Front Mission 3 Remake shows how lazy AI can ruin a good game

Will studios and publishers ever get the message that gamers don't like AI slop? Or do they just think players don't hate it enough for it to put them off a game? The Front Mission 3 Remake out now for Nintendo Switch 2 appears to have set a new low, and it was completely unnecessary (See our Nintendo switch 2 review and guide to Nintendo Switch 2 prices if you're interested in the new console).

Don't get me wrong; I think AI has some potentially interesting uses in game development, but lazy use of AI art is not one of them. Based on the images posted by fans on social media, it appears that Megapixel Studios and Forever Entertainment applied AI upscaling to all of the original 2D art assets from the PS1 game. But rather than merely enhance and sharpen the originals, it's added strange hallucinations and uncanny artifacts.

Character portraits show features bleeding together, the pool of a water fountain appears to have become an ice rink, a factory now looks like a village with enormous vehicles, city scenes add half cars, and Wanzers, the game's mechas, become random pieces of unrecognisable machinery.

"At every turn, this 2025 remake looks worse than the 1999/2000 original," writes Cullen Black in his review for Nintendo Insider. "It cheapens Front Mission 3 into something it’s not: A product to be consumed and thought little about."

FRONT MISSION 3: Remake || Nintendo Switch Launch Trailer - YouTube

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Frankly, the AI art in the Front Mission 3 Remake looks awful, and it makes me wonder why they bothered. If there wasn't the time or budget to re-render the artwork, the original pixel art would have been preferable to what has to be the most baffling use of AI imagery I've seen in game development since the release of that bizarre Ark: Aquatica trailer.

The fact that nobody thought the results were off suggests this remake didn't receive a lot of love, but then this is the third Front Mission games to see a remake in just four years, and each one was one by a different studio.