Classic RPG Returns in Free PC Demo, Full Release is Weeks Away

The remake of this classic 1999 PlayStation RPG is finally making its way to Steam in just over a month, but you can play the demo for it yourself right now if you just can’t wait to get your hands on it.

The OG PlayStation was home to quite possibly some of the best RPGs ever made. Xenogears, Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden II, Valkyrie Profile– I could probably go on for an entire paragraph, but my point is that the lineup was absolutely stacked.

One RPG on the PlayStation never seemed like it quite got the hype it deserved, however… at least, outside of Japan anyway.

Front Mission 3 was a bit of a mainstay in my PS1 disc tray. As I’m sure was the case for many, it was the first Front Mission game that I ever played, but I remember pumping close to a hundred hours into it when I was barely old enough to spell my own name.

Earlier this year, developer MegaPixel Studio S.A. and publisher Forever Entertainment released a Nintendo Switch exclusive remake of the game on June 26, titled Front Mission 3: Remake, and it went down poorly, to say the least.

Promo image from Front Mission 3 Remake's Steam page, Forever Entertainment

Now, full transparency, I’ve not played the remake yet, so I can’t talk on the quality of its gameplay. Also, it’s oddly difficult to find any reviews of the game, even though the remake is, at this point, over six months old.

That might make you assume that nobody bought it, which could be true, but the issue is a little deeper than that; many fans immediately noticed that the remake of Front Mission 3 is absolutely littered with AI-upscaled textures and artwork, which may have caused the series’ die-hard fans to skip out on the Nintendo Switch version of the game.

If you’re curious about how bad it is, I highly suggest giving RPG Site’s in-depth write-up a read.

However, if you want to see for yourself instead, you can head on over to the Steam page for Front Mission 3: Remake and try its new demo.

I’m not entirely sure if the Steam port of the remake has done away with the AI-upscaled art, but the trailer on Steam page seems to feature the same artwork in the gameplay snapshots.

That being said, there isn’t any kind of note on the Steam page stating that AI-upscaling was used, as required by Valve, so we may have to wait and see if the full version of the game on PC has done away with them when it releases on January 30.