After unexpected delays, we’re tackling the final EDF title yet to be featured for Summer Of EDF, Global Defence Force Tactics on the mighty Playstation 2.
What happens when your budget game does well, you make a sequel, and since EDF 2 did sell very well in Japan for its budget price range in the Simple series catalogue, being the only title of the Simple label to sell over 200.000 copies, D3 figured to capitalize on its success (again, those today are small numbers but EDF was also sold as a budget title in Japan) and basically had a quick Tactics style spin-off made.
And keeping up with the previous marketing choices, EDF 2 Tactics would only be localized for PAL territories, as Global Defence Force Tactics.
Yep, they even kept the British spelling of “Defense”, it’s not a typo, it’s still a bit weird, but i guess why change it for a spin-off back then, would have made things even more confusing.
Also, as a personal note, i’m glad i bought this years ago, as now an used PAL copy asks for 50 bucks mininum, and it was already kinda rare before, being a very late PS2 release under the Essential Games budget release label used by D3 Publisher/Namco Bandai in Europe.
That said can actually see why you would made this, since the EDF series does lend itself to also become a tactical turn based rpg, this one developed by thinkarts, a very niche studio that worked under D3 doing other tactical games… and a PS2 port of that visual novel with Tomak: Save The Earth, you know, the “i can’t believe it’s not a Suda 51 joint” literal potted head of a goddess you have to literally nurture?
Which was actually rereleased globally and was a freebie on the Epic Game Store, this isn’t an ad (i don’t play Fornite and i think most people use their platform just to get free games, i buy games on Steam and Gog for PC), just an amazing set of coincidences.
In terms of plot, there’s really not much to explain, since the text dumps at the beginning, middle and end plus the mission briefings follow basically the same beats of EDF 2/Global Defence Force (yeah, they kept the “Defence” typo-but-not-really) like how they introduce the non-Godzilla kaiju Sauros, the saucers/ships that reflect back damage, the Mothership fake out finale, etc.
there are some weird mistranslations that i don’t remember from the original PAL release of EDF 2, like the spiders being called “Baus” in the info boxes, i guess because they meant to write “Beta”, as in, the name they give the alien spiders, “Invader type Beta” (the ants being “type Alpha”)
I’ll be honest, first impressions aren’t great, even presentation-wise.
Which might seem petty, cruel even, since this is a budget spin-off of a budget game. but there’s no getting around how the game maps look like this could be a SNES or early PS1 title, as they are 2D hexagonal based grid with sprites, and it doesn’t help that it has loading times for its 4 brief attack/evade/replay sequences when you initiate attack, which is extra jarring since these are in 3D, and obviously reuse assets from the original EDF 2 /Global Defense Force.
Thankfully you can turn these off, and i eventually did kinda have to because missions can take a while by design – we’ll get to that soon -, and having to see these animation for every single istance of fighting will kill the pacing dead and drive you nuts, even if you mash buttons to try skip them.
You might wanna switch the animations back on once they introduce a new enemy or variations, like the kaijus, or the mecha dragonworms, but if you intend to play this one more than 30 minutes, you’ll realize turning the battle animations off is for the better, and i’m the kind of guy that usually doesn’t do that for SRPGs.
In terms of gameplay, as said it’s pretty classic SRPG stuff, you even have a proper hexagon based map, you can see which units are recommend.-needed for the mission, change their loadout, and use the funds to register more for that mission-map, during your turn you decide what units deploy before the enemy turn is up, with the objective generally being conquering specific enemy barracks, their headquarters or exterminate all units on the map.
It doesn’t sound too complicated, but Global Defence Force Tactics (GDF Tactics from now on), but this is one of those case where most likely the mechanics were explained in detail in the manual.
…. still, would have killed them to make a real tutorial?
I say this because the game really doesn’t explain its mechanics and expects you to figure it out… which is fine in theory, but it makes for a rough first impression, and still doesn’t really excuse that the game could have simply explained that the “reinforcements” phase of the turn lets me prepare units to deploy in my next turn (as explaine above, some have their first dispatch free because they’re deemed necessary by the game, other one cost extra funds to deploy or redeploy)… and i would say the same goes for the enemy force, but it ain’t true, they have a bit too good as you can’t really tell what’s gonna brew from their bases and they don’t have to manually get the units out.
Plus the maps already starts with many enemies already on it, to keep in line with the regular mainline EDF experience of you having to face off hordes of giant monsters, aliens and robots.
Still, you’ll most likely lose some missions early one because the game didn’t explain the “Reinforements” phase, at first i almost believed i had to end my turn twice in a row, as if somehow the enemy didn’t realize it was his turn… which isn’t too far off in sentiment, as the IA is far from amazing, it can be pretty blinkard and not seize upon golden opportunities to exploit its mechanics, but at least it makes the game a bit less frustrating, especially if SRPG aren’t your forte.
Initially, at least.
Still, the problem remains, GDF Tactics should have explained its core mechanics… more than nothing at all, the game explains some barebones stuff, as in, i hope you played one of these turn based SRPGs before, because i won’t explain shit any further, even more stupid when it has some specific quirks of its own that it really should have explained.
Doesn’t help that there are some questionable visual choices: you know how in Advance Wars the occupied bases/facilities are color coded so you always know at a glance you’re gonna want to conquer the red ones?
EDF tactics doesn’t do that, even though you can “overtake/conquer” a base in a similar fashion with infantry, terrain provides different amounts ofc over/evasion and it has a similar reliance on logistical management, as unit have ammo and fuel, so you’ll wanna spread out and sent tanks and units to resupply depots and take bases, even more since the classic Fog Of War is a thing.
curiously, here you can choose to destroy enemy bases/forts, but it’s not a good call as the maps often don’t have much terrain that provides decent evasion-cover…. and still the game doesn’t tell you that you can swap units for conquering bases, it’s not like in Advance Wars where if you leave a building/facility before you finish taking it over, the base/building’s “health” goes back to full.
Since we’re on subject, the game has units able to level up, their exp and level gains are kept through battles, so you might wanna indulge some units to level them up, since you’ll have to kill lot of enemies just to keep at bay their hordes anyway, so in a way that kinda evens out…..that is, until an unit dies, because there’s permadeath, even if you’re given more new units of the same type upon winning to account for eventual losses (or they just reset to 1, need to check)
There’s a decent variety of challenges, eventually the game introduces the classic systems like Fog Of War, new enemy units, there are underground stages where you can’t deploy tanks or other vehicle unit, again mirroring mainline EDF titles.
the main issue i have with the missions/maps is that they drag on, taking more time to just traverse the map itself and having to keep at bay the enemies whose horde doesn’t really have limits like you do, like said before, meaning mission often go on and on since they basically decide to spawn enemies a bit more ignoring the requirement of them needing to emerge from a Barracks facility, which can make capturing enemy bases a pain.
Sometimes the map doesn’t proper display a specific enemy you’re expect to kill to win (like in one of the underground stage where i needed to kill a specific Queen Ant enemy) because of the Fog Of War, and about this, when you encounter/get ambushed by an enemy hiding in the FOW it means a free hit for them,,,, and just for them, it doesn’t work the other way around, you can’t ambush the enemy IA. You simply can’t.
For “reasons”, the same that will see you often having to manually have an unit “block/seal” physically a Barracks type of base… and often still have to deal with some that somehow spawned into the map regardless, which might make palatable the option to destroy/raze Barracks base so the enemy can’t use them, but i don’t recommend doing so because some maps have few bases where you can repair, refuel or heal units, at all.
would help if you could have a list of enemies and allies deployed at any moment, or to be able to check the map overview you’re given in the mission select during the mission itself, as in, an updated version, not the small example shown before the briefing.
That said, it’s not all bad, for example even with some of the enemy types icons not being as clear to decypher as they thought it would be (one does look like a stylized ant, for sure, but the others aren’t that clear what type of unit they indicate effectiveness against), you’ll catch on quickly and fairly logically-instinctually how the enemy weaknesses and types work with each other, there is a decent chunk of mechanics, there is some depth to it, the foundations are there.
My biggest issue is, despite sharing a lot with Famicom/Advance Wars, is that there are no carrier units of any kind, so you’ll have to make the Infantry units march it out all the way, the Bike units help but it’s not quite the same, and this (alongside the fact ALL units – even Infantry ones – use Fuel, and the flying units straight up explode if in the following turn they run out of Fuel) doesn’t help the pacing of the missions, as these can last way longer than they should because you’ll have to fend off way too many enemies in order to even have the possibility to spread the units and move forward to actually gain some upper hand.
Some of the harder missions feel like straight up endurance matches, especially given the advantages given to the enemy forces, which i get is an attempt to translate the experience of regular EDF games into a SRPG setting, but it’s overly zealous, to be kind, and leads to most missions taking upward of 1 hour, and it’s not fun realizing 45 minutes in you did a oopsie and thus you fucked yourself into an unwinnable situation.
It’s also annoying how you can’t actually use the bases taken by auxiliary allied units to restore or repair your units, and this isn’t a one-off thing, in a good number of maps you have an auxiliar IA controlled EDF regiment doing its thing…. and figures this a janky feature as well, as these allied units can vary from being nearly useless to being almost necessary in letting the player realistically handle the hordes and pushing the advance.
There is rarely an in between, sometimes their IA seems to be asleep, sometimes they are moderately proactive but once they get hold of some bases don’t go out of their way to help you out, sometimes they awake their Chi and steamroll enemies, so it’s good their units being taken out or not doesn’t really factor for the overall mission evalution or simply just winning the map…. unless you’re specifically tasked to escort or keep alive one or more ally units.
Again, it’s kinda of a crapshoot, there were times i saw the IA allies move precise and fast towards the area they were supposed to reach, then other times i saw one of the 5 tanks i was supposed to protect stop over a Maintenance Base…. as in, it parked over it, the IA simply doesn’t know that you’re supposed to store the unit inside a Maintenance/Restore Health base to make it happen.
This obviously makes the difficulty waver between too hard or too easy, with a difficulty rollercoaster that will ease you into the proceeding, then in Mission 11 you’re introduced to the “kaiju mission” of EDF tradition, but this isn’t a “fight the kaiju off before it goes away, as he’s simply invincible in his debut to establish its power” situation, not, you’ll have to fend off hordes of the thing and kill almost half a family tree’s worth of the buggers.
This is noticeable because few missions later the enemy IA will be simply asleep, letting you reach the headquarters base, molosted more by wading through the FOW than fighting in it, and let’s just say few people will even reach, let alone see the mid-game Mothership fight (leading to a fake out ending, you have half the game left), which is an another big ass difficulty spike.
Yet in its unbalance, you notice these issues kinda even themselves out, in a way, and not just because the enemy IA also wavers, sometimes i realized i fucked up somewhat, leaving a side open for big punishment, but the enemy IA simply almost never capitalizes on your errors or lapses in tactical judgement, which is a sort of leeway with bullshit like the Ambush mechanic.
These even out once you realize how exactly is the game balance borked, as in, GDF Tactics by design pits more enemies every turn than your army is allowed to have/deploy , this is not a SRPG you can turtle your way through, quite the opposite, you gotta play aggressive because otherwise the opposition will win by expanding its already big numbers and keep pushing them, trying to play the long game and attempt a proper pincer manouver simply doesn’t work because of the aforementioned advantages enemies get (like completely negating a unit action if that unit gets ambushed by an enemy one), the bumrush is the real Art Of War.
That coupled with realizing there’s no real proper counter-play to flying units, even if you or the enemy have missile weapons, and you’ll be forced to use these a lot anyways to handle with the game admittely using FOW too much, Pale Wing Reconnaissance Model especially soon become a necessity to counter the FOW and avoid giving the enemies free turns when they ambush you, as the fog is not specific to special missions or events that shroud the map in fog or snow, but a constant once it’s introduced early on.
On the upside, once you get the hang of it, the game isn’t nowhere as punishing or frustrating as it could on the standard difficulty setting, the mission rankings are quite generous and you’re rewarded with more and more weapons to equip your units with, maybe advanced high level weapons for the units you managed to level and keep alive, so you’re given the tools to deal with the increasingly difficult hordes and terrain configurations, with the kaijus now coming in King and Cyber variety, with the occasional new obstacles like laser and such, and the missions themselves are fairly generous in terms of how many turns you’re given to win.
Also, as a side note, it’s funny to me it took a Tactics spin-off for the tanks and bikes in an EDF game to be useful… heck, even the helicopters to a certain extent.
This spin-off does keep in EDF tradition of having a sizable amount of content, there’s like 50 missions which often take about half a hour (or more), a free mode, and an encyclopedia-glossary, you can save during the mission to resume it later, and yes, indeed,here is also an entire other campaign when you play as the Invaders//Ravagers/Aliens forces, as in, you unlock 50 more missions, but it’s really you playing the same campaign from their side, i didn’t bother because took me long enough to just beat the main campaign.
Took me about 60 hours to finish it, and to be honest i didn’t bother much with the invaders missions, i have been playing this thing all July, and very few people will even bother to see the ending text crawl that amounts to “despite all the bullshit, you won, but your bodies were never found, so you became an EDF legend in the years of peace that followed”.
And it’s not hard to see why, there are too many missions and not that many new units or systems to be introduced, so even with new map designs, using more water tiles, going occasionally underground, it’s an EDF title that recycles itself in order to offer a lot of content to play.
Which isn’t news but doesn’t quite work as well as it did with mainline EDF games, to be honest it could have been easily 30 missions instead of 50, heck, arguably most people would have legit believed the first Mothership mission was the end, and not the mid-way point as the fake out ending then reveals.
Not that most would even get that far, especially since the game doesn’t explains its core mechanics, expects you to have played one of these turn based strategy RPGs before, and on top of a steep difficulty curve, the janky IA (both for allied units and enemy) can lead to stages being near impossible to cakewalk, on top of them being designed to be time consuming, as you’re forced-encouraged-required to fend off enemies that come in overwhelming bigger numbers, in attempt to translate the experience and feeling of the mainline EDF titles to a SPRG setup.
Yet there are some good foundations, there is some good gameplay and Tactics style system akin to classics like Advance Wars, the maps are hexagon-based, pretty old school, and so are the frankly basic 2D graphics, punctuated by battle animations that reuse the rough 3D assets from EDF 2/GDF, and even if unbalanced and obviously done on the cheap, there is some decent fun to be had with the game, even if arguably the campaign is way too long, opting for the budget game mantras of “quantity over quality” and hence having to reuse assets and enemies and content to that end.
It’s a janky budget Tactics spin-off, so in a way it’s the perfect kind of spin-off to have for an early EDF spin-off title, its’ the most “Earth Defense Force” it could be, for better or worse, which means, even if it’s not a proper bad game, it still is super janky, unbalanced and one of those that really should explain some of its mechanics, or any at all, instead of just hoping they’ll waste hours figuring them out first hand, even when some oare not as self-explanatory as the game believes.
So, unless you’re a big fan of both Earth Defense Force AND Tactics style games, i don’t recommend it, nor i recommend finishing it, since it’s way too long for its own sake, but for fans of SRPG it might worth checking it out ……anyway you can, since it still is a “JAP/PAL” exclusive.
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