The game that was ahead of Front Mission |analysis of The Hybrid Front

Hi all! For many, the famous Front Mission game was released on February 24, 1995 for Super Nintendo consoles. But few people know that she could get an earlier release if the management of Square had not decided to observe a very similar project called The Hybrid Front.

The scriptwriter Front Mission Tosiro Tsutide Square management did not allow the use of furs and robots in the new game. Since at that time Square was mainly made by fantasy games, Tosiro offered to dwell at least at ordinary military equipment.

And when by the fall of 1993 between Square and Tosiro an agreement was concluded on the development of a new game, by July 22, 1994, a project was ready to be born, where ordinary combat vehicles were used to the greater extent, although the action itself took place in the 24th century.

Where does the legs grow from?

The Hybrid Front game itself was born from the confrontation between the SEGA and Nintendo companies. The latter in 1988 released the game Famicom Wars for their Famicom console. She was an entertaining wargam, where the player could take control of either a blue fraction or red. Soldiers were hired on the allocated funds and air, sea and ground equipment was produced. As the main goal, it was necessary to capture the enemy headquarters, but they also gave an alternative option for the outcome of events when the player could destroy all the units of the enemy.

Critics took her very well, and great sales contributed to the release of further continuation. But still the game from Nintendo was not the first representative in this category. The development of Famicom Wars was based on the DAISENRYAKU series from Systemsoft. Their first game was called Gendai Daisenryaku and was intended for PC-98. Actually, her main idea was the same, but the gameplay turned out to be deeper and more complicated.

Moreover, in the same 1988, the reprint of the new part of Daisenryak will look at Famicom, and the continuation called Super Daisenryaku on Sega Genesis. True, the experiment with Nintendo will be carried out for the first and last time. After all, the management of Systemsoft was more guided to release its projects to various computers of that time.

In Famicom Wars, Mario decides where to keep the princess

And by 1991, the SEGA leadership agreed with Systemsoft that the former create their own parallel series Daisenryaku, which will be released only on their platforms, and instead of modern weapons, the technique of the Second World War will be used.

True, judging by the description, the players from the Sega came to some insanely strange solution and released the first game with the campaign only for Nazi Germany, where, in addition, it was still possible to change the outcome of the events. Apparently, among them were the descendants of the vanquished, who in such an absurd way decided to compensate for the bitterness of the defeat. Only in 1996 in the new part of Daisenryaku called World Advanced Daisenryak: Sakusen File, a full-fledged campaign for the USSR was still added, covering the events of the Eastern Front.

So it is not surprising that after such an irrational approach in 1991, by 1994 it was decided to create another subsection, but already about what was happening in the distant future, so that there were no ligaments with real events. And for such an occasion it was decided to assemble a powerful team from science fiction writers.

33 samurai

The head of this project was chosen by a strong versatile person named Koitiro Noda, who is better known under his pseudonym Masakhiro Noda. He was a writer, translator, critic, producer and even director. By 1994, Masakhiro managed to put several TV shows, translated famous foreign series of books, including Star Wars and Star Wolf, and also wrote 16 novels from the personal cycle “Galactic Corps of Beggars”. In addition to this, in 1986 and 1989, Masakhiro received a prestigious Japanese Literary Prize of Sayun for Scientific and Fantastic works.

The most interesting thing is that The Hybrid Front was his first experience in the game industry. And this difficulty did not prevent Masakhiro from helping the novice scriptwriter Tsunod Junetz in writing a high -quality original story. In an interview, Masakhiro said that it was precisely due to how Junetz seriously and enthusiastically described the concept of this project, he wanted to join and assist on any issues where there would be such a need.

Masakhiro Noda and an example of his work

Character biography and temporary line

Not only did the script turn out exciting, they still came up with a temporary scale covering for 7 centuries, and prescribed a detailed biography for each hero. All this turned out so extensive that the game made a special menu where you can read about the events that occurred before the first mission and study the biography of future heroes.

Junettsu can still be recognized by pseudonym Kakuta. Before The Hybrid Front, he wrote text messages for Golden Ax II, and also provided the SEGA game department with electronic air -hub. The leadership liked the idea, and the project called Riddle Wired received a release on August 28, 1991. By the way, Dzhunettsu and in this game prescribed a biography to all game characters, so this experience was useful to him when it came to The Hybrid Front.

Biography Kangaroo from Riddle Wired

Silpheed and Fire Hawk covers from Suemi

As for the designer of the characters, then there was also not a very simple person. Jun Sueumi has already had experience in the gaming industry since 1985. At first he painted the covers on the packaging disks and cartridges, and then moved to the in -depth process. For example, Suemi helped to transfer and develop monsters from the computer version of Wizardry to Famicom prefixes. Plus, in 1988, he also won the Seion Award, and then nominated for it annually until July 1994. Thus, Suemi attracted the attention of fans of science fiction, which was very on the hand of the SEGA leadership.

By the way, Jun Sueumi will join the team developing Front Mission 2 in 1997, where he will work on the design of the characters again. But if the Front Mission 2 already had developments from his predecessors, then in The Hybrid Front Sueumi painted completely original heroes. And he also tried well in this matter, making them as similar as possible to their registered character. And no single -type models appeared among the main actors.

Part of the characters of Suemi from Front Mission 2,

And some of the characters of Sueumi from The Hybrid Front

But the original models of military equipment were developed by another designer named Kunio Aoi. He also had no connection with games and mainly studied various weapons, helped with analytics in combat scenes and made up the designs of various mechanisms in such anime as the 1980 Astro Boy and Thunderbirds 2086. In addition, Aoi created Jet Hammer aircraft in the Ultraman Great series.

In The Hybrid Front, Aoi drew 126 units, which were still divided into 18 groups, depending on types, such as: fighters, bombers, armored personnel carriers, tanks, air defense, shutters, jeeps, trucks, spacecraft, assaulters, grenadiers and the like.

About the design of cards is also worth saying a few words. All kinds of locations can be combined in 5 large groups:

Kunio Aoi and Astro Boy and Thunderbirds 2086.

Sketches of military equipment from The Hybrid Front

Earthly and space locations

Each such area is very well worked out both in visual terms and in gameplay. The second parameter reaches such a result due to a variety of properties in cells on the field. Seas, forests, fields, deserts, craters, mountains, buildings, broken asphalt, asteroids – this and this affects the protective characteristics of almost every unit. Therefore, with various battles, the player has a lot of opportunities to use the surrounding area.

Masashi Denkhodzi was responsible for the design of space cards, and for everything else – a person with a pseudonym REW. Unfortunately, there is no information about anyone of them. Whether they used to work in the gaming industry or continue to this day – will remain a mystery.

And, of course, the musical component of the game deserves special attention. The chairman of the sound engineer was occupied by the Japanese composer Naofumi Hatya, who joined the Sega in 1990. At first he simply helped with sound effects in games such as Golden Ax II and Super Monaco GP, but since 1992 he was trusted to write music. The first such work of Naofumi can be heard in Sonic CD and Golden Axe III.

In The Hybrid Front, in addition to performing the duties of the leader, Naofumi wrote 23 compositions. He chose a colleague for a past project with races called outnners to help himself. More precisely, it was Dzhunko Shirazu, who, together with Naofumi, will work in the SEGA on subsequent games of the Sonic series.

It is worth noting that in https://sistersitescasino.co.uk/casinos/starspins-casino/ The Hybrid Front music does not have time to get bored, since for each fraction (which is 3) its own musical theme is used. Plus, from the second half of the game, when the action goes into space, the compositions are updated. So the musical component works in full.

And this I described only the most main composition. In total, as much as 33 people took part in the development of The Hybrid Front, which is quite a lot for the original project. What did they get?

All musical compositions from The Hybrid Front

Who is the owner in the solar system?

Probably the most “delightful” description of the game is contained in the Russian encyclopedia of the best SEGA games. “The Hybrid Front is a space strategy dedicated to the eternal topic – the confrontation between the next empire and the next rebels,” the unknown author wrote. Here Ernest Hemingway himself would lose the dispute in writing short stories.

Well, seriously, the plot here is worthy of a separate book. That there is a lot of interesting text, that the story itself has several sudden turns. The characters conduct dialogs both between the missions and in the middle of the battle when they reach certain conditions. Moreover, what happens by gameplay, then is supported by the text basis.

For example, before the start of one of the missions, the enemy military leader receives a report that his reinforcements are delayed and do not have time to arrive on time. Then he decides not to attack everyone, but in waves, until the troops of the main characters are broken.

The very description from the Russian Encyclopedia of the best SEGA games

And the same enemy military leader

Or take another example. In the middle of the game, protagonists fly away from the planet on a spacecraft, and earthly military vehicles are located in the hangars. The player is told that some of them are converted to battles at space stations, Luna and Mars. But the trouble is that the necessary details are extremely small, and you need to arrive at some port to search for the missing parts. Therefore, in the nearest battle, the player will already have slightly changed units, and the rest will remain the same.

The plot tie itself begins already in 1998, when the first oil war broke out. And although it ended next year, this event became the starting point of subsequent military conflicts, where biological, chemical and nuclear weapons were widely used. Particularly against this background, terrorist organizations pursued personal goals growing.

Countries that did not participate in wars were still infected with weapons of mass destruction. Plus, their economy, depending on the world community, fell apart, and the population needed emergency assistance. The government turned to transnational corporations for help, and those, in turn, issued resources and money on favorable conditions for them. This led to the fact that in 2077 the “Law on Corporate Assistance” was adopted in each country, and in 2112 the corporation could create their own counter -terrorism groups, which over time are transformed into full -fledged army units.

The farther it went, the stronger the status of such corporations grew up. They allowed themselves to build space stations and safely moved all their resources and means to them. For improved life in space, cloning technologies were secretly developed, and cybernetic improvements began to be used. Corporation research institutes have developed a heavy hydrogen power system, which completely replaced oil in 2132.

Corporation infantry and cosmos

An example of a cybernetic body

In parallel, these events on Earth formed an organization entitled “United Earth”, which combined all countries. It seemed that the wars would stop, but the earthly government wanted to control the corporations, and those, on the contrary, were striving for further expansion and complete autonomy.

In 2302, the first military conflict occurred, called the « First Orbital War », during which the armed forces of the Earth suffer defeat. Five years later, 6 space corporations form cooperation of communities on orbital negotiations or abbreviated Cocoon (Cooperations Community of Orbital Negotiation).

The most catastrophic event will occur in 2309, when Cocoon, with the help of orbital weapons platforms, called “metal hammers”, and turn large cities throughout the planet into ruins. Soon, in 2315, the earth government offers a truce, after which Cocoon places its troops throughout the Earth to « maintain peace ».

Attack and consequences from « metal hammers »

In 2391, corporations establish the organization of the Pan-Earth Treaty (abbreviated Peto), which will monitor the order on the planet and suppress riots and uprisings. And since all the resources are in the hands of Cocoon, the process of restoring the earthly regions is as slow as possible, but one nuance was not taken into account here. Not everyone agreed with such conditions, even in the highest ranks of Peto, and some personalities decided in 2421 to organize an economic assistance under the name Lecsus (Long-Distance Economic Support System).

It included groups with the call sign “Mules”, consisting of smugglers, former soldiers, mercenaries and other persons. There were strong bonds of the partnership between them, and all of them helped to get and transport vital resources. Gradually, the conditions on Earth came to one or another norm. Moreover, “mules” could easily take care of themselves during the raiders attack, as their groups had a fairly good weapon. Some of them could even boast of giant airships and several links of fighters/bombers.

Corporations introduced laws on the limited use of weapons among Mules and RTO, but at all they were not at all before them, so all the forces and resources were sent to Mars, where during the study, scientists discovered the ruins of alien civilization. Well, here, already among Cocoon members, the race began for superiority, which led in 2519 to the bloody inter -corporate war. None of the six members were completely destroyed, but the leash holding the Earth was significantly weakened, which began to use the resistance cells.

Meanwhile, on the ground along the new silk path, a group of “mules” called “Noir” moved through the Tuskan desert. Their leader was a girl named Sharill, who, after fulfilling the next resource supply mission, came across a fallen spaceship, where a suitcase with secret data was among the surviving things. The sharyl, of course, took them, but she could not even imagine what it would result in both the Noir team and for the entire solar system.

After some time, a group of well -armed people who are not by raiders, but disguised Reto detachments attack their column. Sharyl with horror understands that after these actions, war against “mules” may be launched, and the enemies will not only be Cocoon, but also its own maternal organization Reto. And all this is due to the data stored on the found disk.

Sharilla and her faithful team have no choice but to find out by himself what is so important on this drive. And, of course, they will have to hide and fight back from everyone who will again attempt to get rid of witnesses.

Friends from all over the world

There are 26 missions in the game, and they are quite diverse. There is a simple destruction of enemies, the seizure of a certain base, the destruction of both the enemy commander and the salvation from the execution of his partner, the defense of the city with the use of baits of the spacecraft, escape from the upper part of the map to the lower over the cluster of enemies, landing to the moon and Mars. And on the latter they will even let shoot from a huge gun.

And everything goes on increasing. The very first missions show that yes how. First, the player controls the infantry, jeeps, armored personnel carriers and tanks. Then missile self -propelled guns and cars transporting supplies are added. Next, drones and helicopters with aircraft appear. Here there is already an in -depth division into various types, such as: transporters, fighters, bombers. And when it seems to you that after bunkers and air defense systems you can’t surprise you with anything, the developers transfer actions to outer space.

Example of shootout in space

There are already full -fledged star wars! Asteroids with an artillery battery are added to various aircraft, and the usual ground -based machines are converted for the use of a more powerful weapon.

So you just have no time to miss you. Moreover, each of the missions has a limited number of rounds. 15 moves are allocated to the simplest battles, while episodes of medium complexity are stretched by 20-25 moves. Of course, the most difficult missions allow you to increase the limit to 30 moves. And here you should not worry about such restrictions. You still have to try to reach the upper limit.

Moreover, pleasant surprises are not rare in the game. For example, reinforcements appear both in the enemy and the main characters. Moreover, the allies will conduct battles themselves, and direct management will not be needed. The moments are especially beautiful when three -sided battles are held, where everyone is for himself. Or when fulfilling certain conditions, the enemy’s detachments can even take flight, and one of the secondary antagonists is ready to betray the tenant, for the sake of saving their comrades from meaningless death.

It is worth clarifying that the player can have up to the 21st hero. Part joins the plot, others must be released when capturing the enemy base, others can go to your side in the middle of the battle, and the fourth will join you only after winning their detachment. Thus, you can easily miss some of them without problems if the player decides not to occupy a particular base or leaves a certain detachment of the enemy unauthorized.

Each character has a small biography, and they actively talk in a particular situation. Unfortunately, there is no “friendship” scale here, so you cannot influence relationships and characters. The mechanism would be pleasant, but its absence does not overshadow the picture as a whole.

The monastery of subtleties

But then they thought out another gameplay component. Each of your heroes and nameless infantrymen have 9 parameters that affect technology management. For example, one character is more suitable for flights on a fighter, and an excellent artillery will come out of the second. At the same time, no one forces you to adhere to the specified framework. It will simply be slightly harder, as the percentage of successful action will decrease.

As for the parameters themselves, they can be divided in this order:

Character level. The very first one is indicated by the letter E, and the latter is a peak of ace, which is a distinctive sign of ass. With an increase in level, the indicators in the next eight characteristics increase;

The speed of attack, which allows you to determine who will strike first, and how many shots will be made before the destruction of the unit;

The usual mortal after such a head will go around. After all, they tried to make high-quality wargaming. But not everything is so scary. During the game, you can not focus on these parameters. The main thing is to have a visual idea that a car with a grenade launcher can never cause severe damage to a heavy tank, and the bomber should not be exhibited against a fighter. Moreover, each attack shows the likelihood of success when firing with a particular gun.

Also, the developers took care so that the player does not bother much and with someone where to sit. Before the start of the mission, you can see which units can be put up for battle. There is a good button with an auto distribution, which, according to the closest technical indicators, scatter heroes on ground and air technology.

A similar mechanism is used before the start of the battle, when the player either sets his units on the map himself or launches the automatic distribution of troops on the allocated area. The result after random placement can be dropped and repeated until you like it.

The percentage of successful hit

Button for automatic distribution of characters using the appropriate technique

Arrangement of units before battle

Your and allied units are marked in blue, enemy – red. Yellow units at the initial stages appear on the neutral side, but then they also become enemies. And since the number of colors of detachments is limited only by three variations, then the developers decided to add verbal clarification. For example, the main troops of the enemy will be with the signature R1 (Red 1), and new arrivals reinforcements are already celebrated as R2 (Red 2).

During the battles, it is necessary to monitor the fuel and ammunition, that is, it is a good likelihood that your unit will stay still and will not even be able to shoot back. On planets and the Moon, these resources are replenished either through a support truck or at bases visually marked with a small flashing square in the lower right corner. The flickering color depends on who owns this cell.

The player’s bases will be with a blue small square, and the enemy with red. You can capture them only with the help of an infantry, so do not be surprised that the corresponding function will not be displayed when a ground or aircraft is located in the cell. Plus, aircraft can replenish resources only at airports, which is quite logical.

Letter mark of fractions flowers

Fuel and ammunition display. Plus, button to capture the base

And such restrictions allow you to have a noble tactical actions to. Want to take the enemy with great, leaving without ammunition? Destroy the infantry and capture all enemy bases. After some time, even the most formidable adversary will not be able to at least somehow return fire. In addition to this, you can fight for dominance in the air or lead an artillery duel. Moreover, in the latter case, with poor accuracy, the unit will shoot, or even destroy his comrade. So no one canceled the fire on its own.

By the way, as I said in the game, there are units capable of transporting both people and equipment. This helps a lot when you need to pull the enemy’s strength into another place or to conduct a sabotage attack. The most spacious, of course, are large flying ships. APC is usually accommodated by one detachment of infantrymen, and helicopters can also transfer ground technology. So you can make a kind of nesting doll.

If someone sits down in the transport unit, then its miniature model in the upper left corner has a rectangle with unit color. Such units should be shot down by the enemy in the first place, since in the case of the death of the carrier, everyone who was sitting in it disappears.

Sitting button from transport and a list of those who on board

BTR and helicopter with people on board

But, probably, the most amazing thing is that at the bases through a certain unit menu you can cause a function where weapons are changed. For example, your fighters use air-to-air missiles, but the enemy has no aircraft or helicopters, and the ace. Therefore, choose a similar unit, take it to the airport and change ammunition to the air-earth class. And then your fighter ceases to be useless and is ready to destroy the enemy again.

At the same time, The Hybrid Front has a rather unusual detail. There are no doctors and engineers in the game, but this does not mean that you cannot be repaired and treated. Each unit has a function of replenishing health. It is endless, but after its application, the combat unit is unable to move and fire. It is best to use it on a cell with the base, as the number of lives will be more restored here.

If the hero dies, and he did not have time to get a new level, then all the accumulated experience is reset. Well, here at least the rank does not decrease, and the character himself does not delete from the narrative. The death of units can be prevented not only by timely treatment/repair, but also using the functions of saving/loading. For the latest restrictions, very few. You can persist even after each movement of the unit. True, there are only two slots, but it is better than entering certain passwords after passing the mission, as is done in most SEGA games.

Personal button

The process of changing weapons

Groundhog Day

And here you can just start talking about the minuses in The Hybrid Front. As you can already guess, it has a random system. She helps in the arrangement of units, but, as elsewhere, she begins to sag directly in the battles. Even if a 100% hit is indicated, it is far from the fact that the opponent will be destroyed by the only attack. But most random calculations interfere in restoration of health.

In this game there is no fixed value when using the regeneration function. For example, when the unit is located on a cell with the base, the number of restored units of health still ranges from 1 to 4. And if you play in a mission where you can’t be very mistaken, you often have to restart to obtain the highest indicators both in treatment and in attack.

For most, the main minus will be that there is no English in The Hybrid Front, since the game was not published outside of Japan. Although the interface here is quite intuitive and understandable, so only the main story can pass by you.

If we talk about the game in general, then it turned out to be very saturated with various gameplay mechanisms that were supported by a quality plot. But here a logical question arises, why The Hybrid Front was not widely known? And here the fact is that she was unlucky to go out at a time when Sega has already planned the release of the new SEGA SATURN set -top box, and resources were also invested in the Sega 32X. Consequently, the advertising campaign was weak, the game was rarely mentioned on TV, and they decided to limit the circulation in order to save.

At the same time, critics praised the game, and some even called The Hybrid Fron a masterpiece strategy from the total number. The most annoying thing is that when the Sega released the Mega Drive Mini console, The Hybrid Front fell only into the Japanese version, but she could finally get a second life outside the Asian community.

As for Front Mission, The Hybrid Front allowed to finally decide which game would be at the exit. According to some reports, the demo version of Front Mission was almost completely processed, and the gameplay became easier and more understandable. Plus, they put a lot of effort into the saturation of the inner world of the game and began to prescribe a story story that would not give in to the works of Masakhiro and Junetz.

If it is possible to familiarize yourself with The Hybrid Front, then do not miss it. This game may like both inveterate strategists and those who are just starting to get involved in such a genre. And if you can also translate dialogs and test descriptions between the missions, you will discover a new exciting story that continues to lurk among such Asian treasures.