Front Mission 3 (Square Millennium Collection)

The Front Mission 3 Square Millennium Collection is for the mech collectors who never let go. Squaresoft's Japan-only Millennium Collection reissue of Front Mission 3 arrived in 2000 with a mini metal-figure set, a mini-flashlight, and a coin purse with keychain, the kind of unexpectedly practical bonuses that make this one of the more daily-life sets in the Millennium lineup.

Front Mission 3 was the strategy mech RPG that took itself seriously when nobody else did. Wanzers, not Gundams. Geopolitical conflict, not space opera. Branching campaigns where your choice of bunker doors split the entire story in half. The combat skill animations. The internet system. The sense that every part you bolted onto your wanzer mattered for the next twenty hours.

The mini metal-figure set is the headliner. Actual die-cast figures of the wanzers, in the kind of weight and finish that justifies why you keep this on a desk instead of in a drawer. The mini-flashlight and coin purse are the bonuses that made Squaresoft's Millennium Collection feel different from a normal collector's set. Real objects you might actually pick up and use, branded for a game most of your friends have never heard of.

Series 2, released September 28, 2000. Japanese exclusive. Front Mission 3 is already the deep-cut Squaresoft pick, and this edition is the deep cut within the deep cut.

For mech collectors, this is the piece that proves you weren't just here for Gundam. For Square completists, this is the one that fills the Front Mission slot in the Millennium row of your shelf.