Squaresoft is responsible for a huge majority of masterpieces in the JRPG genre, company had so many creative teams, ideas, ambition and budget, they created some of the most beloved videogames of all time, especially on their Super Nintendo and Playstation era
And naturally, we know most of their flagship titles like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and Dragon Quest, but the amount of hidden masterpieces they created is a testemant to their brilliance. And in my opinion, Front Mission Gun Hazard is the most underrated game they ever developed, mostly because it released only in Japan, and rereleased only once on the Wii Virtual Console, again, only in Japan. Which is such a shame for such a high quality product with tons of polish, ambition, and production value. This game pushes Super Famicom to it's absolute limits with top tier visuals, soundtrack and gameplay,while also delivering a strong narrative. It's basically the complete package.
Story starts of as a simple "go defend your country and kill the bad guy" type of revenge plot, after the end of that arc, it turns into a political action thriller with themes such as shadow governments, cruel realities of war, betrayal, loyalty and more. It's not the best story you could ever find in a RPG or something like that, but it's very consistent,well paced, engaging,has a very likeable and memorable cast, and a balanced tone
Gameplay on the other hand, is one of the best i've ever seen in an RPG, it's a side scroller action RPG, kind of like Contra, but the main difference is, you use mechs called Wanzers, which is a very natural fit for both the genre and the series itself.
Controls are buttery smooth, you can feel the weight of your mech, but it's not hard to control at all, even just moving around and shooting stuff randomly is fun, and as the game progresses, your mech becomes faster and more mobile, and you unlock tons of different weapons to customize your mech depending on your playstyle. I probably can play this game 5 more times and each of them would be different enough to not get tedious.
With this many options, it may seem like customization would be a little overwhelming, but everything is very streamlined and quick to manage
Level design also supplements this fantastic gameplay, every single main mission in this game is packed with action enough for an entire game and every single setpiece is very memorable, there are some side missions that are essentialy there for grinding, but except for those, mission design in this game is fantastic
Music is composed by two of the best composers in the history of Square, Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu. While this soundtrack doesn't exactly in the same level with games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI and Xenogears, it's still a soundtrack full of bangers and memorable melodies that fits perfecly to the more futuristic setting, especially the boss theme lives in my head rent free since the first time i heard it
This game probably won't be remastered of even rereleased anytime soon, if you even slightly like SNES RPG's, definitely don't miss this game, it desperately needs the recognition it deserves as one the greatest RPG's on the SNES