Front Mission: Gun Hazard (フロントミッションシリーズ ガンハザード) is a side-scrolling role-playing shooter video game developed by Omiya Soft and published by Squaresoft, and was released in Japan on February 23, 1996 for the Super Famicom game console. Gun Hazard is the first spin-off entry and the second entry overall in the Front Mission series. It takes place in a completely separate universe from the other Front Mission games.
Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu are the game's music composers.
Front Mission: Gun Hazard contains the following tropes:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: Albert Grabner and his allies can reach level 99. However, all of their best equipment is unlocked before each of them reach level 40.
- The Alleged Car: Your starting Wanzer, the FN-08 Harby-G.
- Ambidextrous Sprite: The standard humanoid wanzer is predominantly right-handed; They hold a gun in their right hand while they carry a shield in their left hand which, due to program limitations, gets flipped to the opposite hand when they face the left side of the screen.
- Attack Drone: Gun Hazard has "Wireless Gunpod" weapons.
- Ax-Crazy: Gun Hazard also graces us with worthy contenders for the title, notably Colonel Ark Hellbrand and Bishop the Berserker.
- BFG: Intermittently played straight in Gun Hazard. Your most likely candidates in the core games include missile sites, aerial bombardments and other called-from-offscreen or cutscene-restricted displays of conventional military firepower.
- Cool Ship: Moreso in Gun Hazard than the mainline games, though some military helicopters and planes in the mainline could count.
- Critical Annoyance: The one in Gun Hazard is known for being one of the few you can turn off.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: Gun Hazard does this with infinite vernier power for two aerial missions, and infinite dash for a few missions... although the later roller dash units can pretty much go on forever anyway.
- Death from Above: Brenda Lockheart is the pilot of your carrier and she has a limited number of bombs that she can drop on enemies at your command.
- Energy Weapon: You can use laser rifles that fire a thin or medium-length beam, depending on what you buy. The Spark Shot special weapon fires a homing-type laser, too. Enemy units have a wider variety of laser weapons to play with. There is also the ATLAS orbital elevator's main beam cannon, which is powerful enough to erase towns from existence.
- Foreshadowing: Albert Grabner begins to notice that things are not what they seem to be on the outside.
- The Leader of the Cenktrich Guerrillas comments that the Nerve Gas is essential to their European Operations.
- The leader of the ZOHAR Alliance intended to destroy the Qasala Dam to destabilize the Middle East region instead of ending the war with the ARS.
- Luven Al-Habi points out the impossibility of the ZOHAR Alliance's ability to independently develop an advanced weapon like the Particle Cannon and strongly believes that they had received outside help. Luven's suspicions turned out to be right.
- Mr. Rinker tells Albert that Orwen willingly abdicated his position to Ark which seems very unlike him to give up that easily. It turns out that Orwen was actually replaced by an impostor.
- Luven is surprised to see that the mercenaries that are all over Tangany are very organized to the point of fighting like a regular army.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: In the finale of Gun Hazard, during the assault on ATLAS, almost all of the supporting cast you've worked with before in the other areas. Richard Millman from the Kernelight Association seems to head things up, with a posse of mercs who take out the AA defenses so you can make your assault. Pretty much every one of Albert Grabner's former contractors also makes an appearance there.
- The Grim Reaper: The Preatorian's motif in Gun Hazard and he plays it rather well, making use of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe to communicate, piloting the reaper-like Edel Ritter wanzer and killing "The Society" superiors like Jose, who have failed the organization. His only mistake is not wielding a scythe as a weapon but a giant rod with a iron ball on the top.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The SPS (Spark Shot) is by far the best special weapon as it is intangible (Physical Shields cannot block it), has automatic lock-on (never misses), hits instantly, and inflicts fast and heavy damage. The catch is that it's not available until late in the story and can only be found for sale at a secret shop.
- Kill Sat: We have ATLAS.
- Robot Buddy: An Easter Egg in Gun Hazard.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Mostly averted. But none of the Gun Hazard developers seemed to be aware of the lack of feasibility in making an orbital elevator a couple of kilometers wide when they designed the ATLAS. Then again, considering its true purpose...
- Space Elevator: ATLAS, which was unfinished when alternate energy sources were discovered.
- The Syndicate: "The Society" led by Henry Sherwood from Gun Hazard. A cabal of powerful and influential Europeans dedicated towards bringing about a "New World Order", starting conflicts to weaken national governments and make them ripe for control. After bringing them to control, The Society would then bring about "peace" in the war-torn region. In the expanded universe media, it is revealed that the organization was formed by the architects of the "ATLAS" orbital elevator after countries involved with the project had abandoned it. Dismayed at how humanity chose to throw away an opporunity for real peace and progress, Henry vowed revenge against the very nations that once supported "ATLAS".
- Time Skip: Six years pass from the end of Gun Hazard to its epilogue.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Gun Hazard takes place around 2064 (although this game is not canon). The series storyline starts action in 2034 with about a century of backstory. Neither has progressed far enough for wanzers to completely displace conventional military force.
- Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Averted, shot for shot Napalm Guns are the most damaging firearms for your Wanzer and the Flamethrower special weapon is pretty effective too. There are drawbacks - the napalm guns are secret weapons that can only be found (not purchasable) and they can't be upgraded. The flamethrower has a limited range. But both weapons' benefits outweigh their limitations.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The majority of Gun Hazard's BFGs are this.
- We Will Use Lasers in the Future: Nothing wrong with the vulcans and shotguns you get, but in this particular Front Mission setting - energy weapons are king.
- World Tour: In Gun Hazard, you'll get to travel to Bergen (Norway), Vorkuta and Sivilska (Russia), Cenktrich (Switzerland), Al-Hari (Saudi Arabia), Zambola (Zambia), Machu Picchu (Peru), Esporte (Brazil) and the shop-only United States and Australia.
