I received a pre-release key Earth Defense Force 6 on Monday of this week. Do you know how many missions these games usually have? We’re talking about 40 hours, at least, and I’m lucky I’m awake for that many hours each week.
The marketing material even says it’s the biggest game yet in terms of missions. I’d say I believe that, but it’s really tough to tell. The narrative pacing in these games is so disjointed that it’s tough to tell what part of the story (if any) you’re in. Big bad bads are introduced and then taken away for later. Superweapons are developed and then gone. It’s tough to wrap your head around it.
This may sound like a complaint, but there is a lot of truth in it. Earth Defense Forces which you just take for what they are. They are far from the most sophisticated games, and any attempt to push them further in that direction would compromise their charm and appeal. So either you accept all the coarse elements and just enjoy launching ants into orbit, or you don’t. Earth Defense Force 6 doesn’t change that one bit.
EDF5 this is the fifth time that the series has been relaunched, if we count games not made by Sandlot. EDF6 continued. The action begins a few years after the invasion depicted in the previous game, and everything sucks. The world lies in ruins, and humanity has utterly failed in its attempts to rebuild society.
The plot is different, and the player finds himself in decaying cities and fights with the remnants left by the aliens, but it will be awful familiar if you’ve played any of the previous games. You start out with a compact arsenal, fighting compact groups of basic enemies, and then things build up. If you’ve been playing since 2007 Earth Defense Forces 2017 like me, the early missions where you just bash a bunch of ants with pea soup got dull.
Definitely skip the tutorial. It has a prologue where you and a scientist disguised as a banker are transported to a fresh military base. The commander gives this incredibly long and dull speech. Then you get a quick rundown of some incredibly obvious controls. The only bit of information that may be somewhat necessary is that you’re playing the same protagonist as in the previous game, and the man disguised as an accountant used to be a weapons manufacturer.
Once again, you have four classes. There’s the plain Ranger, the sleek Wing Diver, the supportive Air Raider, and the mechanized Fencer. Each has a completely different playstyle, which is especially useful in multiplayer. However, European Development Fund games have never had much strategy in them, so while each one is different, the differences aren’t that large.
You fight ants again, which eventually give way to weirder enemies. There are a ton of fresh enemies to contend with, but it’s the same flow.
The narrative is strangely engaging. The story is not something you usually play European Development Fund games, considering that many of them are told through scratchy, one-sided radio conversations with fantastically over-acted commentary. It’s equally clumsy in Earth Defense Force 6and while it’s not very well told, it does change in ways I didn’t expect. I’m almost on edge wondering what’s going to happen next.
On the other hand, I cannot emphasize enough how much EDF6 is like EDF5. The graphical improvements are so minor that you might not even notice them. It still looks like a PS3 game with a 4K texture pack.
In fact, if I had to name one fresh feature that was added, I could only say that there is a fresh sub-weapon slot. Sure, fresh weapons and monsters have been added, but that’s exactly what you’d expect from a sequel. If EDF6 wasn’t that huge of a game, I’d say it should have just been an add-on.
I’ll get back to the details when I’m ready to give you a full review, but this is the warning I want to give you if you’re about to click the purchase button Earth Defense Force 6. If you haven’t finished EDF5you’re not missing out on much if you just go back and play it. If he did end EDF5and you want more, this is a safe and sound purchase. Earth Defense Force 6 there is certainly more Earth Defense Forces.
