To kick off the Summer Of EDF, we continue in chronological order, after having reviewed the original Earth Defence Force on its PS2 debut, more specifically the PAL version that was released by Agetec as “Monster Attack” and now it’s rare to get, so much it’s cheaper to import the japanese PS2 version instead, also because it never came out in America.
And to be clear, while i do have the PAL release of EDF 2 (since it was once again not published in US back then), handled by D3 via their own label, Essential Games, made specifically for export to Europe their Simple series low budget releases) titled Global Defence Force (yes “Defence”, i’m fairly sure they never fixed the typo because i doubt they bothered to issue a reprinting just to fix the title), and i’m also aware of the japanese-only PSP port that also added extra classes.
Buy i’m choosing instead to review the PS Vita enhanced port-update-remake, Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space, not only for the hilarious title (or the fact it was the first time the game was released in US markets), but because it’s basically the definitive EDF 2 experience, and – alongside pretty much every mainline EDF game – also the version ported to Switch, only in Japan even on the digital storefronts at the time of writing.
Story is actually where the PS Vita versions shows more effort, as in the story is basically “in 2017, alien bugs and robots attacked Earth. Now they’re back for seconds, starting from London”, but it’s a huge improvement over the PAL release, since the original japanese PS2 release had voice overs, but to cut corners D3 did not bother with an english dub when releasing as Global Defense Force, so it just had the silent, hyperbrief cutscenes at the beginning and end of the game, overall pretty typical for a budget release of theirs.
which sound sacrilegious nowadays, as half the fun of EDF it’s the hilarious so bad it’s good tier of voice acting spouting piles of non sense dialogue from the various soldiers and scientists and such, and i love they could have kept the name of the enemy as “Gigantors” from the previous english translation…. but instead rechristened them as “Buggernauts”. Love it!
The gameplay its… EDF, controls are identical to the first one, with no forced used of the Vita rear touchpads, for example (though they can be mapped if you wish so), the gameplay systems are identical (weapon drops from the crates are mostly random, armor pickups increase your max health, etc), most of the vehicles from the first game can be found (or ignored, since they still control like ass and are pretty much the EDF equivalent of war elephant mounts in Dynasty Warriors), so surprising no one, EDF 2 does what you’d expect from a sequel (even to a budget game), there’s just more.
More weapons, more new levels, more missions, more enemies and now it actually runs better, like, i played the original PS2 release and it’s actually surprising how much better it runs compared to the first game, especially for the hardware which was old by then and it being a budget game, the framerate is quite good for the excess of shit the game throws at you , and the Vita version indeed runs better as you would easily – and rightfully – expect, though it doesn’t look THAT much improved, it’s a port of a port, after all, but honestly it would be quite reasonable to have expected more polish from an alleged remake of a by then 10 years old PS2 budget game.
Sure, EDF players aren’t by nature fussy about outdated graphic, but honestly the performance, while improved, has still some issues, with some stuttering (which in my experience always somehow involved using a flamethrower weapon, for some reason) and far from rare pop-in of your alien foes from the mists of the draw distance, so it’s fair to say some more work could have been done in this regard, especially given the capabilities of the Vita, but on the other hand it’s a D3 Publisher owned budget series, so….
Though EDF 2 is where the series started having classes, as you can now choose between the good ol’ but basic Infantry (redubbed Ranger in later games) soldier man, and the Pale Wing, aka female soldiers units with 60s sci-fi latex attire, which have low defense but also an energy bar used by both her unique weapons and the jetpack that enable them to fly, until the fuels runs out and has to recharge. As it usually does.
Honestly being portable is a perfect match for the experience Earth Defense Force delivers, and it delivers it with some gusto, ramping up the challenge fairly early on, for a nice change of pace, though there are the usual caveats that stem from it being a budget series, as in there’s still like 6/7 huge locales reused over the course of the 70+ missions, there is more variety to the types of enemies, but also plenty of recolored variants or straight up reskinned enemies that now have 4 times the attack power and HP but are otherwise identical to the base one, like the armored spiders you encounter late in the game. Typical EDF.
Also, as part of the extra content originally added in the PSP port, this version also has the extra class of Air Raider, originally introduced in the first release of EDF 4, the one localized as EDF 2025, and it’s nice because the three classes are varied and offer completely different experience (Pale Riders having low HP growth and being unable to use vehicles because she can fly off basically anytime, for example), though – i guess for balance or whatever – this iteration of the Air Raider can’t summon vehicles and has different options for strike attacks, and some of the class distinctive weapons like C-Bombs and Impulse are given to the Ranger/Infantry.
Not surprising that this specific take on the Air Raider class would later show up as a separate variant of the class in EDF World Brothers.
The PSP version (and in turn this PS Vita port) also adds 7 new missions/levels on top of the 71 missions of the original game, with the main campaign taking me like 26 hours to beat on Normal, which is where to paraphrase – the true EDF begins, as harder difficulties will really require you to grind if you hope to even barely survive the onslaught and maybe bring home new, more more powerful weapons that don’t drop on Easy or Normal, required in turn to even stand a chance to tackle the Inferno challenge, which does live up to the name.
As expected, the game retains the option for a versus match, alongside both local and online co-op play, which elevates the whole experience into a hilarious b-movie riot.
The original EDF laid the foundation for the franchise, but it’s with EDF 2 that the series really come into its own, not that most would ever known, due to its retitled PAL release and the series being MIA in the American market until EDF 2017, aka Earth Defense Force 3.
Sure, that and the sequels are technically better games overall in every way, but the core appeal of the series is here already in full force, it’s still a lot of fun, honestly it’s say it’s actually better than the base release of EDF 2017, even if it does reasonably feels like a rougher version of the more recent mainline EDF games, it’s still worth checking out by fans that might have joined with 4.1 or 5 or even the spin-off, because EDF 2 is indeed peak classic Earth Defense Force, for better or worse.
And it needs to escape the “Vita containtment room”, as much i like the console this really should have been ported to Steam and Switch worlwide by now.
But as a testament that niche series could (and can) still thrive despite the gaming market being itself, Sandlot would return to the future of the past with Earth Defense Force 3, AKA Earth Defense Force 2017.
Wise Cafe (International) 