2017 passed, and the alien menace was repelled… for 8 years, as in 2025 the Ravagers returned with a vengeance, striking from within the depths of Mother’s Earth crevices.
I’m cheating a bit as i’m not reviewing the original PS3/X360 release of EDF 4, called Earth Defence Force 2025 in the west since EDF 3 was retitled as EDF 2017, and not randomly as this is a direct sequel of the storyline in EDF 3/2017, which – as we learned by now – the series does every 2 mainline titles before rebooting itself.
Which also means it’s also a remake of sort of EDF 2/Global Defence Force, aside from bringing back some enemies from that entry (and introduces some the very same way in some missions), it also features very similar key plot beats, like the mothership being destroyed halfway through after being teased as the final boss to introduce the actual new, bigger menace.
The B-movie storyline is as fun as ever, as are the hilarious dubbing and insane dialogues shouted by the soldiers, or by some utterly cuckoo operator or scientist that almost orgasms when an air raid is carried out, as somehow this series manages to have even more ridiculous and batshit hilarious exchanges and plot points every entry, as it’s basically not really competing with anything else on the market, but itself, so – as already said by a very peculiar medical student/gaming Youtuber – it has to push the kaiju-alien ants-robots-alien robots-ufo consommè of B-movie delirium even further, and as EDF 5 later managed to, so did EDF 4/4.1 in upping its predecessor.
I’m not gonna spoil how, because the dialogues are really a trashy treat of over the top voice acting and really evoke the old 70s english dub jobs of kung fu films, just for a 50/60s sci fi style romp about aliens that might be ants, robots, both, none, and might be working in tandem.
The reason i skipped the original release entirely it’s because i heard and seen it struggling to run at a decent framerate on PS3/360, figured out this could use an expanded re-release/port to fix the issues, which it actually got, quite fast, with EDF 2025 releasing in 2014 westward) and already in 2015 we got Earth Defense Force 4.1: Shadow Of New Despair, released originally on PS4 (with later ports to Steam and the Japanese Switch eshop).
The 4.1 in the title is actually more than a nomenclature note indicating a port/upgrade of a previous release, since what we have it’s more akin to a remake of EDF 2025, with not only improved textures, improved lighting, a better framerate, more stable netcode, an overall better performance, but also a lot of rebalancing, typos and translation errors fixed, and the aforementioned changes of varying magnitude to the missions themselves.
and it’s thanks to this iteration(also release physically everywhere by Pqube and X-Seed) that we got to see the series popularity spread even further, to the point EDF 4.1 is now a “Playstation Hits” game, even in the west, not bad for a niche series about alien ant farm genocide and rocket launchering robots while razing the cities to the ground before the invaders get a chance to do it.
Gameplay is what you want from EDF, just with even more weapons and chaos thanks to the 4 playable classes, and while this isn’t a first for the series (that would go to EDF: Insect Armageddon), this is the first mainline EDF game to have them as a base offering and not added in later re-releases/ports, and work differently than the ones in Insect Armageddon, especially as the game – while having new features and weapons and stuff to improve co-op play – isn’t built as a team shooter even in single player.
Alongside the previous Ranger and Pale Wing, now we have the Air Raider, which is specialized in dropping vehicles for him or the Ranger to ride (mostly), ordering bombardment and such, and deploying various support gizmos, and the Fencer, which is the tank unit which can quad wield, with two weapons and a shield or support item for each arm, slow as ass… until you manage to understand how to handle his movement and equip gear to assist and make him basically “zip” around the battlefield, while he aggroes the various enemies.
I usually recommend either Ranger or Pale Wing to start off, as the Air Raider is -almost – a multiplayer only class and Fencer requires some time to master, but regardless even the basic Ranger/Infantry dude is still fun to play, even more thanks to the fuckloads of weapons to obtain, with the usual drop rate that becomes higher with the difficulty chosen for the mission, with the harder ones also introducing “mutant” recolored variants of old enemies that are even tougher.
Also, Air Raider playstile has more emphasis and actually makes the vehicles a more usable prospect/tool, which is always good even if the controls for most of these still aren’t great.
Gotta love the crawler thingie for cave missions and especially the giant robot, though, and now there are seats or spot where other players can go on a vehicle, so one player can drive, another chill in the back, one man the turrets or other weapons if available, so an improvement over all.
Speaking of weapons, sadly the dupes will be abudant as you still need to ransack every weapon crate that falls on the map for the chance of getting a new weapon or a dupe, which might as well be nothing since it would took EDF 5 to have something to make the item hunt less time wasting and have some use for the dupes that are guaranteed due to esoteric RNG beyond the drops.
Yeah, this is classic, Sandlot developed EDF, and we got attached even to the warts of the old, old school of design on display here, as well as with the qualities of its addictive simplicity.
The “recruit soldier NPCs” mechanic from EDF 2017 is still present, and the overall feeling of actually dropping into a warfare is enhanced by the maps having NPC vehicles and soldiers do their scripted routine, though they can still help in defeating the hordes, those tanks are not for shows; definitely an improvement over EDF 2017 which had the still invincible civilians NPC unbothered by either friendly or unfriendly fire and the “lost kids soldier units” to shepherd in what were otherwise barren (even if by necessity, kinda) and deserted maps.
More classes, more enemy types (some really fuckin weird and out there for the setting, i’m not gonna spoil, just play it), more weapons and gear, and even more missions, with and now with the same amount of missions only for the online co-op mode, as it uses a separate progression and has 9 new missions added for this mode only, making the online missions reach almost hundred.
Alongside local split-screen co-op, there’s still the Versus mode found in the mainline games since its PS2 debut, which is at least good for trying out some weapons, not much else, but it helps round out the package, and then there is DLC, in terms of Mission Packs of incredible, absurd difficulty, and a dozen or so of single weapons and special vehicle variants, like the tank with the Bullet Girls decals and some other collaboration stuff with other D3 properties, like the “decoy launchers” which deploy a different inflatable, chibi style decoy of girls from the Dream Club series.
It was the biggest EDF ever at the time in every regard, and due to some odd design choices in EDF 5 (especially in terms of weapon quirks and mechanics for the energy based ones), a non-insignificant amount of fans still hold it as the definitive EDF title, i feel.
And i kinda agree, maybe because i’m buyist, but it is the perfect title to try and see if you can dig what the EDF mainline series can offer, and i would recommend it exactly for that very reason.
If you never played EDF and might not be interested in playing what are very similar games, start here and you will definitely know if it’s up your alley or not. You never know. Until you do.
Wise Cafe (International) 