Image Source: Square Enix (Game: Front Mission 3)
Front Mission 3 offers an expansive and tactical gameplay experience, where strategic team management and weapon selection can significantly impact your success. In this guide, I’ll focus on Emma’s story route (my favorite) and provide tips on optimizing your team composition, battle strategies, and skill setups to gain a competitive edge. Although some adjustments may be needed if you’re following Alissa’s storyline, these core strategies will remain applicable.
Character Jobs and Recommended Weapons
You can recruit up to 8 characters in Front Mission 3. Here’s a breakdown of each character’s default job and main weapon:
- Ryogo & Yun: Machine Gun & Shotgun
- Dennis & Jose: Sniper
- Emma & Linny: Missile/Support
- Kazuki & Marcus: Melee Knuckle + Shotgun & Melee Piercing
Suggested Weapon Adjustments
I highly recommend using machine guns, melee knuckles, and missiles for your primary weapons. Here’s why: Shotguns have limited range, other melee weapons (like piercing and baton) offer lower damage despite higher accuracy, and missile weapons provide significant range advantages compared to snipers. Consequently, I reassigned Dennis and Jose from snipers to missile users early in the game. The final job layout should be:
- Ryogo & Yun: Machine Gun
- Dennis, Jose, Emma, & Linny: Missile/Support
- Kazuki & Marcus: Melee Knuckle
Each team of 4 characters should ideally include 1 melee, 1 machine gun, and 2 missile units. This balanced composition allows for optimal damage potential and flexibility.
Basic Strategies for Battles
Image Source: Square Enix (Game: Front Mission 3)
4 Wanzers vs. 1 Wanzer
Most battles require you to destroy all enemy wanzers, so try to focus all four of your team members on one enemy at a time. The ideal sequence is:
- Melee initiates the attack.
- Missiles follow up with two strikes.
- Machine Gun finishes with the last hit.
For enemies that surrender, avoid using melee or machine gun attacks to prevent accidental destruction; missiles hardblow punch work best for safely capturing enemy wanzers.
Keep your units close enough for shared damage mitigation and item distribution (repair, restore). Equipping each character with a backpack and shield enhances survival against larger enemy forces. Additionally, close positioning encourages AI enemies to distribute their attacks more evenly across your units, which increases your team’s longevity.
Increasing AP Points
Action Points (AP) are crucial in Front Mission 3, as they’re used for every move—attacking, defending, countering, and more. Each character can reach a maximum of 30 AP points, which enhances both defense and attack opportunities. You can grind for AP by engaging in simulator mode battles, where characters gain experience and skills.
Grinding in Simulator Mode
If you’re facing tough battles in story mode, spend some time in simulator mode to boost AP and gather resources. Battles here also yield money, new skills, and increased AP, especially for your top characters. This mode can be sped up by activating the skip battle animation setting (start > config), allowing you to skip cutscenes and expedite grinding.
Optimal Wanzer Parts
Image Source: Square Enix (Game: Front Mission 3)
Early-game parts are generally effective, but as you progress, it’s beneficial to upgrade each unit’s parts. Here are my top recommendations for each type:
- Melee Wanzers
- Body: Zenislev
- L Arm (Weapon): Wude 3
- R Arm (Shield): Tiandong 3 / Wude 3
- Legs: Zenislev
- Backpack: BX002
- Missile Wanzers
- Body: Drake M2C
- L Arm (Weapon): Shangdi 1
- R Arm (Shield): Tiandong 3 / Wude 3
- Legs: Genie
- Backpack: BX002
- Machine Gun Wanzers
- Body: Tieqi 4
- L Arm (Weapon): Shangdi 1
- R Arm (Shield): Tiandong 3 / Wude 3
- Legs: Genie
- Backpack: BX002 / Rucksack L
Equipping characters with repair items, restore items, and missile ammo further boosts their combat effectiveness. My choices strike a balance between HP, weight, damage class modifiers, evade, and accuracy.
Best Battle Skills
Image Source: Square Enix (Game: Front Mission 3)
Skills are game-changers, especially combo skills that boost damage through multiple hits. For maximum efficiency, I suggest equipping single-slot skills and stacking duplicates to increase activation rates. Here are some of the best skills per role:
- Melee Skills:
- Tackle I (2x) – From Zenislev Body
- Shield Attack I (2x) – From Zeros Arm
- Stun Punch (2x) – From Kasel M2 Arm
- Missile Skills:
- Pilot DMG I (4x) – From Drake M2C Arm
- Zoom I (2x) – From Kyojun MK107 Body
- Machine Gun Skills:
- ROFUP I (3x) – From Kyojun MK107 Arm
- Pilot DMG I (3x) – From Drake M2C Arm
Computer recommendations: For standard battles, COMC554 is my go-to choice because it boosts skill combos, even if slightly lowering activation rates. COMG10 is useful for grinding skills in simulator mode.
Final Tips
Don’t forget to regularly restock necessary items, particularly missile ammo, repair, and restore kits in the shop network. With these tips, your team should be well-prepared to conquer the challenges in Front Mission 3.
Enjoy your journey, and happy gaming!
The game is one of those genres that I like the most, especially when turn-based warfare tactics are used, as is fire emblem.
Totally Agree. The customization on wanzer, skill, and strategy is complex enough, which is why I love it.
I played the hell out of it during the PS1 glory days, My team is usually 1 gun and 1 missile per wanzer.
1 gun and 1 missile sound good too. missile for opener and gun to "pepper up" the enemy's wanzer.