Front Mission 3 Part #84 - Mission #20: Lake Wobegon Days

Part 84: Mission #20: Lake Wobegon Days

Andy Waltfeld posted:

Here's hoping either that Smasher's playing off a proper PS1 or that he's aware that CHARLIE got swallowed by a bug in ePSXe that makes taking that route impossible on an emulator. Game hangs up on an eternal loading screen if you go that way. No word yet on if the PSN version has this issue.

There's a fix available...and I didn't take that path anyway.

e: Belay that cancellation!

Mission #20: Lake Wobegon Days

Two paths. Yingko follows the predetermined plan, and Xinzhu involves your party trying to save the diversionary squad, proving they do not understand the meaning of the word 'diversionary.' As if to underscore the idiotic nature of such a path, going to Xinshu may crash your emulator. Then again, piracy is wrong...

: BRAVO is engaging the enemy, proceed as planned.

: Enemies!? They haven't noticed us.

: Can't we just ignore them?

: No, it may be troublesome later. Let's hit them now.

: I agree. We should eliminate all possible obstacles.
And such is the nature of war that human beings are reduced to nothing more than 'obstacles.' That'd be chilling if it weren't, you know, a fucking video game.

: Okay, let's go!

: Enemy attack!

: What? Here!? Get a hold of yourself! Regroup and counterattack!

Kazuki, Ryogo, Dennis and Jose are the pilots. The forests of Taiwan is the setting. Annihilation is the mission.

The woods reduce accuracy in a tragic nod to realism. Hence, using three out of the four wanzers being equipped with burst weapons that can be trusted to do at least some damage.

I keep Dennis by the beach at the bottom of the map so that he can do something. The enemies are a half-dozen wanzers, Tiandongs and Yongsais, both of which are irritatingly rugged.

Crap, the Tiandong has 20 HP left and is about to attack. Oh, God, please don't let it hit Ryogo's body.

You're dead to me, Creator of the Universe!

Kazuki makes sure that mistake does not repeat itself.

And forces another enemy to surrender. Now that's productivity!

Ryogo soldiers on, slowly getting worn down until he has but 7 HP. How long can he last?

About three seconds!

Meanwhile, Jose continues the slow process of learning how to use a machine gun. Someday he'll be decent....someday.

And Dennis continues his mildly successful mission. He's kind of like the Squidbillies of wanzer pilots. It varies between 'terrible' and 'mediocre' and you're constantly amazed it hasn't been canceled.

In the main theater of operations, the party has tricked the last Tiandong in the map into trapping himself behind a tree. The AI can't manage to either destroy the tree or move into attacking range, so that Tiandong will sit there, inert, until I get around to killing it.