you're a Spaniard as well too, Kuattro .

Almost 47 million of us out there, we are bound to be somewhere. I think there's a couple more around here, in fact.

We don't even get a Codex Smilie though. Russians, Frenches, British, but not Spaniards. It's the Black Legend all over again.
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
As you can see, I'm trying something different with this update. I'm still trying to find what style suits me (and anyone watching, of course) the most, and by the way, did I underestimate the time it takes to add captions to a Youtube video...

Any way, when you watch the videos (if you watch them that is), please turn english captions on, or don't, if you prefer missing my inane commentary.

Also, if you have any thoughts about this style of update, or the other one, feel free to express them in the most vehement way possible. I don't get offended easily.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update 3 - The Hairdresser's Shoah Update

We left Kirishima Ind. in good spirits, in search of new pastures. But we were once more waylaid. In this case, by a police checkpoint. Who would have thought it, that when there's a hunt in the zone for some dangerous people last seen infiltrating a base that had suffered an explosion, there would be checkpoints on the exit roads. Damn are our enemies crafty, what can we ever do about that?

Oh, we can beat the snot out of them, of course.

Well, we initially take the tactically sound (and surprising, seeing the company we're keeping) decision of trying to evade the checkpoint and therefore any kind of confrontation, but that goes out the window as soon as a couple of JDF SF helicopters show up and start shooting missiles at us. So beating it is.



Well that was fun. And we also know now that if we ever decide to go on a tree genocide, there will be rewards. Knowledge is power.

On the bad side of things, our truck got blown up, so we need to continue on foot. Well, Wanzer foot.

Which obviously is dastardly used by our enemies to ambush us in a bridge. And we also get to see a familiar face.

FoPEmjp.png
"I finally found you, you little rats. Now that you know the truth about the explosion, you're not getting away."

Rude.



We've managed to capture a Wanzer! Unfortunately it's a shitty one, without any interesting skills nor stats. So we'll probably scrap it and sell it for money.

We keep making our way up to the toll booth, and obviously, we get to explode some more enemies because otherwise this would be a boring game. We also identify a truck that we will stealpurloin, so that we can continue our journey a bit faster, and we don't get stopped every two steps.



With a truck, we finally make our way out of the stinking road and we get to Yokohama. Where Ryogo leads us to a Repair Depot. That girl has contacts.

There we discover that Kazuki and Ryogo have been branded as terrorists and responsible for the explosion at Yokosuka, and Emma offers them to go with her in order to reveal the truth about what happened. We also get our first shop.

p7gsmLo.png


Quite a shit shop actually, no wonder Ryogo knew of it. They have the same weapons we already have (and we are not planning on buying anything until we can get better) except a shield for both Ryogo and Emma, no Wanzer parts, and, at least is something, HP upgrades for our Wanzers, that we buy, even if, in the case of Ryogo and Emma at least, we'll probably not spend a lot of time with the Wanzers they are driving. But money is cheap, and if we need more, we only need to grind the simulator and we'll be swimming in riches in no time. Or actually quite a lot of time, it's grinding after all.

So with a bit of shopping done, we abandon that smelly place, hopefully for good. But what would you know, we don't even manage to leave Yokohama, before a couple of trucks block our way, four Wanzers jump out of it and try to fill us with lead. And we see another familiar face. Well, it will become familiar. Well, it would become familiar for sure if we were in Alisa's story, but I don't really remember how much he is featured in Emma's story. Anyway, here he is.

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"Those are your targets. Remember, I want them alive!"

Well, thank Christ you told them, because they didn't seem that worried about taking us alive half a second ago.

So once more, into the fray. If there's something I love about Front Mission 3, is that everyone wants to fight you. Granted, everyone wants to take you alive, but they never stop firing at you. With big guns and real bullets. Because that's how you capture someone alive, by blowing them up to very small pieces.

Anyway, here we go, once more into the fray.



So once the fight is over, we discover that these JDF Wanzers have no markings so, quite probably, they are not indeed JDF, but someone else, that ALSO wants to ruin our party. And I've already lost count of how many people like this are out there.

We get to Honmokufuto of however the fuck you spell it, and obviously, more trouble is waiting for us there.

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"Target acquired on wharf. Requesting permission to attack!"

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"Copy that. We're en route. Delay them until I get there!"

Everything seemed lost. Our friends fell into despair, thinking that this would be the end of it.

Not really though, there were only four crap enemies.

But still, suddenly, a hangar opened up, and out of it, a shining white knight mounted in his trusty steed came out to rescue us from the jaws of death and doom.

4XGisCf.png


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"You're late, Emma."

Okay, what the fuck is wrong with these people's haircuts? Was there some kind of hairdresser's genocide at the end of the 21st century? Because Front Mission lore certainly doesn't mention it, but I would believe it in a heartbeat. Either that or none of them own any fucking mirrors.

No, seriously. I know we have more important things to worry about right now, but for Pete's sake, you look like a washed out clown! One that fell into a particularly bad time and is still looking for a way out.

I'll shut up about the haircuts now.



So after the fire, is time for tea, biscuits, and introductions.

0FMT7zZ.png
"I'm Dennis Vicarth, a FAI agent. We'll leave Japan on a transport and join the 3rd fleet. You won't be able to come back to Japan for a while."

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"That's fine. How do we get the transport off the ground?"

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"There's no runway nearby".


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"You Japanese people lack imagination."

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Look at any tentacle porn. YOU wouldn't even imagine where can they put their... anyway.

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"We can use something else as a runway."

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"Something else?"

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"There's a bridge under construction nearby."

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Er...

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"Oh, you mean the Shin-Oggishima Bridge?"

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Er...?

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"You're gonna use that bridge for a runway!?"

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HE who goes charging onto military bases finds this insane.

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"The bridge is almost complete. It's fine."

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It sure doesn't sound fine at all you cuckoo clown.

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"Geez... Emma, will it be okay?"

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"Sure, if he says so."


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Because a man who goes out of home every day looking like that can never be wrong, by Belenos.

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"That's all. We need to leave soon. The enemy is coming."

GsKvEiB.jpg
Sure, the enemy is coming. Any excuse to cut the discussion of this plan short.

Although the enemy IS coming, so maybe he is just a misunderstood clown, you know, the one all in white with the serious look, the one OTHER clowns throw into buckets of water or custard by accidentally hitting them with a ladder.

I know the clown shit is weird, but have you looked at his image? Like really, really looked at it? God damn.

qwfnfv7.png
"So that's how they intend to escape. Stop them before they reach the bridge!"

I love how he sees it immediately. It turns out that using an under construction BRIDGE as a runway is what all Special Agents think when they see a plane and a bridge side to side. At least make it a VTOL plane for fuck's sake. But not this. Not this.

Okay that's enough. At 'em!

Stage 10 (because apparently messages can't have more than 5 pieces of media embedded.)

Okay, two more problems, and I shut the fuck up I swear.

92GfI0b.png


One: How in damnation is such a tiny plane going to fit and be able to take-off carrying three Wanzers (if we are generous and think that Dennis doesn't have one in there already), if cargo planes in real life are gargantuan monsters that need enormous runways to function.

c3nlB4x.png


Two. Seeing as how that plane cannot obviously unfold it's wings or it would take all those light-posts with it and probably blow up, how, by Satan's fetid rotting wings, is it going to take-off? Wouldn't a plane with folded wings just plummet

as soon as it run out of bridgerunway. Japanese game writers, don't let physics, common sense, or reality in general, get in the way of the story. Like western game journalists, but maybe not so much.

It somehow manages (off-screen, of course) to take-off. And we're on our way!

Arrival at USN 3rd Fleet

We get to the carrier, the Captain gets uppity with Emma because she didn't manage to find MIDAS and she's a womynz (no, I'm not kidding), and Dennis and Emma show Kazuki and Ryogo to their room before the first one manages to get their useless asses thrown overboard by getting sassy with the Captain. And once more, the monster of a plot gives a mighty roar.

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"So, what's with this MIDAS?"

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"Now that you're one of us, I can tell you. MIDAS is a bomb."

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"A bomb?! It's not a research device!?"

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"It is, but it can also be used as a bomb. It generates energy."

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"How does that turn it into a bomb?"

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Same way all other bombs turn into bombs, I would venture.

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"When the energy generated by the device becomes unstable, it explodes."

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Yep.

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"This causes a nucleus collapse and atomization, but with no radiation."

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"And that's what we saw at Yokosuka Base."

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"The explosion in Yokosuka was caused by a poor copy of MIDAS. The original would have destroyed the entire base."

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"It's a bomb that's gentle to the environment."

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"There are no gentle bombs!"


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"It's an important point. Atom bombs can't be used because of the environmental hazard. MIDAS can be used without environmental consequences."

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"You just want to get your bomb back, don't you!? You want to monopolize it!"

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"No. We're not trying to get MIDAS back for a selfish reason. MIDAS needs to be destroyed before it's too late. We need to shut down its production once and for all."

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"You want me to believe that? Alisa is missing because of MIDAS!"

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"..."

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"Stop, Kazuki. You're being too harsh."

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"It's okay. It was my fault."

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"I'm sorry, Emma..."

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"We're working together, so let's all get along!"

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"Emma! We located MIDAS."

Well, that was fast. And we also get to meet the FAI's "private squad", the Homosexual Brigade.

No, I'm serious, listen to me for a second.

First of all, they are called the Purple Haze.

Then, they look like this:

BS9PWSK.png
IumMgSy.png
WdeOgw3.png
oWaWdLj.png


I really don't think further comment is needed.

But just in case, here's Ryogo's reaction.

yCOfDIt.png
"Who are those happy guys?"

Case closed.

Anyway, we discover that "located MIDAS" means that they strongly suspect that it could be ANYWHERE IN THE OCU. The OCU being the Oceania Cooperative Union, which means anywhere from Auckland Island to the Kurils, and from Phnom Penh to Vanuatu. Perfectly located, or rather, not located at all.

So Dennis, being the ideas man as he is, proposes to do what any Intelligence Agency would do in such a situation in order to acquire covert information on the whereabouts of MIDAS. Raid the OCU's HQ, in Australia. Commando style. That haircut is getting to his brain, I swear.

Anyway, we'll leave our brave soldiers preparing to invade a whole country, nay, a whole super-nation, or at least its seat of government, so that we can get ready for such an endeavour. Strap your seatbelts.

BUT! Before we go, a small exchange that takes place outside the briefing room between our old pals and the new acquaintances:

Th1P4b2.png
"Back to square one..."

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"Purple Haze sure act tough, but they aren't all that much in the field."

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"Yo, I heard that."

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"Shoot!"

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"You care to repeat what you just said?"


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"Sorry. I didn't mean to... I don't really like butch chicks."

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More of a lipstick lesbian, are you?

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"You...!"

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"Stop it, Cindy. He's right. We couldn't find MIDAS, after all. And you ARE pretty butch."


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"Joe!!"

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"Yeah. Try to act more ladylike if you want to ask me out on a date".

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So, more like you.

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"Jerk-off..."

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"You got some balls, picking a fight with Cindy."

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No zhe doesn't. That's the whole point.

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"I'm a lady's man."


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Huh?

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"Ha ha ha... you crack me up, little buddy, Good luck with Cindy."

Come on, you can't tell me it's not perfectly clear.

Anyway, we get Dennis on our squad, with a Rekson M4F Wanzer. And now, for real this time, this update is over.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Inventory as of now:

Kazuki is piloting 1x full Zenislev set, all parts have their HP upgraded to level 1.

Left Hand: Bone Buster (Melee). Right Hand: Odin M98 (Shotgun)

Backpack: BPT3A Computer: COM4

Emma is piloting 1x full Drake M2C set, all parts have their HP upgraded to level 1.

Left Hand: Bone Buster (Melee) Right Hand: Mk6 Shield (Shield)

Left Shoulder: Quill (Missile)

Backpack: BX002 Computer: COM4

Dennis is piloting 1x full Rekson M4F set.

Left Hand: Franbar FF (Rifle)

Computer: COM4

We have in stock, right now:

Enyo Mk109 x 1 full set

Jinyo Mk110 x 1 full set

Kasel M2 x 1 full set

Kyokei Mk108 x 1 full set

Laiying 1 x 1 full set

The Shop has, right now:

Weapons

Odin M98 (Shotgun) 140

Kodo SN990 (Machine Gun) 160

Bone Buster (Melee) 100

Mk6 Shield (Shield) 100

Backpacks

BX002 140

BPT3A 200

I'll work on giving this a better format. I hope.
 
Last edited:

Exhuminator

Arcane
Joined
Sep 10, 2015
Messages
609
I've beaten Front Mission 1, 3, 4, & 5. Front Mission 1 & 3 are both great fun, but are too easy to take seriously. Front Mission 4 ramps the difficulty up to something respectable. Front Mission 5 is a bonafide challenge, and will wreck most players.
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Okay, let's see if I've done this right.

Here you should be able to see a Google Spreadsheet with the same information I've put at the end of the update, only actually readable enough to understand anything. I don't know if people can actually edit, but please, if you can, no (or at least limited) vandalism, I'm going to take care of updating it. If you want to propose changes to the Wanzers or the pilots, do it here.

Also, and I forgot this before, here is a great guide with all the stats of parts and weapons, which you should need if you want to propose a build (unless you go with whichever names you fancy, which is also a legitimate way).


I've beaten Front Mission 1, 3, 4, & 5. Front Mission 1 & 3 are both great fun, but are too easy to take seriously. Front Mission 4 ramps the difficulty up to something respectable. Front Mission 5 is a bonafide challenge, and will wreck most players.

I wouldn't really know, I'm crap so all of them seem difficult to me. That said, I was able to complete Front Mission 3 being VERY young and understanding almost no English, so I guess that is a sign of it being rather easy. I only hit a wall (and it was a concrete wall that I hit at full speed, head first) with the combat in the tunnel where the imaginary numbers use AT-ST, which, if I'm not mistaken, we'll see in Emma's story. Hopefully I'll fare better and not have to repeat that fight two dozen times.

Front Mission 4, I might remember it wrong, but once you got a couple good links set up, it was just a question of getting everyone in position, pointing your Russian destructrix to anything you wanted dead, and vaporizing 2-3 enemies per turn. Maybe the USN side was a bit more difficult.

And Front Mission 5... I only remember the jungle base assault being a bitch, but again, my memory is crap, so what do I know.

Front Mission 2 on the other hand... now that was the stuff of nightmares. And the fact that the gentlemen of frontmission.info didn't manage to complete the translation didn't help at all.

On the other hand, if Front Mission 3 is easy, GOOD I say. Wouldn't want to foul myself in front of you all :obviously:
 
Last edited:

Exhuminator

Arcane
Joined
Sep 10, 2015
Messages
609
>the fact that the gentlemen of frontmission.info didn't manage to complete the translation

Yeah that was a real tragedy. I wish it, and Front Mission Alternative, and Front Mission 2089: Border of Madness were all available in English.

Hey but SQEX was kind enough to give us Front Mission Evolved! :hmmm:
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,156
What's wrong with the webpage? It doesn't let me quote certain threads, including this one, for some reason. Instead, it gets stuck loading endlessly.

Anyway, I propose that for the main character you swap the punching weapon for a shield and focus on the shotgun. Use that wanzer part that raises the rate of fire x1 and then watch how enemies are blown to little pieces.That should be a fun alternative for melee (another one is going with a shotgun and a melee weapon and use that ability to use weapons from both arms, but that one is risky).

As for FM4, the most difficult part of the game was to have enough patience to endure the slow-as-fuck combat animations. You could skip these yes, but then you would miss important details such as which skills activated and so on.
In FM5, I actually found the jungle levels quite intense, but not hellishly hard.

Back to your LP, something you could show is the whole thing about the ingame Internet. It's completely optional and not very useful, but it was a nice touch.

Lastly, I still have to play FM2, but I thought the game was fully playable by now even with the incomplete translation, I will have to check.
 

Exhuminator

Arcane
Joined
Sep 10, 2015
Messages
609
>What's wrong with the webpage? It doesn't let me quote certain threads, including this one, for some reason. Instead, it gets >stuck loading endlessly.

I've got the same problem going on there.

Anyway, the hardest part of FM5 is the final mission. Where you have to defeat all the enemy wanzers and boss in between reactor blowouts. That, and some of the roguelike missions get really hard if you keep going deep enough.
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Update 4 - The Down There Update



(Don't judge me, all I know about Australia is that song, what I've seen in Underbelly, that they have kangaroos and koalas and that the wildlife wants only to exterminate humanity, even kangaroos, that apparently can disembowel you with a kick. I'm not so sure about koalas.)

G'day mates.

So, we left our protagonists ready to raid the OCU's HQ, as per Dennis the Menace's idea.

Turns out that when he said "HQ" he was being a bit hyperbolic, referring, rather than to a building, to the country in general, Australia.

With that in mind, I juggled some of the Wanzer parts we have around in order to better suit my expectations of their roles, and also I renamed them because, having taken the Mary Wollstonecraft way, it didn't make any sense to call Zenislev what is only 1/4, or even 0/4, Zenislev. I won't bore you with the exact builds, and in fact I might shelve the spreadsheet I created because who the hell is going to spend hours of their live telling me how to build Wanzer piece by piece when you can do general suggestions, like have already been made (and heard! Implemented as soon as we visit the first decent shop a bit further along), but the names chosen for our immortal heroes are:

Kazuki, the Codexian - Because he is short-witted, pig-headed and prone to raging.

Ryogo, the Ladyboy - Because zhe's best friends with the Codexian and we are very near Thailand, so I'm not excluding any possibilities.

Emma, the General - Because she is rational, scientific and intellectual, like General Discussion.

And finally, Dennis, the Declown - No further comment required.

Okay, enough crap introductions, let's get to the Stanley Mountians.

No, it's not a typo. I mean it is, just not mine.

g7Ji6qS.png


If I'm allowed an aside, one of the things I most fondly remember of Front Mission 3, is it's geography and how much I learned. This game was released when I was... 13? 14? Something like that. I'm not sure I even knew the Philippines existed (Yeah, I know, I'm not even American, and on top of that, they were occupied by Spain until the XIX century. I'm just ignorant.) Sumatra, Mindanao, Luzon, Dhaka (that's more FM2, but still), there are not many games that take place all over South-East Asia. It's funny when you think about people nowadays complaining about lack of diversity in video game.

On the other hand every single black person in Front Mission 3 looks straight out of a particularly monstrous Minstrel Show, so there's that too.

We land in the middle of nowhere, to Reece an OCU lab conveniently placed in the middle of nowhere, and on the way there, in the middle of nowhere, we stumble upon a small OCU convoy of a transport and four Machine Gunners.

2GuB5ss.png


Another thoroughly inconsequential fight that only serves to convince me of something I've known since I played the game for the first time, rifles, and therefore, Dennis, are utterly mediocre. Mediocre damage, mediocre accuracy, mediocre mediocre mediocre.



(Well, yes, I forgot I also knew about this from Australia)

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As soon as I get a second missileer, you're up for the chop mate.

We slaughter them regardless, and it turns out that they were transporting people, more precisely, scientists, amongst them a certain Serov, who I'm sure we'll see again, although maybe not in this timeline, who, in exchange for us bugging off and leaving him alone, tells us that their mission was to investigate an OCU transport plane that crashed in Sumatra.

So yes, we're off to Sumatra now. Wait that's it? So much buzz about Australia, and all we do is get to blow up a measly convoy? There's a name for games like you Front Mission 3, an that name is cock tease.

FM3 being how it is, it lands us, without further explanation, in the middle of a battle between the OCU military advancing on their downed plane, and some red Wanzers opposing their advance and defending the cargo.

hf6Svrz.png


And us being how we are, keepers of peace, avatars of justice and defenders of the downtrodden, join the red Wanzers in giving the OCU a good thrashing. Or maybe we just want to take a good look at that cargo.

dFA6zxG.png


Seven enemies in total (one off-screen, one sneakily hiding behind a tree), 3 melees, 2 gunners, 2 missileers.

And look, we've made a new friend.

JPc3Z1Q.png


The Genie is the Australian I guess? missileer, seeing ample use throughout the OCU military forces. Once again, nothing spectacularly worrisome.

There's also three allied Wanzers, but they are mounting Reksons, armed with rifles and right in front of the enemy's melees, so don't expect them to do anything more useful that attracting a lot of fire away from our Wanzers. But hey, what more can we ask of them?

So, the only problem is that my gunner and melee must go around those swamps in order to get in range to do anything useful, which is going to take a while. The General and the Declown, on the other hand, can use long range fire, so they should be okay.

And then shit happens right at the first turn. The Codexian walks up to the closest Kasel, gives it a Tackle I (right on the legs, obviously), and the Kasel responds in kind.

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Magnificent.

The Ladyboy scrambles to cover the Codexian, but there's only so much it can do, when the Codexian is sitting down having a kip right in the middle of the way. I on the other hand, am an idiot who believes that the Codexian is going to be perfectly fine having to take the brunt of a Kasel and a Genie (missileer) WITHOUT his shield, because if he is stunned he obviously cannot cover himself, so I have my two long range Wanzers attack the people who are attacking my allies, instead of helping the Codexian. See the results in a second.

On the other hand, the General acquires one of the most brutal skills there are in this game (at least the type of skill, this one is the most harmless of them).

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As you might have deduced, Leg Smash smashes your objective's legs. It's an instant, unavoidable destroying of the part in question. There's Arm Smash (which is fun), and then there's Body Smash, which you can imagine is a beast.

My allies, bless their hearts, do what they can with what they are given, which is, as I said, basically distract the enemy.

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Rifles, not even once. Until we get Pulse weapons, but they're not technically rifles, so I stand by my feelings.

Fortunately, the enemy Kasel that stunned the Codexian, seeing no honour in punching a dead enemy, decides instead to walk away from it (AI, bless it). The Genie who is on our side of the battle field and therefore not occupied with murdering red hobos though, is not so merciful.

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Uh, oh.

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Receiving missiles to the face might not be the nicest thing to happen to oneself, so the Codexer decides to take a nap for another turn. And me, being the bright mind that I am, decide that the General and the Declown will STILL fire at enemies that are not even looking in my direction, instead of at the ones smashing the Codexer's face in. The Ladyboy valiantly defends the Codexer, but again, the Kasel is a though cookie, so he is not very effective in deterring further aggression.

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Fuckers.

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FUCKERS.

Turn three and the Codexer finally decides to awaken from its slumber, with one idea in mind.

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REVENGE, MOTHERFUCKERS.

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So that's the Kasel taken care of, now only the Genie remains and I will have... cleaned up three enemies (yes, the General and the Declown having in the meantime managed to down a measly missileer between them, because having the Declown firing at something is like throwing confetti at them.).

The Genie decides one more to target the Codexer. In two turns, he has managed to hit the Codexer's body two times. If it manages it a third time in a row, because, as I happily remembered right then, he was wearing a power backpack, that is very nice and gives you great melee bonus damage, but doesn't allow you to carry items, like repairs, the Codexer would be in deep shit.

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The Codexer, being in deep shit.

There's a lot more Wanzer to hit, you know? Okay, there's not A LOT more Wanzer left to hit, but still.

So the Codexer takes the chance, and charges the offending Genie with either glorious slaughter or glorious death on his mind. The Genie takes another shot at him and...

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Glorious slaughter it is, then.

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Yep. There's not a lot of the Genie left after that.

Being the slimy cunt that he is, though, he can't help it but take petty vengeance on us before going up in flames.

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It looks like we are not going to be able to look at that cargo after all.

When the clean-up is completed, the king of the Red Hobos introduces himself as Hatta, a "guerrilla fighting the OCU", and the ones who actually have been downing OCU transport planes so that they can ransack them and sell off anything of value. In thanks for saving his hobo life, he offers to take us to Singapore and introduce
us to Moneymaker, a hacker that can probably track the shipment we are looking for, an offer that we accept. And here she be.

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We are promptly informed that, one, she's "not a kid", having just turned 17, and two, that the job is going to cost 6000 $, which Dennis will take care of with FAI money. Why Dennis doesn't also take care of all our shopping and upgrades with FAI money, is never explained, even though they are as mission critical as tracking the shipment.

Also, Hatta leads us to the first real shop of the game. Praise be to the Great Hobo in the Sky. But first, a bit of Network job.

The Japanese police have, in their web, a nice list of wanted people. Some of them, they suspect, have escaped to foreign countries, so they are asking for any information available.

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Here's one example.

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And here he is, in Singapore, doing his thing. So like the rat bastards that we are, we sent a mail to the Japanese Police informing them of his location. I don't remember if that is going to give us a reward down the line, but it would certainly be nice if it did.

Apart from that there's some Japanese journalist that wants to interview us (nope), and some Australian hacking group wishing Emma a g'day.

A bit of smart hacking on our part confirms what we already knew, and points us in the direction of the Department of Public Safety and OCU Army Intelligence (which I realize right now I completely forgot to check, even though this same file gives you the password to get in...)

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A stroll through the DPS web shows us, again, what we already knew.

(Here should be an image of a DPS file saying the same thing that the previous one, that the JDF is taking strong measures to covert the explosion as a mere accident, even though nothing in their version makes sense.)

It also tells us a couple of interesting things, like the JDF acting almost as an independent entity from the Japanese government, blocking any external investigation in the matters and resorting to aggressive counter-intelligence against DPS agents, including infiltrating JDF intelligence agents in the police, and staging traffic accidents against them (no one was injured, though). It also mentions the Chief of Staff, Masao Sasaki, who is looking to become a Minister and under heavy surveillance by the DPS, and the JDF's emergency response team, the Mobile Assault Force, directed personally by Sasaki. We'll be hearing A LOT from all of them further down the road, but for now, food for though.

Also, we learn that the OCU has been heavily involved in matters since the Yokosuka explosion, having previously established secret weapons research labs in its member nations, to develop things like giant Wanzers that violate international treaties, and that the Central Intelligence Unit (CIU, the OCU intelligence agency) is also surveilling all of this (which we would also know if we were part of a different timeline, one where we had decided not to go with Ryogo at the beginning of the game, from the CIU themselves... but we are not). There's also mention of Velda (in a joint venture with Kirishima Industries) and Jade Metal Lyman, to military contractors, developing a top secret pulse weapon and a heavy combat vehicle for the OCU, without success, for now.

In the international front, there's mention of how the USN has increased its naval patrols in the frontier since the explosion, leading to more tension with the OCU, and there's even been submarine penetration to as close as 40km of Okinawa, which the JDF mysteriously hasn't communicated neither to the OCU nor to the Japanese government; and, for those of you that play Starsector with mods, the recent merger of Fireball Co., Hoprise Co. and Fleiman Co. with the Diable Avionics Group, and how the USN government seem to be the one behind it, even sabotaging Diable's rivals in order to get them to merge. This one is not important, as far as I recall, just a funny titbit. And obviously there's reports of the USN developing a new weapon, but we already know about that.

In what refers to the DHZ, it mentions that they opposed the formation of the OCU since they feared it would make trade with the USN more difficult, and that the relations between the DHZ and the OCU remain even today very tense. But they also very recently broke relations with the USN, whom they depended economically, and that has made the USN start to support rebels inside the DHZ, who are now planing on invading Shanghai. It also mentions the DHZ's interest in the explosion, but we already knew that too.

That's all for the network right now. I know, I know. If you're not interested in the plot, this is probably dull and boring, but if you are interested, then let's just say that almost all you need to know about the game is actually right here, in these paragraphs, and we will see all this Gordian knot unfold during the rest of the game, up to its logical conclusion. But that's for the future.

As another aside, I have to say that that's something else I love about Front Mission 3, this convoluted plot where the interests of so many nations, and even different entities inside of those nations, create such a net that, even having two stories, and different allies in each of them, and hearing different points of view in each of them, you never know how things are going to go, even if, as I say, in the end it turns out everything was crystal clear from the beginning. Pure spy-craft, and we find ourselves right in the middle of it.

Anyway, we do a bit of shopping because we have now access to more serious hardware, including new weapons, and also new types of upgrades: Defence Class upgrades for bodies, which allow us to reduce one chosen type of damage (Impact, Pierce, Flame); Accuracy upgrades for the arms which are pretty self explanatory; and Boost and Evasion upgrades for the legs, the first allowing us to jump higher and slide in a straight line (spending less AP in movements) and the second, well, allowing us to evade attacks.

Also, the Codexer is now a shot-gunner, as asked.

Anyway, it turns out Moneymaker is a bit of a putz, so she gets arrested and sent to jail, and obviously it falls onto us to get her out of it.

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A couple of tanks, a machine gunner, and two infantry soldiers with sniper rifles. Pah.

There's really not a lot to tell.

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Infantry soldiers are small, and therefore difficult to hit, but they fall to our weapons easily. The Jinyo might as well be a training dummy (we are upgraded to maximum and with new weapons), and the tanks have low mobility and rate of fire.

I could show you more pictures, but it's sad. Just sad.

So we get Moneymaker out of her cell, and somehow, a bunch of giant, noisy, heavily armoured walking machines have managed to sneak up on us and ambush us as we go out.

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So we are about to get squashed.

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Or are we?

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And who might this flamboyant gentleman be?

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Well of course! I assume the "calvary" is some kind of deviant sexual practice, but who am I to judge. Or maybe just a typo.

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So anyway, we're saved, three hurrays for them.

You know, this also ties with what I said before, about how funny is seeing SJWs screaming and crying for more diversity in video games today. Well, it turns out that, in 1999, in Japan of all places, games included such :incloosive: characters completely in the open, and not only did nobody have any problem with it, it was actually a smashing commercial success. That's progressive!

Moneymaker is so grateful, and also is a wanted criminal who has nowhere else to go, that she offers her real name (Yun Lai Fa), and to join us, which, again, we accept.

She is a shotgun specialist, which means that she is redundant with the Codexer, although we might have her substitute the mediocre Declown, and she is going to be piloting the Jailbait, because as I said she's just 17 (she would be legal in Spain!) and also because I couldn't think of anything else.

She then shows us the information that we actually paid her to collect, the flight information of the Atsugi Base, where we know MIDAS was transported.

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"2 transports left from Atsugi and went to Taal Base in the Philippines."


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"Any information on the cargo?"

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"The first says supply, and the second says additional personnel. And the list of personnel is..."

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"What's this?!"


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"The same names as the scientists in Yokosuka."


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"That's it!"

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"Yes. They transported MIDAS to the Philippines with the scientists."

And for those of you keeping the scores at home, that means that Alisa was also transported to the Philippines. So of course Kazuki has to be prevented from jumping into the sea and starting swimming towards the Philippines.

We instead go back to the 3d fleet, where the Captain informs us that he is not going to start a war for us silly idiots, especially when Dagat Ahas, a mobile fortress of the Philippine navy, is in the way. The Captain wants to go back to Midway and think of a plan, but then Lukav (the leader of the Purple Haze, in case you've forgotten), comes up with a brilliant plan.

Since the Philippine military is occupied with the invasion of Luzon by DHZ backed rebels, the DHZ looking to take control of the Philippines' oil reserves, every soldier of the Philippine armed forces, including mobile fortresses and what have you are kept busy there. So we are going to mount a surprise attack on Taal Base.

By firing ourselves into it.

In emptied missile pods.

From a submarine.

Yep, just what you are reading.

That
is the easy part of the plan obviously, the difficult part is what to do once inside, whether to attack the front gate, or take a detour through the mountain. Again, this game is a cornucopia of C&C, like a true RPG.

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I'm not going to be daft enough to ask you to choose, we all know we are not the kind to sneak behind people and attack from the rear, so we are going through the front door.

And with that, I'll let us, and you, think about the idea of putting yourselves inside a missile and being fired onto a mountain. Happy thoughts.
 
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lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,156
That's still the sane part of FM3's plot. However, I think one of these three missions is bugged, not sure.

Also, rifles are lame in this game indeed, but that was fixed in FM4 and 5.

Lastly, I'm afraid to tell you that there's only one Pulse-type weapon in the game, maybe two tops, and it shows up very late. On the plus side, you can get flamethrowers, which are like shotguns but even more fun!!
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Lastly, I'm afraid to tell you that there's only one Pulse-type weapon in the game, maybe two tops, and it shows up very late. On the plus side, you can get flamethrowers, which are like shotguns but even more fun!!

I know, I know. You get it with the weird Wanzer you obtain through the Network or something like that, don't you?

I admit I'm following a Walk-through for everything Networky, because otherwise I wouldn't even find half of it, so I hope when the moment is right it'll tell me what to do.

And now for the bad news. I completed the Taal Base assault yesterday, and it turns out OBS didn't record it.

So all I have to show for it is 1 hour and 45 minutes of blank screen, with sound. No screenshots, no videos, no nothing. :negative:

It had the first true intense battle of the play-through too...

What follows is a recap, so that people know where we are at when the new update drops:

We went through the front gate, blew up a couple of fools that were in our path as we entered the base, and inside, found the Kodomari prototype. If you want to see it in action, look at this weird video.



Don't try to understand what's going on in there, because I don't think anyone knows, but yes, the big purple thing is the Kodomari (in the game it obviously doesn't have so much HP). Remember in the last update, the DPS web talked about Jade Metal Lyman developing a combat vehicle that would be armed with a pulse gun? There it is. We blew it up easily, of course (in normal combat it cannot fire every turn).

Inside the base we found the scientists, including Alisa, who was pissed at Emma for developing MIDAS. It turns out that, of all these scientists, only SHE is able to understand how the bomb works.

Lukav shows up, telling us that the DHZ fleet has started landing operations near Batangas and that the rebels are on the way to the base. So we need to get out as soon as possible.

We get the scientists out, and during the battle Lukav tells us to forget about him, to which we say nay, that we are not leaving him behind. His answer? We "are too soft" and "we might regret that in the future". And I might add, sooner than we think, holy foreshadowing!

We send him away with the scientists, and we go back to help Purple Haze, who are, as we arrive, blown up by the OCU forces opposing them.

And this was the battle I was talking about. José, an OCU veteran that has way higher machine-gun skill than us and ROFUPII, a couple of Junyos (I can tell you, I'm not laughing when I see them anymore), an helicopter, and two Monsters. If you don't know what a Monster is, look at this weird video.



The big orange things are Monsters, the Velda heavy combat vehicle. Again, in the game they don't have as much HP.

I came this close of losing my first Wanzer, the Ladyboy, whose body was reduced to 9 HP before I could retreat it, and Kazuki was ejected from his Wanzer and a Junyo almost killed him. Fortunately, I managed to disable both of Jose's arms by turn 2, so we didn't really see him do anything insane.

And then the base commander decided to load MIDAS onto a plane, and drop it near Batangas to stop the DHZ invasions fleet. In a nice FMV, we see it indeed destroy the fleet, along with a good chunk of the city and surrounding terrain.

We get back to the 3d fleet with a job well done. Or not. Emma gets all emo because of the deaths, and to top it up, we are informed that Lukav and the scientists never made it to the USN submarine.

We go to speak with Emma and she reveals that Alisa's real name is Aliciana, Klamsky, that is, that they're sisters, their parents having been scientists killed by "certain organization" when they tried to flee, having sent Aliciana to one of their friends, Isao Takemura (yes, Kazuki's father) while Emir/Emma had to flee through the forests, pursued by a helicopter, until a U.S. Army Wanzer saved her and took her to the USN.

In the meantime, the scientists have been found, in the form of dead bodies, in Taipei, all except Alisa and Lukav, who, we are told, turned out to be a DHZ agent.

So we need to go to Taiwan and take care of business. We took on Australia, then we took on the Philippines, so obviously, now we get to take on the DHZ.

Also, we are going to be supported by Navy Units, because the captain was not prepared to start a war for MIDAS, but now he is. Maybe he was just scared of the mobile fortress we spoke of.

In any case, the next update will start with the invasion of Taiwan. Apologies for this shit, but that is the burden of the technological inept like me.

I know what you're thinking. If its less than 2 hours, and it was fun (it really was!), why not play it again, this time recording it? Mainly, because the Codexer managed to acquire a couple of ROFUPIs during the assault, and if I replay it he's going to lose them, and god knows when he might reacquire them, so that's a definite no. As I said, all we've really lost is ONE interesting battle, and there'll be plenty more of that. In fact there's going to be one pretty soon, I think.
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Update 5 – The Operation Chink in the Wanzer, Part One, Update

With the Taal Base assault done, our main objective, getting rid of MIDAS, even if in an unorthodox way, was complete. But now we had the only scientist who can reproduce it in the hands of a DHZ agent, so the mission parameters have shifted, and now we have to free Alisa from the hands of the Chinese before they can start dropping mega bombs all over the place.

We're invading China boys, and we're doing it in style.

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Sea, Air and Land indeed. Well not Sea, Wanzers don't look very buoyant, but it shouldn't be so hard to stick a particularly long breathing tube in the cabin, I'm sure.

Anyway, we somehow manage to land this humongous monsters without anyone dying, and we make our way to the first combat in our invasion of the People's Republic of Da Han Zhong, at the Ba Kui Dam.

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Three shot-gunners to our right, another two and a missileer on the dam itself. We use anti-Impact defence, because that's the type of damage shotguns do, and we decide to go first for the enemies high up, so that we take care of the missileer first, and we force the rest of the enemies to fight an uphill battle.

We start SLOWLY making our way through, because my pilots turned out to be allergic to skills, so they don't use them.

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They are very good at being beaten to a bloody pulp, though. And that's only against three enemies, there's three more waiting down there.

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Turn 6, finally, Declown, of all people, manages to bring the missileer down.

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So now it's only a matter of slowly making our way down with the Codexian and the Ladyboy as the General and the Declown pelter the DHZ's Wanzers with long range fire, until we blow up one of them and the other two decide they have had enough and surrender to the superior western tactics. We get some nice metal for it.

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And even nicer metal in the form of two "acquired" Wanzers. The Yongsai 3 not only come with a couple of upgrades applied, which increases their market value when we sell them, but their arms and legs come also with very interesting skills to learn, as we will see in a moment.

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We are building quite a junkyard back there.

We get radioed by this specimen.

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Who is, apparently, Bravo Squad's (one of the two navy squads sent to support us in our advance towards Taipei, the other being Charlie) lead, to inform us that they are in heavy contact around Taoyuan, and that our path to Taipei is clear. Also, Charlie, who were supposed to go to Shanxi, are not responding to radio.

So again, we are hit with an important decision over the head, whether to go and help Charlie out of whatever mess they've gotten into, or to keep going with the plan. Being the kind souls that we are, we decide to help them, and head to Xinzhu.

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As we get there, the situation seems dire. A lone Charlie Squad survivor, without his Wanzer, doing his best Benny Hill impression as he flees from some Chinese Wanzers and AFVs. They see us, so we advance to try and cover the poor guy.

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A bunch of Tiandongs, an infantry sniper and three AFVs. We keep impact defence, because the Tiandongs can get kind of nasty when they punch people, so better be prepared.

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We decide, though, to take care of the AFVs first, while keeping our Wanzers as spread out as possible. Why? I'm glad you asked.

These particular AFVs are armed with a weapon that, although available to us for quite some time, we have neither seen, nor used, yet, grenade launchers.

These anuses of Satan that uncontrollably fire it's horrid defecations, are AOE weapons that damage everything they catch in their way (yes, including friendlies). If they only catch one of your Wanzers, they are not that bad, but if you bunch them up and let the grenades rain, you can get into trouble in a very short time. On the other hand, they are incredibly unreliable, sometimes inflicting grave damage, sometimes not even damaging their objective.

As you might have already inferred, I don't like them very much, which is why I don't use them, and is why every time they show on the battlefield I make it my utmost priority to eliminate them with extreme prejudice, to the ignorance of other, maybe greater threats.

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Pictured here, Ryogo (you can't see zher, zher's in the middle of the bright light) having a bad day, Or not that bad, turns out zhe was almost untouched.

Any way, we take care of them as fast as we can, and then it's only us versus the Tiandongs (and the sniper, infantry are mostly harmless but can they get annoying when you can't reliably hit them...).

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We use our shield to great effect against the Tiandong's fists, we kill them all, and we even manage to make one of them surrender. The End.

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With the way, once again, clear, we keep making our way to Taipei, until we get once more in trouble when we hit enemy scouts on the city's suburbs.

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Nothing fancy. Two helicopters which can be a bit of a pain, but that's why we have missiles since the beginning of the game, and two Tiandongs. The terrain can be a bitch though, because there's only the road, and at each side a forest and a mountain, so not a lot of space to manoeuvre against the heavy melee Tiandongs.

So the Codexer takes them head on, while the Ladyboy and the Declown start to march across the forest to flank them, and Emma takes care of the helicopters.

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Or rather, she doesn't.

The AI decides, once more, to show it's excellent reasoning, by deciding that it's two melee Wanzers will choose objectives they cannot reach this turn, instead of surrounding the enemy Wanzer they CAN reach this turn, and giving him a one two.

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Not that I'm complaining.

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Second turn, it' the same as the first. Only this time, the Ladyboy takes one helicopter that had been nice enough to fly into his range after Emma, who this turn DIDN'T miss, had softened it up.

And then we press a button, and something awesome happens. Dennis combos three Pilot Damage I, and this is the result.

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A (mostly) intact empty Tiandong 3, ready to be used, or rather sold as junk, as soon as we've cleaned the brains out of the cockpit. Here's to you doing this a lot more time, and giving us a lot more money.

Who said rifles are useless? Not I, that's for sure!

So there we are, finishing this up and minding our own business, when reinforcements decide to show up.

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Two Tiandongs and a missileer, nothing we haven't seen, and brutally murdered, before. So we do exactly that, helped by the fact that the AI decides, once more, to target enemies it cannot reach, so the three Wanzers get into a nice conga line blocked by the Codexian, instead of fighting.

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By the time they reach their objective, they're already dead.

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Well, well, well. Not shown, another Tiandong looted.

We finally get to Taipei, and we meet with the Ambassador, who points us to a factory as the last known location of Lukav. But that will be in the next update.
 
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Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Update 6 - The Operation Chink in the Wanzer, Part Two, Update

We decide to be sneaky and go to the factory at night, when there's less probability to find any serious opposition. And then we get there and we find serious opposition.

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Four tanks, an infantry sniper up to the north and another one to the right.

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And off to the right, two shotgunners and a missileer.

Okay when I said "serious", I meant serious relative to what we were actually expecting, which is nothing.

We start making our way north, dealing with the two closest tanks on the way.

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In our quest for knowledge, we keep learning new and interesting skills, too.

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Fast Attack allows you to attack and retreat without the enemy getting a chance at a counter-attack. Very very useful for squishy units like the Declown. Anything that reduces the damage they take it's a great advantage.

Between the shields and the Piercing defence, the tanks' cannons are not much of a menace, and yet the game finds ways to annoy us.

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On the other hand that gives us a chance to change the defence type (you need to relocate your APs when you board a Wanzer), so we change it to Impact seeing as how there's now only three shotgunners left as a main threat.

The tanks dealt with, the only enemies that remain are on the other side of a barrier, and they don't seem very keen on destroying is to be able to get to us. We could destroy them only with long range fire, but it would take ages. So we decide to take the fight to them.

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And the Declown is in a roll in the learning skills department. Topple Shot topples your enemy over and reduces its APs in half. Right now it's not that useful, but on the middle-end game, against enemies that will carry weapons that cost a lot of APs and that are capable of making lots of counter-attacks, is going to serve us very well.

Any way,,,

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Another shiny medal, more shiny loot. Not much else to tell.

We take an elevator down, into the belly of the beast, to confront our old enemy Lukav.

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What we find instead, is our old enemy Han, in a weird-ass Wanzer.

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Him and half a dozen Wanzers, both Tiandongs and shotgunners. And those containers are full of napalm, they will explode if we hit them (and one will randomly explode anyway every turn), and damage any unit adjacent.

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REALLY weird. And hey look, grenades, my favourite. You will see in a moment why I hate them so much.

We start the process of exterminating the closest enemy Wanzers, made even slower by the fact that, as I said, my pilots seems averse to using skills, so we are limited to normal attacks.

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They give as good as they get, though.

And the rest of the enemy Wanzers (except Han) start to advance towards us, so we have to finish this fast or we'll be in trouble.

At turn 7 grenades start falling on us because we're finally close enough. But by then only two enemy Wanzers remain, one of them badly beat up, so it doesn't take us that long to get close to Han and start giving him something to remember us by.

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Sadly, the lazy cunts that are our pilots don't manage to give him enough of a beating before he can get out one last round of grenades.

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And so, Ryogo becomes the first casualty in our little romp. May the gods have mercy of zher soul. (The Ladyboy still had 133 body HP you prick).

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The Codexian avenges his favourite transexual, and 'tis done.

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6 sturdy Wanzers, plus Han, and apparently I took too long, used too many attacks and I am too levelled anyway. What do they want from me? As I said before, petty tyrants.

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On the plus side, we walk away with half the enemy force as loot. That's almost 2.500$ each.

We begin to suspect that the Ambassador might have been fooling us and working with the enemy, so we decide to go back to base and think of a plan, when we receive a radio transmission from the leader of Bravo squad, who apparently is the sole survivor, and that is, right now, at the embassy, asking some pointed questions to the Ambassador. So we go that way, to see if he has interesting answers, or at least to see whether or not this is another ambush. And once we get there...

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I've been telling you since the first moment I saw zher mate. You can't act all regretful now, this is not Bangkok where this type of excuses fly. Besides you probably liked it, admit it.

Oh you mean the ambush.

So we start to think ALL USN personnel around us is actually working with Lukav, when one of the enemy armoured cars downs an enemy helicopter.

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Maybe he isn't so bad after all. He is in an armoured car surrounded by helicopters though, so as useful as a soap submarine.

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Helicopters, snipers, Tiandongs, grenades, the whole shebang.

GRENADES! So you know the drill, those AFVs need to die, and right now. Meanwhile, everybody must spread out.

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Die you fuck, die! And it only took us two turns.

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Same number of turns it took the enemy to blow him up. I'm surprised he even lasted that long.

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Turns out you can force eject helicopter pilots too. It's not as fun as it sounds though, because they can sadly set the helicopter down before getting out of it. But we manage to destroy the helicopter now that it doesn't have height advantage on us, so the pilot is forced to run around with only a pistol as a weapon.

We continue taking care of the rest of the enemies. We blow up a Tiandong's left arm (where they carry their melee weapon) so when it decides to punch the Ladyboy with his hardblow, we don't even use the shield, what's the worst that a half disabled Wanzer can do?

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Well this, of course. Thank you FM3.

Not that it mattered because the fight was practically over, but still, they always find ways to be as nasty as possible.

The landed pilot, alone and scared, tries to give up.

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NO SURRENDER. There's no money to be made in captured pilots, any way.

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They even take points away for not keeping the dude alive. You put him in a flimsy car...

No loot this time, and also when we are about to enter it, the embassy blows up (with the Ambassador, presumably). Fortunately, the dude managed to interrogate him before we arrived, so we know Lukav's heading for Futai Tunnel, which joins Taiwan with mainland Da Han Zhong.

So in the Encyclopedia of horrible plans that is FM3, we put a new chapter down, by deciding to pursue an enemy that knows we are coming, through a tunnel, a narrow closed off space with plenty of choke points and ambush points.

We are joined here by the dude, from now on Marcus Armstrong, "Army" commander, even though he was in a carrier, it was the Navy supporting us, etc. He will be piloting the MCA, because he is old, he is buff, and nobody pays him attention any more (or ever).

And that brings us to the end of this update. Next one, we will do like the moles do.
 
Last edited:

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,156
Wanzers are water-proof indeed!
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That obscure manga about FM also had Wanzers with underwater turbines. Also, will you do more videos? Pretty much everything about Lukav is worth showing due how crazy the fucker is, and his random acts of dickery are an unique experience.
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Also, will you do more videos? Pretty much everything about Lukav is worth showing due how crazy the fucker is, and his random acts of dickery are an unique experience.

Do you mean his dickery in combat or outside? :argh:

I wasn't planning on making more videos because judging by the views they got, most people watched the first one, decided it wasn't worth it and skipped the rest. But anything for my loyal audience.

I might skip the most conventional fights and put just some images up, but anything related to Numbers will be getting videos (I've already had three fights with them and they haven't had time to do anything particularly nasty to me yet, maybe I'm getting better at this. No fight with Lukav yet, though).
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
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Messages
401
Location
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Update 7 - The Operation Chink in the Armour, Part Three, Update

We decide to cut through the city of Futai, but obviously, the enemy is not keen on allowing us free pass into mainland DHZ, so we get into the first of many fights to come until we are clear of that damned tunnel.

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And they seem to be kinda serious about it too.

On the other hand, as we all know and hope, size doesn't really matter. And we like big fat robots like this. When they fall, they make more noise, and sometimes they never get up.

Also, being big means our Wanzers have a very easy time hitting them.

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They really aren't as bad as they look. They only have two parts, which means they are easier to destroy, and they are armed with missiles and a machine gun, which can be very manageable with shields.

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There are three of these big boys, and a couple of tanks, so it should be easy.

All our Wanzers start engaging a tank that's in the way, while Emma begins bombarding the first Haolong.

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Second turn ends, with two tanks down and a Haolong almost dead. As I said, easy. The tanks are actually having a very hard time hitting us, seems our evasion upgrades are actually working.

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And it bites the dust.

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No enemy grenades, so we advance as a group, beating on one enemy at a time. We have Hit Chances of 100%+ because they're big, and they have around 65% because we keep our distance.

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We even manage to make one of them surrender. Sadly we can't take it with us. Well not that sadly, as I said they are fairly crap, but it would have probably brought us a bit of money if we could've sold it.

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If this keeps up, we'll end up looking like Zhukov.

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We get to the tunnel entrance, and obviously, there are more troops waiting for us there.

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Two Tiandongs, four shotgunners. Outgunned, outclassed and I would say outnumbered because each of our Wanzers is easily worth two and a half of them.

The funny thing is, the disposition of the map could be interesting, with three separate sections that force you to manoeuvre around them and they are indeed a hindrance... to the enemy, that has to engage you piecemeal and cannot flank you or anything.

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Here, shotgunners desperately trying to get in position to support their colleagues, west, we beating the snot out of their colleagues while outnumbering them 2 to 1.

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And just in case that seemed unfair. Arm Smash is the second most interesting Smash ability. If Leg Smash destroyed legs, Arm Smash... you follow. It's incredibly useful because most enemies only carry one weapon, so if you blow it up, they are rendered practically harmless, and not only that, if you blow BOTH their arms, they are much more prone to surrender. And we like when enemies surrender, oh yes we do.

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By the time the first shotgunner is there (and he is going to be there, all alone, with us, for a full turn, so you can see it's not going to end good for it), it's all over but the crying. They alone stand no chance against us.

Nothing else of interest happens, other than we kill them. We kill them all.

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We get a gold star, and we take a Tiandong home with us.

And we finally get to enter the tunnel.

Where we are attacked once more...

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At least is something marginally different. Some shotgunners, two tanks, and an armoured train.

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This being an EVIL armoured train, that has missiles, cannons and, yes, grenades. He will not get to shoot them once though.

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In this case, at least the map is a hindrance to us instead of to the enemy. Not that it's going to be much a problem.

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The Ladyboy force-ejects an enemy pilot. We take the chance, and pile on it with both the Codexer and the Declown, this one having a 46% to actually hit the pilot and...

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We get to carry home another emptied Wanzer.

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We also have the General fire the first warning shot against the train. There's much more where that came from.

The rest of the enemies advance on us, but are far away, so the General and the Codexer fire on the train, managing to stun it, as we wait the arrival of the rest of the enemy force.

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And the Ladyboy finishes it off.

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Another fun highlight, the Declown killing a pilot inside it's tank. Again, we can't capture it.

And also THIS:

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ROFUPIII is just an upgrade of ROFUPI (and ROFUPII obviously, but we've skipped that one). Instead of 1.2x bullets, it fires 2x bullets. A combo of three ROFUPI is more dangerous, but less usual, so as soon as I get a high activation computer, I will give him the III version. For now though, it will stay as a fortuitous occurrence. Obviously the enemy tank got volatilized.

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Seeing his last comrade destroyed in such a manner, the only remaining enemy decides he's had enough, so with a little push from our Wanzers, he finally surrenders.

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And so, we keep our march through the tunnel and we actually almost get to the exit, until, yes, once more, but this time different!

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"This is Griffith. We've found the target. All units, you know the drill."

YOU! i REMEMBER YOU, YOU BASTARD!

So, remember when we talked about FM3's difficulty, and I said that even though I didn't understand a lot of English and generally didn't know what I was doing, I still managed to fly through the game without much trouble until certain enemies in certain tunnel? Well here they are, after all those years, still in the same tunnel, waiting to make my day much worse, like an old giant white whale.

I mean it's not good for a young boy to experience such trauma, believe me! Having to repeat a stage about a dozen times until you get through it only by pure chance. It can mark you. I've been through the horrors of war.

Also, as I said, I didn't really know what the hell was I doing, so basically I hadn't even tuned up my Wanzers nor worried about what skills they were learning, I'd just upgraded them to the maximum and that was it (although some initial Wanzers, like the Zenislev, are pretty acceptable all through the game...), As we will see, they are not half as fierce if you come knowing your stuff.

Any way, here comes another video. Only watch it if you're a fan of gore films (no, I don't mean the ones about climate change) because it's a massacre, and as always, remember to turn on CC if you want to see my comments.



Well that was a letdown.

We finally arrive at the People's Republic of Da Han Zhong, where Dennis uses his contacts to get us in touch with the Hua Lian Rebels, a group that he, as a FAI agent, helped establish once the DHZ started its patch towards a socialist economy and therefore antagonized the USN.

They are obviously not enthusiastic about helping us find Lukav, so we end up as their errand boys until they like us enough to lend us their help. Our first stop, Sanya Naval Base, where the rebels have infiltrated the high military command in order to get access to the oil field the base protects, but that is right now under heavy scrutiny because it turns out the DHZ government is not stupid and they realize it when a couple million in oil vanish without a trace. We are tasked with destroying the inspectors they have sent, because getting your inspectors killed by rebels ensures, of course, that you will not send more inspectors, maybe this time with a heavy military escort, and that you will just forget everything about it and let them keep fleecing you.

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Five shotgunners, and two cannons on the upper level. The only difficulty this fight has is that the enemy is reasonably entrenched, on the left there are a lot of obstacles, and, on the right, there's only a bridge to cross from where the Ladyboy and the Declown are, but still, an easy fight, once more. We even have to rebel Wanzers as allies, both of them armed with rifles, so they can provide even more long range support.

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The cannon, in case you were curious.

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Our allies also attract the enemy fire, which is incredibly nice of them.

Nice detail too, both the rebels in Sumatra fighting against the OCU, and the rebels in DHZ fighting against, well, the DHZ, have American made Wanzers. The USN has been busy all this time.

On the left, the cannons are out of range so we can take care of the enemy Wanzes at our leisure. On our right, we are limited by the bridge, but since the Ladyboy can hold its ground, and the other two are long range, we don't have a lot of problems with it.

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And the Declown even manages to force eject one of the enemy

pilots.

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Whom the Ladyboy exterminates next turn with a ROFUPIII, giving us another Wanzer to loot.

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Once they are all dead, we get up on the elevator and we kill the cannons too.

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And that's it, really. A bunch of skippable fights if you ask me, but it wouldn't be a proper Japanese game if it didn't take so long to complete.

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With the job done, we are finally allowed to take a walk around Guangzhou, take in the sights and all that.

Oh yes, and also the new shop.

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The Wanzers they sell are crap or we already have, but upgrades and new weapons are always nice, so we better get shopping.

This actually seems like a good place to end this. For once, no stupid plan in sight (yet), no drama or anything of the sort, just good old plain getting better kit so we can keep killing anything in our way.
 
Last edited:

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Update 8 - The no, the other Russians, Update

We finally have access to modified computers. What they do is modify your chances of activating or comboing skills (and one of them, your chance of acquiring skills, but that one we won't find until later), so for example, if it increases your chance to activate skills, it reduces by the same percentage your chance of combos, and vice versa. What this does is allow us to specialize a bit, with pilots with a lot of weak skills more prone to combos, and pilots with very destructive skills being more prone to activating them. For now we are going for combos, because we don't have a lot of very strong skills, but once we get a lot of ROFUPIIIs, Body Smash, Firing Squad and the lot, we're probably going to want high activation computers. As I said before, one highly destructive Skill is more regular than a big combo of smaller ones.

Armed with computers, righteousness, and big new guns, we go to the bar because even brave heroes like us need to get shitfaced from time to time. It turns out that some guys had gotten to it before us, and were now harassing an innocent woman.

Having spent all the game white knighting in pursue of his first sex, and having had to make do until then with Ryogo, Kazuki cannot help but butt in and tell them to sod off in the hopes that, yes, this time he will wet his petard.

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There's no accounting for taste, I guess.

TRIGGER WARNING: SAD SOB STORY, COMING RIGHT UP

On the other hand, Kazuki's desperate attempts should compensate any sadness you might feel.

So it turns out her name is Ling Chao Hoa, she's a Hua Lian rebel, just like her brother. They were both left behind when they were little by their father, who was part of the military and only worried about fighting enemies of the state. So, in order to get back to him, they both decided to sign up with rebels. Don't ask questions.

She actually says "I just want my brother to be happy", so obviously enlisting to fight the government of the nation and risking your life is what he should do!

Any way, it turns out his brother is the leader of the "Transport Squad" of the rebels, and lo and behold, as soon as we get back to the rebel base, we receive communication that that very same Squad is under attack in Yizhang. Ling hurries off to help his brother, and of course, we hurry off behind her to save and protect the poor woman.

As soon as we get there, we find Ling's brother Wanzer reduced to a smouldering wreck. And we also find the people responsible for it, still waiting for more rebels. Ling prepares to fight, but Kazuki chivalrously tells her to hold back, and that we will take care of them. Did I talk about the differences in pull of breasts and carriages? Yes I did. In Catalan we have an even more brutal saying, but I'm a gentleman just as much as Kazuki so I won't be repeating it here. Let's say it involves pussy hair instead of breasts and leave it at that.

So in we go.

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Two tanks, four snipers, and two grenade APCs. As always those have to go first.

As you can imagine, we start going through such measly opposition like they were made of gingerbread, and in the process, some fun happens.

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Avoid 80 is one of the best skills in the game. We've seen it's middle brother, Avoid 40, on Griffith back at Futai Tunnel, but he didn't get to use it. It simply reduces any damage taken by the Wanzer lower than 80, to 0, which means that, with the 80 version, anything that isn't a rifle, a missile launcher or the sort, simply doesn't damage you at all, including shotguns and machineguns. Obviously only when it activates, but with a high activation computer, we should be seeing this quite a lot.

And as soon as we eliminate a couple of enemies (you didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?)...

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"Changli's men are useless. We'll finish the job."

The Rapid Reaction Force, which is another gimmicky name the Japs came up to introduce enemies a bit tougher.

Pity that we didn't meet her in other circumstances, like, in another timeline with different decisions made at the beginning of the game, because she looks like a fun gal (she isn't).

What I would really really want, though, is their Wanzers, because they are very good (I forgot to take a look at them, we'll do it in the next mission). Sadly we are not that lucky, and them having only two Wanzers, we exterminate them like roaches without even giving them the chance to surrender.

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One more in the bag.

Once back at base, it turns out that Yun (Moneymaker) is not happy, not having been paid and all (never mind we got her out of the OCU before she could be put in jail for a long time), so she develops a brilliant plan which is, she will inform the DHZ military intelligence, who are offering a reward for any information that leads to the capture of rebels, of us, she will lead us to the meeting, then we will kill them all (AFTER she has gotten the money), and everything will be dandy.

To convince us to follow her, she pretends she has received information about Alisa being held in a military base in Wuzhou, which predictably makes Kazuki go into overdrive. As soon as we get there, though...

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If the enemy had an AI worthy of that name, this could get hairy, because as I said, their Wanzers are pretty good. Sadly this is not the case.

The opposition consists of two Wude 3, which are incredibly sturdy Wanzers, excellent in an assault role.

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They have Double Punch II, which allows you to attack two times in melee with DIFFERENT weapons (the lower version forces you to get the same weapon), but... they only have one melee weapon, so the other would be just a hardblow punch. They won't get to use that skill anyway.

And four Shangdi 1 (one of them piloted by that woman we met in the previous mission), which are incredibly menacing when armed with a ranged weapon, as they have very high accuracy.

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Xiao Hua Lan is her name by the way, and she has some not useless skills, like Brace II, that will allow her to wait to attack last, but protect her Wanzer for reduced damage.

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Apart from that, as you could see before, the map is divided by a ditch with two bridges, so we will have to go through the Wudes as the Shangdis can mercilessly shoot us to bits. But as I said, the AI is not that good, so no worries.

Let's see if we can capture any of them, because they are very much worth it.

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We start the process of killing the first Wude, and I'm already regretting getting those high combo low activation computers, because yes, when my skills activate they make a big bang, but they don't really activate that much...

The enemy turn comes, and instead of everyone converging on the first bridge to block and shot at me, half of them stay where they are, the other half go towards the second bridge (they can flank me, but it's going to take time, and meanwhile I'll have superiority in the first bridge), and just a couple decide to engage me. Even the Wude we are attacking stands there and takes it...

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Which is not the happiest of ideas. But we didn't manage to get it to surrender...

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The other one goes across the bridge and flanks us (Wudes have high mobility, being assault Wanzers), attacking the General, but that's why we have shields.

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So, since he was so nice as to get into close combat with us, we return the favour. Sadly, again, the forced ejection happens at the end of out turn so we can't try and kill the pilot before he boards the Wanzer again. We're just not taking any Wudes home today.

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No, we are not.

With the Wudes out of the way, nothing stands between us and the Shangdis, so they are fucked. I mean, they are good yes, but they can't stand in close combat against us.

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But hey, looks like we are taking some of them home with us.

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Another one also decides to surrender, but Dennis, being resentful of our general dismissal of his qualities (if he has any), decides to kill it before it can do so. The cunt.

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Too many attacks?! There were two fucking Wude 3s, what was I supposed to do, call for another MIDAS?

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As you can imagine, a lot of drama follows. We get angry with Yun, then she gets angry with us (yes, yes she does), then Kazuki slaps her because if you can't have sex with a girl because she's too young then he doesn't really care so he might as well beat her up, then everybody else says not to be too harsh on her, teenage girls will be teenage girls and all that, it turns out that she also has a sad sob story to tell us, and in the end, it is Kazuki who has to apologize for getting angry with a person who almost got all of us killed.

The one time, the one single time where Kazuki's incoherent all-encompassing childish tantrums actually made sense, and he is the one who ends up having to apologize.

I love this game, I really do.

Back at base, we end up charged with escorting a VIP to Guilin, and once there we receive information that a village called Longsheng is under attack by the army. Since we have fuck all else to do,

we decide to go there so that maybe we can "collect Intel", and also so that the next little bit of plot can gently fall in our laps.



Again, not as tough as they look.

The bloke they killed, who turns out is very much alive, is an ex RFF member who went rogue after tragically, and totally accidentally, murdering her wife and son during a mission. And this is the face he makes while he tells you.

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So... I guess we better believe him. Or else. He's called Li Xiang Mei, and he ends up joining else for lack of a better thing to do. He's going to be piloting the Mitsoda, because he used to be a shitlord but saw the light and now is in a great quest for Justice. Also because I'm rapidly running out of imagination, luckily we only have one more Wanzer to name I think, so if anyone has any suggestion on what to name a Wanzer piloted by a stupid useless idiot, start thinking! No, I will not name it Fargo.

With another meat sack added to our entourage, we start returning to the rebel base at Guilin, and in the way, we are treated to a bit more of plot.

Ravnui Embassy Guest Room

What the hell is Ravnui, I hear you ask? Aha! That's something that will be revealed in time, my friends. Or I could tell you now: it's Belarus. We'll see what is their role in all of this in the future.

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"You're going to stay here for a while."

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"Where am I? Where are all the other scientists!?"

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"That's none of your business. You stay here and wait for your sister's arrival."

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"My sister? What do you mean!?"

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"You didn't realize? The USN scientist you met at Taal Base is Emir Klamsky. Your sister."

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"Emir!? That woman was my sister? I... I never knew she was still alive..."

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"Surprised? I bet it wasn't such a good way to meet again. Emma was the one who designed MIDAS."

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"I can't believe she made MIDAS... Why...? Why would she do such a thing?"


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"Emma will be here to rescue you. Wait for her arrival."

Why. Why in Heaven's name, all those obstacles, all those misdirections, all those diversions, if what you want, is for them to come to you, instead of putting it in big neon lights: I AM HERE, COME AND GET ME.

We've been wasting time for the last four or five ours, going all around south-est China doing nothing.

WHY.

He is evil.

On our way back, we find out that Guilin is also under attack. I really question how anyone gets anything done around here if they are continuously being attacked and running around like this.



With all the crap done, we go back to Gunagzhou. We have even another round of HP upgrades.

And so again, we leave this update with a bit of good news.
 
Last edited:

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,156
Goddammit, what's wrong with the Quote system? I can't use it at all. Anyway, Kazuki's tantrums will get worse. Also, all of that sob story crap with the Chinese rebels will have an unexpected ending but fitting for such grimderp game.
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Goddammit, what's wrong with the Quote system?

Yes, multi quote is fucked, you have to do it part by part until our overlords fix this.

Kazuki's tantrums will get worse.

I know :negative: I remember, during the Japan Coup, his father trying to be decent and help out, and Kazuki being a little tit, to the point that I was wishing they had him shot. No such luck though.

Also, all of that sob story crap with the Chinese rebels will have an unexpected ending but fitting for such grimderp game.

About that, on the other hand, I don't remember that much. Maybe my English didn't let me follow it back then.

In any case, I have a box of tissues in case anyone ends up needing them.
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
Update 9 - The What The Hell Is Going On Here, Update

We've been desperately chasing an elusive plot that has, up until now, managed to remain hidden to us, but it's about to be dragged screaming and kicking to the light, because the writers suddenly remembered that this was supposed to have a point, so they are about to dump all the plot they've been accumulating onto us.

So, big plot drop alert, I guess. Better fetch your helmets.

It all starts with an e-mail that Dennis receives from a certain Wei Ching Yee, who apparently is a journalist chasing a story in the DHZ, is, or was, friends with Dennis in college, and wants to exchange information. We agree to meet him, so we move to Yongding, where we will find him.

When we get there, it turns out that him and Dennis had a bit of a falling out and now they really dislike each other, so we get yanked around a bit because no one in this game is capable of acting as an adult and everyone has to throw over-dramatic tantrums all over the place. We also learn, from patrons at the local bar, that "someone" is looking for Wei.

That "someone" turns out to be Da Han Zhong's Military Intelligence Service, and Dennis has to prevent them from killing Wei. And then, we finally start to unravel this thing.

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"Do you guys know Ravnui National Laboratory?"


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"!!"


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"What's wrong, Emma?"

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"I-It's nothing."


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"One of the labs, called Orsha, is conducting an unethical genetic research."

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"Unethical?"

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"I don't know the details yet."

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"Is your scoop about their genetic engineering research?"

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"Hold on... let me finish. A man named Bal Gorbovsky was the head of Orsha Lab, and..."

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"Bal."

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"What's wrong, Emma? Are you okay?"

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"Has anyone ever told you how much like a broken record you sound? Just shut the fuck up. This is getting interesting."

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"..."

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"And you, playing the Sphinx is not making you look mysterious, just whiny and possibly constipated. Just spill everything out."

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"Emma!! Emma!!"

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"Christ."


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"Are you all right?"

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"Oh... Excuse me. It's nothing. Please continue."

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"I guess he was also the head of ministry of technology in Ravnui."

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"But not any more?"

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"Right. After he quit, he became an ambassador to this country. He's good friends with Chairman Jie Bo Liao."

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"So what about it?"


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"The resignation from Orsha Lab, followed by his inauguration as DHZ ambassador. What if Bal is selling the research data...?"

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"To the DHZ?"


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"I don't know if he's doing this as an individual or under orders from Ravnui. That's the story."

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"No information regarding Lukav..."


Do Japanese have anything against Slavs in general? If we ever get to see FM4's story, you'll understand, but they always end up being on the evil side, from FM1 all the way to FM5.

Having thus, established a connection between our search and Ravnui and Osha Labs, we go back to the rebel's HQ, where, for one of those silly coincidences in life, we are informed that one of their branches has now in their custody someone who claims to have escaped a lab in Shanghai, and that has research information signed by a certain Bal. So here we go again.

But before that, Emma keeps acting like a cunt every time she hears the name Bal, so Kazuki, being a cunt himself, keeps bugging and prodding her until she gives up and spills all the beans.

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"My parents worked at Orsha Laboratory. They researched quantum physics under Bal. My parents escaped with me from Orsha. Bal is the man who killed my parents."

Yep. We get to Xiamen, where we meet these escapee, who is of course called Ivan (hey at least it's not Bal).

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"You ran away from a laboratory?"

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"I got sick of everything."


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"What?"

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"I'm not a guinea pig."

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"What do you mean?"

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"How dense are you?"

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"What type of research was being conducted?"

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"The Imaginary Number Project... They're genetically engineering a perfect being."

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"But I thought that was at the Orsha Lab in Ravnui."

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"Yes. But when Bal came to this country as an ambassador, he started another lab here."

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"So, what is this perfect being?"


Ivan "One who can come into a position of power and influence. And make accurate decisions on the battlefield. That's if the subject is a success... A successful subject has the perfect mind and body, but a failure destroys itself."

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"Isn't that the crazy guy in Guilin?"

Ivan "He's also escaped the laboratory."

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"Are you an Imaginary Number?"

Ivan "Yes, but a failed one."

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"Are there successful ones out there in the world?"

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"Yes. Bal's right hand man is also an Imaginary Number. His name is Lukav. All the Imaginary Numbers know him well."

And there it is. Or as Dennis puts it.

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"Orsha Lab, Bal, the DHZ, and Lukav... We got all the players."


So we learn that Lukav has recently returned to Bal (with Alisa in tow, of course), and therefore, they are most likely to be in the Ravnui Embassy, in Shanghai. It seems like we have our new objective, but first, we come, once more, under attack. Seems like his vat brothers are looking for Ivan.

We all go out, the Imaginary Numbers (Jared, Rosavia and Ivan) get into a little dance to show off how good they are, it's all very Japanese, lots of anger and drama, and long story short, they off Ivan when he tries to protect Emma. And then we get to kick their asses.



Once the combat ends, turns out that Ivan wasn't completely dead (yet, he would be in a second), and he still has time to tell Emma that she will understand why he sacrificed himself to protect her soon, and so will we!

By the way, stage 35, which means we are smack in the middle of it gentlemen, only 35 more to go.

But just in case, we are treated to a little scene in the Ravnui Embassy with Alisa getting all emotional at Lukav, and him telling her that:

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"You are the key to my future. You and Emma both. You don't know anything about your past, do you? You'll find out when she gets here. You are one of the chosen ones. Why are you so emotional?"


In order to get to Shanghai without being crushed, we need to make a surprise attack on Wuhan. But the rebels have tried that before, and have been beaten by the RRF, who showed out of nowhere every time. So the first thing we need to do, is find out where are they based. Joan of Ark wannabes as we are, we offer to act as decoy to lure the RRF so that the rebels can track their point of origin. At Yuping, under a bridge, we are intercepted by enemy forces. After a ridiculous introduction (come on, you've all seen how Japanese media can be), it is revealed we are being attacked not by the RRF, but by Wulong, a "mysterious elite merc squad". In reality, as we will see, they are just a bunch of punks, but at least they have good, European build Wanzers so they could be a problem.

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On the other hand there's just two of them, so no they couldn't.

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A missileer that also has a melee weapon...

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And a sniper. None of them have skills, but their weapons are superior to ours right now.

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Not liking missiles, we rain hell on her from all directions and by the end of the first turn she's already half dead.

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Second turn, we blow her missile launcher. So she's out.

And as soon as we manage to blow her up...

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Who, indeed, dares disturb us.

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Well

it's our old friend, all the way from Japan.

So it turns out he's Liu Hen Fong, and is actually Bal's "personal security commander", and that he has kind of a feud with Lukav. Hey, at least he got the two other idiots to fuck off back to wherever they came from. He's also eliminated the other rebel units, so all of this was for nothing.

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But now we have to deal with him and three shotgunners.

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Nothing major, though.

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In fact we eliminate the three shotgunners in three turns, and he's in a Shangdi so he's not going to stand up to us for long.

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As you see.

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We also find out who exactly is behind the Hua Lian Rebels. It turns out that not even in the alternative future does Taiwan stop fucking with China. Taiwanese opposition to the DHZ actually started when the current chairman, a socialist, turned the DHZ's economy around and cut ties with the USN. I don't remember if it's actually clarified further down the road, but as I mentioned before, all rebel Wanzers are from Diable Avionics, the USN military contractor that we saw was heavily favoured by the USN government, so I wouldn't be surprised if both Taiwan and the USN were actually backing the rebels.

All this crap about former and current chairmen is going to be explained a bit more in the next update.

Any way, we might as well leave it here, because we’re going to need a bigger plan.

A bit of a short update, but it was full of plot, so there’s that.
 
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