As with what is now tradition, after a reboot follows a direct sequel, so Earth Defense Force 6 picks up some years after you killed God (or an alien God), with the global population reduced to a 10 % of what it was, but hey, you won, and reconstruction begun, as it always does.
You play as one of the elite soldiers from Team Storm that succeded in saving the planet years before, sent to a base that needs manpower as while the aliens retreated after… well, the “Hell Comes To Frogtown” ones were left abandoned on Earth, so they kinda still kick around in pure desperation, and you’re sent to deal with these poor bastards after a speech from EDF bootleg (and surprisingly nice) version of Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket, during the tutorial mission that continues the more attention given to presentation that started with EDF 5.
Then some old teleporting devices start teleporting monsters on Earth again, the monsters start laying down eggs to up their numbers, so it feels like you’re stuck on a loop of exterminating the hordes to avoid the enemies gaining more ground, and it feels like this stalemate is gonna keep going… until the biblical accurate alien mothership comes back, transports and un-transports another mothership kind of vehicle, then drops an entirely new kind of alien foes, very 50s/60s scifi style android enemies that launch their grabby knifed claws from afar.
So shit was already a desperate fight for a ruins filled Earth, NOW it’s basically a desperate struggle to fuck with a 0% chance of winning against super alien Hitler with a box of green army men as actual troops…. until you fight the biblically accurate ring shaped mothership again, fuck up something… and then you’re literally in an early mission of EDF 5.
That’s true, because after this – as the game itself puts it – “The Earth Defense Force 6 begins now”.
That was just the prologue to a plot that actually manages to surpass EDF 5 in utter unsanity and absolute, hilarious, dementia high level of convoluted sci fi bullshit to the point i’m impressed.
It wasn’t easy to top them busting out “fight God at the end” like it’s a JRPG, but they did manage to do so….by basically plucking plot devices and the main idea from time loops based manga/anime stories like Gantz, or a lot more like Tsutomo Nihei’s All You Need Is Kill (better known for its live action western film adaptation as Edge Of Tomorrow, though there’s an anime adaptation of that coming up), since the time loops are both an inflicted curse and the method used to solve the plot, which inevitably leds to time paradoxing, timelines and so on.
Trying to sum it up, you’re brought back in time when EDF 5 happened after shooting the huge spaceship (dubbed Ring for its shape) at the beginning of EDF 6, itself taking place after the end of EDF 5, but only you as the player and the Professor that was with you bring back memories of what happened in that timeline, and try as you might to change the outcome of the war in this new timeline, the Primers keep sending new enemies from the future to counter your every move.
Eventually you learn, as you keep resetting the timeline many times over, that the aliens are always two steps ahead, because they use evolved ship that record everything we did in that timeline and THEN travel back with a counter to what we achieved/did or gained, retroactively undoing any of our victories.
As to WHY the aliens are so hellbent in wiping us out, we learn that – as we partially learned in EDF 5 – they visited the planet before and were worshipped as gods by early humans.
And also, they’re not- technically – aliens. They come from Earth, millions of years in the future, where the creatures (like the giant ants and spiders) evolved without humans, so far that the aliens saw the ruins of our long gone civilization, traveled back in time to see what we’re like, and one accidentally crashed one of their egg shaped ships (again, not making anything up myself), revealing to the humans that yep, aliens exists.
So they’re basically forced to correct this paradox they created by making us extinct.
BUT they need to do that in a precise manner, because they can’t just kill us when we’re stone age cavemen, since they would swap the one time paradox they have for another one they can’t resolve, by solving a problem that doesn’t exist yet and now they will NEVER be able to fix, hence they go back in time to attack after the formation of the EDF as otherwise they would have no reason to correct a paradox that doesn’t yet exist.
ALSO, we also caused a time paradox of our own when we launch a dirty bomb on Mars, the only reason we nuked it in the first place because we believed it to be the location of the 11th alien Mothership… until we found out that one of the new main species of aliens are Martians and so we tried nuking the planet once more to avoid the aliens evolving to that point, or even evolve at all, eliminating a future treat. Bombs so nice, we dropped ‘em twice.
Again, it doesn’t work because of the evolved ships, so we do hunt those down, manage to correct all the mistakes of the original timeline (which includes a No More Hereos 2 style twist that honestly borders the line between genius and bullshit writing, one i’m gonna spoil soon), we finally meet their final weapons… a metal Rayquaza that opens to reveal UBER PETA ALIEN GOD enclosed in that peeks out with its cyclopean eye after destroying the metal dragon a bit.
Confused? Well, basically Time(TM) itself is implied to be sentient, since it gets tired of the EDF curbstomping the butterfly effect to its advantage, and of the aliens doing their own time bullshit, so you, as the legendary soldier Storm 1 (and your team) are chosen as humanity’s champion, and TERA ALIEN GOD RAYQUAZA as the Primer’s champion, and who wins gets to exist.
Then again, consider the medium IQ in the EDF is equivalent to a rock’s, as it takes multiple time loops to make these imbeciles realize (aside from the “shooting at the glowing red point that show up when a spaceship drops monsters” thing) they could have used the Pacific Rim style giant robots they did already had for fighting the kaijus and so on.
They didn’t think of that because the giant robots were technically “giant cranes” for moving shit about. And they gave the code for the elevator in the base that leads to their hangars to a SINGLE DUDE in the entire EDF, the guy that dies instantly in the tutorial mission of EDF 5.
God how i love you, EDF. Never fuckin change.
Seriously though, despite its absurd logic, i’m in awe at the fact that all the convoluted time travel, time looping and paradox fixing shit… it mostly checks out, in its own way.
My only gripe is that the aliens never noticed that we were eventually picking off the time travelling ships that contained all the info from that future timeline, and didn’t just made more than 10 of those, but then again you get an extra advantage over the aliens, as – in a completely unexpected move – to unlock the final set of missions, you gotta find the newly appeared “???” missions, where you destroy the aforementioned “data log ships that travel back in time”, as it plays into turning the battle in your favour by using the indirect time machine that is the level select screen.
Cute, and i did not expect EDF to get meta on my ass, shame it’s not used to bring about branching paths or different endings, come on Sandlot, this was the time to do it, since you stuck a time travel plot device to reuse a lot of EF 5, and even for that you had a New Vegas style text at the end explaining how things panned out, here it just says “CONGRATULATIONS!” over the 4 classes/soldier types, sod it, we’re done.
See you in Earth Defence Force 10 or X, depending how they’re gonna call it.
I seriously love the plot, though it’s kinda a cop out since the time looping plot is an excuse to also recycle plot beats and classic lines from EDF 5 verbatim, we get to see most of the same reactions of the EDF soldiers and people that didn’t time travel, so we get to relive the “they look nothing like US” shizzle and “they’re just like US” Bad Boys 2 style lines when they see the frog alien men. XD
And eventually the Professor itself starts quoting the dialogues from the missions before they happen as he also timelooped a fuckin lot and memorized the script, which is funny, and i will admit they did some clever stuff with them reusing a lot of EDF 5, even in terms of story, so yeah, they did manage to outbatshit insane their way even about of the previous entry.
Which leads to the inevitable issues but also fully expected by now realities from mainline EDF, as in, even more than before (and often literally), a 75 % of EDF 6 being recycled from EDF 5 in terms of content. While recycling of assets is expected from a low budget series such as this, EDF 6 straddles the lines between even more shameless recycling and borderline ingenious method of doing the same stuff but with a twist despite the budget.
Heck, since i didn’t go into any detail while talking about the original PS2 EDF game that started the series, it’s worth remembering, itself was a desperate asset flip by the developer, Sandlot, that had to cobble something together to avoid closing down, despite doing some unique stuff, like the beloved cult classic that is Gigantic Drive (better known as RAD: Robot Alchemic Drive for the PS2, at least in the US, since it never released in Europe, alongside their Japan-only Testujin 28/Gigantor PS2 game that is similar to RAD), and also something related to a super sentai show.
It was a miracle and even thought they also did some peculiar games about piloting mecha and even RPGs, but they never left Japan, and eventually Sandlot settled on EDF as their main (and only) focus, especially from the 2010s and onwards.
This little history lesson aside, as i said, gameplay in EDF remains identical between releases, and for me the first “big” surprises were subtitles: yes, FINALLY we have subtitles, so everyone can easily soak in the hilarious and dumbass dialogues of EDF, in this iteration with a lot of talk about eating monsters in early missions. XD
Gameplay wise, it’s a surprisingly challenging EDF game, even right off the bat, definitely the hardest yet, even on the default Normal difficulty, and this is a costant not just at the beginning, so even if you grinded some nifty weapons and upgraded your max health limit, a single distraction can have you wiped out easily even if you grind a lot.
There are some nice new QoL features, admitted, incremental and that should have been there since the start but weren’t (like a damage display with damage numbers), the controls are better and now all classes have more unique slots or extra gear categories that lead to a better experience, like even the Ranger class having now a slot for “Backpack Tools”, that go from simple grenade from the Hololive decoy launcher weapons (more on that later), and backpack tools items can be used during reloads without stopping the process, making all classes more playable.
Ranger has been improved, as the dash (that also widens the radius for collecting items) is even faster, you can steer better during the dash itself, the unit can climb and now mantle over certain obstacles (like the Fencer can now).
One of the notable addition to the arsenal of the Air Raider are basically an entirely new class of drone-deployed weapons that accompany his classic strikes and bombardments. These actually make the class playable without entirely relying on the limpet guns while waiting for enough credits to call in the raids and bombardements, which you still have, but the new drones are there since missions can take place in timelines where you don’t have artillery or air support at all (plus for the few underground missions), so you can’t call bombardments, or even some vehicles.
Speaking of vehicles, now more missions give you one at the start, especially when fighting kaiju enemies, and given the increased difficulty the vehicles really do come in handy to deal with enemies, another step forward after Edf 5 made them more useful.
Also, bless them for trying to make some vehicles less of a piece of shit to use… but as usual, the motorcycles are completely unwieldy to the point it’s useless to bother, even if you feel like reenacting a favourite Kamen Rider episode. We have bikes with laser cutters… which doesn’t matter because you spend more time airborne after being flung off than on the motorcycle itself.
Wing Divers had their air dash/boost confusingly made less strong/wide, but to tarp over the way energy weapons worked in EDF 5 (as in they charge and recharge drawing from the same energy/fuel bar, regardless if they have 1 shot or magazines), now they can equip a self-sustained energy core for backpack tool usage items, and have support items like the new energy shield.
Fencers are… identical, they don’t get shit, and are as always hard to master as a class, but able to become unstoppable once you get the hang of its movement and weaponry management.
Just wish we had at least 1 new class to play as, maybe, i dunno, a submariner type of unit, ironically there are a good chunk of sea or sea themed new enemies (like the alien squids and the burrowing robots that look like clams) but that would require making underwater combat a thing, and clearly Sandlot doesn’t care, … and then again, both enemies fly (yes, the squids fly).
I do believe they are resting a bit on their laurels for this one, even knowing full well for the serie changes are mostly incremental, minimum, few, but still, one new class to play as would be cool, Iron Rain had a grapping hook unit able to tame enemy ants and such, something like that would have been cool, like having a class that can tame and/or mind-control the monsters.
One aspect where they did improve is the enemy variety, it’s a lot more well paced, you don’t have to wait dozens of missions to see new enemies or variants, and the enemies are cool, especially the Krull, basically the Mars people from Metal Slug, but with energy shields, flying squids, new types of robot, drones, alonsgide the grey aliens, the humanoid frogs and the classic EDF foes.
sadly its kinda paid with the game recicling outright some entire areas (some are different, similar but have different stuff in its once you get familiar with them) from Edf 5, yeah i know it’s actually explained why, but still, heck ESPECIALLY because the game is also the longest ever in EDF history, they could have added more new locales alongside the EDF 5 holdovers… which they did, to a degree, it’s just that – as usual – they tend to look similar to the ones of the same type from previous games, it’s expected but to a fault, but i will say i’m glad Sandlot continued the trend from EDF 5 of having far more playable underground levels, and having them less confusing to navigate.
One thing that got worse is the weapon drops rates, finishing the game on Normal will unlock ONLY 25 % of the entire arsenal, so to get the new weapons that are present alongside the many returning weapons from Edf 5 (pretty much all of them) will require even more grinding in order to tackle the harder difficulties…. and i don’t think this is a spiteful design choice: it’s not that they nerfed the drop rates, it’s most likely just an unintended byproduct of EDF regular insane RNG drop system AND it having to be “spread” over the campaign with most missions yet in EDF history, since drops depend not only on the difficulty, so there’s no chance of dropping some weapons if you don’t play a certain set of levels at a specific difficulty setting.
As usual playing as a class ups the odds of the drops being for that class, but it’s still insane, it’s like a gacha situation, despite being no actual gacha, EDF has always been like this, and while i wouldn’t mind them fixing this, it has been more than a year since launch, meaning most likely they don’t see it at an issue and -let’s be real – never will.
We EDF fans are something else and won’t mind much, we’re used to this, but it will make potential new players desist because you basically forcing them to replay the game dozens of times and grind like a motherfucker, often for nothing because stuff like the Barga mech drops only on the last blocks of mission on Hard and Harderst, and it’s super shit given how relatively small the amount of new weapons and gadgets and vehicles is compared to the Edf 5 holdovers.
Especially since you still have to manually hunt down the armor boxes and weapon boxes.
Technically, it looks pretty much identical to Edf 5, which is kinda disappointing, i mean, it has been what, 5 years?, but then again it’s EDF, and you’ll notice why Sandlot didn’t bother, they wanted to see how many times they could multiply the number of enemies on screen to throw at you, and holy shit they did raise the numbers, clearly uncaring to avoid performance issues, because often the hordes will just tank the framerate noticeably. You’ll FEEL it.
And this is on my PS4 Pro, maybe it runs better on PS5, but come on, it’s EDF, i would believe it if the developers were offended that it could run alright by adding more enemies, so they added 5000 more space bees on screen for good measure. XD
Still, i could do without the texture popping in later like they had to “regrow” like a wounded X-Men with healing factor, that is pretty rampant, and it’s hilarious how, the Hololive (yes, the V-Tubers agency) pre-order/early purchase bonus of decoy launcher DLC weapons look FAR better than anything in the actual game, it’s uncanny and it’s hilarious.
Again, priorities, shame Hololive’s EDF ambassador, Ookami Mio (most likely the reason this collaboration DLC existed in the first place, since she was/is a EDF fan and pushed to stream it, then it basically spread around the agency), is a japanese exclusive DLC alongside Shirakami Fubuki and Ayame Nakiri, while the western releases instead have Gawr Gura, Takanashi Kiara and IryS for the trio of Hololive decoy launcher weapons, that were sold as early purchase goodies.
Shame they are useless in a different way from the Dream Club decoys from 4.1 and 5, as in there they had little health, here the aliens often tend to ignore them… which i’m not sure if it’s a deliberate design choice made for a joke that the vtuber models are appealing and hence not treathening so to not aggro the enemies on purpose.. or if it’s just a quirk of how enemy IA works, i’ve seen people try sticking the decoys on the enemies themselves to fuck with their IA and it works like in EDF 5, producing some funny shit indeed.
We also have options for korean and japanese voice acting, on top of the default english one for western releases of the game, some more miscellanous options, and some bugs, like a NPC glitching its routine in one of the “briefing at the base” bits, forcing me push myself into place by pushing the other NPCs around, some other Goat Simulator-esque graphical glitches, nothing game breaking…though i fell through the ground in the very final mission, with my unit falling for a minute, until the game just respawning me into the play field.
Impressively, it’s the biggest EDF yet, with the campaign offering 140+ missions (with online and offline co-op), that will require 70+ hours to finish on the standard difficulty, and this happened to make my overall completition rise to… 10 %, for reasons that include to the RNG weapon loot table and the game considering every single mission on every single difficulty setting.
This is both good and bad is in that kinda undoes the increased variety of foes, since it needs to “spread” them over even more levels, but that is nothing new, it’s to be expected at this point.
Then there also 2 DLC mission packs, for a total of 59 missions and dozens & dozens of new weapons, so there’s no shortage of content, if you can dig the formula. Though i will say, i have to say it, this shouldn’t cost 60 bones for just the standard edition/base game, this should be 40 bucks, especially since it’s also a digital only release of budget game, most likely we’ll eventually have a physical edition on disc even in the West, but for the meantime, you’ll have to import those.
Btw, apparently the PC port was shit on launch, and it required to use Epic Game Store for the online play, though since it that has been made optional.
Overall, Earth Defense Force 6 is… more EDF, but a little bit better than the previous one.
There are some new quality of life features, which do make the experience better (even if LONG overdue), but for the most part, the formula remains unchanged, and even a lot of design choices are, though there are new enemies, weapons and honestly mostly are pretty cool and manage to spice up gameplay, even if “spread” many times over the incredibly lenghty campaign.
For better or worse, this is Earth Defense Force, with all the warts like a framerate that can slow to a crawl when the game drops like 1000 more ants in the play field in case the squintillions before weren’t enough to stress out the engine,looking identical to EDF 5 but with a green interface this time, despite releasing 5 years priors, and in typical EDF fashion, it recycles a lot of content from previous games, this time literally, as we have a new insane, hilariously convoluted plotline involving time travel, different timelines and time loops, inspired by series like Gantz or All You Need Is Kill, that somehow manages to upstage the “godslaying finale” of Edf 5.
And yet, despite all these flaws, it’s still an incredible fun experience that you simply won’t find elsewhere (maybe Helldivers 2, MAYBE, i haven’t played it yet), definitely not without many modern issues, sensibilities and actual budgets, and hilariously EDF feels like it wouldn’t be as fun if the developers didn’t feel “self-trapped” into a early 2000s cyberspace mindset of sorts.. aside the collaboration preorder Hololive DLC decoy launcher weapons of Gura, IrYs and Takanashi Kiara.
If you didn’t like EDF games (especially the mainline releases), you won’t like EDF 6, there’s no getting around that, it’s either a love or hate affair, and honestly i do get not liking it or not being willing to overlook so many issues and longtime quirks of the series, but we can agree that, since its an obvious budget game, asking 60 bucks for the base game feels a bit like taking the piss on Namco (via their D3 Publisher branch/brand) side, even more as Sandlot could have added at least a now class to join the 4 classic ones (which he had since EDF 4), for example.
Still didn’t stop me from clocking in 140 hours as the time of writing, but if you haven’t played it yet, i’d recommend starting off by getting EDF 5 or 4.1 on sale on Steam or PS4, then play this one for the time travel, butterfly effect abusing, timeline loops and resets bullshit hilarity that is the plot.
I guess see you in Earth Defense Force X, or the World Brothers 2 review before that!
Wise Cafe (International) 