I had been greatly anticipating Front Mission's release on DS and I purchased it day 1, but I have only gotten to playing it now (I'm about 5 hours in). I admittedly had high hopes, but so far my experience has been at best mixed. The visual and audio presentation are great. This is Front Mission through and through. Unfortunately, I am less impressed with the battle system. Being the first game in the series, I wasn't expecting it to be as polished as FM3, but this just feels primitive by comparison.
-The attack range balance is awful. Machine guns, melee weapons, rifles, shotguns, and flamethrowers all have a range of 1 space? Whats the point? In FM3, melee had a range of 1, flamer 2, shotgun 3, machine gun 4, and rifle 6. Machine guns are the only multi-hit short-range weapon- meaning that all of the other weapons are essentially identical to melee weapons. From a strategic standpoint there are only 3 short-range weapons: machine guns, bazookas (taking the place of rifles from the later games), and melee/rifle/shotgun/flame.
-The Wanzer weight restrictions are completely unbalanced. I am only 5 hours in, so this may improve as the game goes on, but this is just ridiculous. I have my main character equipped with a weapon in each hand, a launcher on each shoulder, and legs with the best possible mobility. That is not balanced. What is the point of weight restrictions if you can simply equip all of the best possible weapons and parts at the same time? Money limitations serve to balance this somewhat, but why even bother with weight restrictions if your only concern is money?
-The lack of attack-range and attack-accuracy information in battle is greatly missed. These are much more minor concerns (and may actually be my own fault). Is there a way to indicate the opponent's mobility/attack range? Having been raised on the Advanced Wars series and the later Front Mission games, I have come to expect indicators of the enemy's effective attack distance. In playing both series, a check of the enemy's attack range is how I always start my turn. Even without conveniently colored-in tiles, one can still count tiles to judge missile distances but there is no way to indicate their mobility, which varies from wanzer to wanzer. It is also frustrating that accuracy is not displayed attack by attack. Accuracy is a huge part of the Front Mission series. Both in weapon selection and positioning around the battlefield. Not having this information available greatly reduces the precision of strategic gameplay.