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Let's start by saying that I absolutely loved the game, the gameplay's great and storyline is pretty decent as far as SNES RPGs go.

Now, about the translation itself, it's an early hack and it shows. It's far from terrible, mind you, but not everything is translated and the hack was clearly not playtested thoroughly. A lot of minor stuff was left out, mostly death messages, but there is one full box of dialogue during one of the game's most important cutscenes that is untranslated.

The game will also crash constantly on real hardware, it's totally unplayable. Play it on a emulator and it's fine through and through, I used a SNES9X core on a RPi and had no issues.

Overall, the translation could use a modern touchup to fix the issues with it, but the dialogue is well written enough to enjoy from beginning to end.

I was really digging this game that got a translation. There is a moment where the text is blank though, but the real issue is that I couldn't access mission 21. At the shop after I purchased equipment for Keith the game crashed and reset. Re load a save and same result.

Massive disappointment after so much time given. Unfinished should be the status.

Back in the day, Front Mission was a great hidden gem that never got the English translation that it deserved until the Nintendo DS era. This fan translation that we got was an impressive feat in the early days of SNES emulation, and although it has a few rough edges, it does a great job telling the story to English speakers.

For a Japanese game, Front Mission is peculiar in that it has a surprising amount of English in it. In fact, most of the game's interfaces are entirely in English, with a splash of Japanese here and there. This translation takes care of the rest, which are the character dialogues, the story text, and the weapon descriptions. Since the game's typefaces already contain English letters, the translation conveniently uses that in the text, and it works well, even if the individual letters are a bit wide.

The translation perfectly captures the personalities of the large cast of characters in the game, though I have some mixed feelings about the few, rare moments when a character swears. On one hand, it fits the gruff, grungy, wartime atmosphere of the game. But on the other hand, Nintendo's strict content policies in the 90's meant that foul language would be practically non-existing in any SNES titles, which makes even the slightest bit of swearing feel oddly jarring. I have nothing against foul language, but I feel that not keeping with the spirit of the times lends itself to breaking the subtle immersion of diving into what could otherwise pass for an official Square translation.

The localization could also use a slight bit of polish in a few places; there are times when the direct translation of linguistic nuances causes the dialogue to feel a bit disjointed or out of place in English. One immediate case in point is the use of "Kyaaa!" as a loud yell, which would resonate just fine with a Japanese speaker, but "Aaaah!" would be a more natural choice for an English speaker.

One critical issue that I found was that there were about two or three screens where the text is entirely invisible in SNES9x, and this occurred about three-quarters of the way into the game. Although the game continues on as normal after that, it's a bit disappointing to see that bit of story broken, after several hours of clean text otherwise.

Despite my criticisms, one thing to remember is that this patch came at a time when fan translations were still in its infancy. Today, English speakers now have access to an official translation (and excellent remastering) of the game on the Nintendo DS, but this one still holds up well for those who want the original SFC experience.

The translation patch for this game is old, at least by SNES translation standards, and it shows. That said it's more than adequate, and the game itself is outstanding. I don't want to be too negative, because I have the utmost respect, and thanks, for the team that translated this. I'd have never been able to play this wonderful game if the hadn't translated it to English.

There are problems however, the translation has some awkward phrasing in places, the fonts aren't exactly the most appealing, and for at least one character (Natalie) the 'defeated' message isn't translated. The story though is gripping, and while the wording is sometimes clumsy, the intent and personality of the characters is readily apparent.

The game is one of the best, if not the best, SRPG for the SNES, and as such is highly recommended. Many thanks again to the team that translated this.