Needs (a truckload) more polish.
THE GAME DOES NOT GIVE THE PILE DRIVER A PILE DRIVER ANIMATION. ALL MELEE WEAPONS ARE SWUNG IN AN ARC TO HIT THE ENEMY, THERE IS NOT NEEDLE PRESSING OR ANY RESEMBLANCE OF PUNCHING IN THIS GAME.
(This is more of a rant on front mission evolved, for a shorter version just scroll to the bottom)
To be frank, I've never finished a front mission evolve game - my experience with the series has been poor at best, having been stuck on a mission past mid-game in front mission 4 for the PS2 until I lost the disk. That said, my experience with front mission 4 has made me believe that front mission evolved is a bad game for people looking for front mission content.
Front mission's story is pretty badly executed. The overarching plot seems to hold itself just fine in content and theme, basically attempting to tell the now clichéd story of humanity (or rather, a small portion of it) overcoming complicated geopolitical differences to strive for a better future - but it is told TERRIBLY. I can't even tell what it does wrong, but it's bad - from incoherent levels of emotion in voice acting to the entirely unexciting ending, the story is probably the worst part of the game if you enjoyed taking multiple perspectives amongst multiple units as you did in front mission 4. In fact, the story is told so badly that it made the game notably worse for me.
The gameplay (at least when you're in a mech facing other non-boss mechs), on the other hand, is actually somewhat fun, and has a bit of variety to it (and is the only part that I'd ever play a second time in the entire game). In fact, I would call it the only saving grace of the entire game. The only thing I do have to mention is that the game basically forces you to use a shield, and without its protection, your mech dies extremely quickly (In fact, for as far as I can tell, this is very much a game that needs you to play it the way it wants you to play it). The appeal of the combat basically lies in its good feel of combat(worth mentioning is that THE GAME DOES NOT GIVE THE PILE-DRIVER A PILE-DRIVER ANIMATION, GODDAMN WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING), giving you satisfactory stun animations upon dealing heavy blows to enemies, a good feeling of speed and firepower and passable visuals.
That said, even in gameplay, the game likes to break off into terrible sequences of generic third person shooter by taking your mech away and placing you (the human you) on the ground. It's one of the worse parts of the game that have no replay value whatsoever. There are five types of enemies in the third person shooter sequences: submachine soldiers, shotgun soldiers, rocket soldiers (they only appear thrice, thank god), wanzers(they only appear twice, both appearances being extremely, extremely boring) and gunships (appearing about thrice or twice, and EXTREMELY tedious and boring).
The boss battles in the game vary a little, but most of them end up being not fun. From the demoralizing amount of health that most bosses have, to the practically insta-gib attacks that they get near the end of the game (again, demanding the use of a shield), the boss fights do very little beside advancing the story, and even then only at times. To sum up these battles: circlestrafe with shields up, hold down lock on key until circle is filled, release missile key, rinse, repeat, with an occasional dashing for the repair kit/ammo kit for their respective needs, loop until boss is dead (will take you a few tries on some of the harder bosses, but I can't even fathom beating them in any other method)
Lastly, you have the mission/level design. It's pretty bad. There are collectables that you can...collect to gain decals for your mech (military themed small tattoos for your bot) or money. They're pretty hard (and very tedious) to find, and the rewards aren't worth it. The secondary objectives are pretty passive outside of a handful of cases. Some enemies feel unfair (specifically, the one where you're forced to use sniper equipment against close range bots - with the catch that they start off about 25 steps from you, they're extremely agile and they don't go down in one shot center mass), and some sequences feel flat-out boring (rail shooting from a transport ship sequences).
Conclusion (and a summary of everything above): The combat is good when you're not in a boss battle or a third person shooter sequence, drawing mainly from its great feel of weapon impact and speed, but the game as a whole is pretty hard to like since everything else about it is GODDAMN TERRIBLE. Most of the story will make you want your time back, and the good parts (all 10 minutes of it, combined from 5 two minute mini slide shows) reek of kojima (the same way that megaman EXE 5 did). The third person cover based shooter sequence will make you hate third person shooters for a good while, and the boss fights will either make you bored or make you angry. Don't get this game unless you're looking for something a bit more complex after playing dynasty warrior: gundam, or if you're so starved for mech combat that you'd dig through 6 hours of TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE CONTENT for about two hours (if not less) of simple, yet feel-good combat spread very thin in between.
Also, Again to note: THE GAME DOES NOT GIVE THE PILE DRIVER A PILE DRIVER ANIMATION. ALL MELEE WEAPONS ARE SWUNG IN AN ARC TO HIT THE ENEMY, THERE IS NOT NEEDLE PRESSING OR ANY RESEMBLANCE OF PUNCHING IN THIS GAME. EVEN THE THIRD PERSON SHOOTER SEQUENCE HAS YOU THROWING (very ineffective) ELBOW CUTS (I totally would've given the game 3, 3 and a half stars if it at least had that and a cool kill animation for it. but NOOOOOOOO.)
(This is more of a rant on front mission evolved, for a shorter version just scroll to the bottom)
To be frank, I've never finished a front mission evolve game - my experience with the series has been poor at best, having been stuck on a mission past mid-game in front mission 4 for the PS2 until I lost the disk. That said, my experience with front mission 4 has made me believe that front mission evolved is a bad game for people looking for front mission content.
Front mission's story is pretty badly executed. The overarching plot seems to hold itself just fine in content and theme, basically attempting to tell the now clichéd story of humanity (or rather, a small portion of it) overcoming complicated geopolitical differences to strive for a better future - but it is told TERRIBLY. I can't even tell what it does wrong, but it's bad - from incoherent levels of emotion in voice acting to the entirely unexciting ending, the story is probably the worst part of the game if you enjoyed taking multiple perspectives amongst multiple units as you did in front mission 4. In fact, the story is told so badly that it made the game notably worse for me.
The gameplay (at least when you're in a mech facing other non-boss mechs), on the other hand, is actually somewhat fun, and has a bit of variety to it (and is the only part that I'd ever play a second time in the entire game). In fact, I would call it the only saving grace of the entire game. The only thing I do have to mention is that the game basically forces you to use a shield, and without its protection, your mech dies extremely quickly (In fact, for as far as I can tell, this is very much a game that needs you to play it the way it wants you to play it). The appeal of the combat basically lies in its good feel of combat(worth mentioning is that THE GAME DOES NOT GIVE THE PILE-DRIVER A PILE-DRIVER ANIMATION, GODDAMN WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING), giving you satisfactory stun animations upon dealing heavy blows to enemies, a good feeling of speed and firepower and passable visuals.
That said, even in gameplay, the game likes to break off into terrible sequences of generic third person shooter by taking your mech away and placing you (the human you) on the ground. It's one of the worse parts of the game that have no replay value whatsoever. There are five types of enemies in the third person shooter sequences: submachine soldiers, shotgun soldiers, rocket soldiers (they only appear thrice, thank god), wanzers(they only appear twice, both appearances being extremely, extremely boring) and gunships (appearing about thrice or twice, and EXTREMELY tedious and boring).
The boss battles in the game vary a little, but most of them end up being not fun. From the demoralizing amount of health that most bosses have, to the practically insta-gib attacks that they get near the end of the game (again, demanding the use of a shield), the boss fights do very little beside advancing the story, and even then only at times. To sum up these battles: circlestrafe with shields up, hold down lock on key until circle is filled, release missile key, rinse, repeat, with an occasional dashing for the repair kit/ammo kit for their respective needs, loop until boss is dead (will take you a few tries on some of the harder bosses, but I can't even fathom beating them in any other method)
Lastly, you have the mission/level design. It's pretty bad. There are collectables that you can...collect to gain decals for your mech (military themed small tattoos for your bot) or money. They're pretty hard (and very tedious) to find, and the rewards aren't worth it. The secondary objectives are pretty passive outside of a handful of cases. Some enemies feel unfair (specifically, the one where you're forced to use sniper equipment against close range bots - with the catch that they start off about 25 steps from you, they're extremely agile and they don't go down in one shot center mass), and some sequences feel flat-out boring (rail shooting from a transport ship sequences).
Conclusion (and a summary of everything above): The combat is good when you're not in a boss battle or a third person shooter sequence, drawing mainly from its great feel of weapon impact and speed, but the game as a whole is pretty hard to like since everything else about it is GODDAMN TERRIBLE. Most of the story will make you want your time back, and the good parts (all 10 minutes of it, combined from 5 two minute mini slide shows) reek of kojima (the same way that megaman EXE 5 did). The third person cover based shooter sequence will make you hate third person shooters for a good while, and the boss fights will either make you bored or make you angry. Don't get this game unless you're looking for something a bit more complex after playing dynasty warrior: gundam, or if you're so starved for mech combat that you'd dig through 6 hours of TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE CONTENT for about two hours (if not less) of simple, yet feel-good combat spread very thin in between.
Also, Again to note: THE GAME DOES NOT GIVE THE PILE DRIVER A PILE DRIVER ANIMATION. ALL MELEE WEAPONS ARE SWUNG IN AN ARC TO HIT THE ENEMY, THERE IS NOT NEEDLE PRESSING OR ANY RESEMBLANCE OF PUNCHING IN THIS GAME. EVEN THE THIRD PERSON SHOOTER SEQUENCE HAS YOU THROWING (very ineffective) ELBOW CUTS (I totally would've given the game 3, 3 and a half stars if it at least had that and a cool kill animation for it. but NOOOOOOOO.)
