Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 PS4 [REVIEW] | Gaia’s Wrath

Given the first World Brothers turned out quite well in terms of review and profits, D3 did the obvious, by greenlighting a sequel, simply called EDF World Brothers 2.

Obvious to a certain degree because EDF spin-off never received sequels, but i did like the first World Brothers, so i was more than happy to see Yuke’s (also behind EDF Iron Rain) come back for more voxel Earth Defense Force.

This is a direct sequel as well, and this time, after watching the skies so hard in case of another alien invasion coming from there, we get bitten in the ass by a monster that was inside our squared, voxely Mother Earth, Gaiarch, which erupts from its core and breaks the world apart, meaning it’s up to the EDF once again to make the planet whole by sticking back the destroyed pieces.

This is done by your team of newbies trying to find the more experienced EDF members scattered around the globe, and also new allies like an alien-esque amnesiac girl (that’s like an anthromorphized version of the Daroga enemies, since she loves the buggers and has a Daroga style hat of sorts), new and old bros and sisters, a time travelling Caesar (not the monkey), highlighted by odd giant replicas of the main EDF classes to fight as enemies before taking down a mothership.

Continua a leggere

Earth Defense Force 6 PS4 [REVIEW] | All You Need Is Kill

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”.

Continua a leggere

Demolition Girl PS2 [REVIEW] | Attack Of The 50 Foot Dutch Wife

Tamsoft today might be working on big licenses like the Captain Tsubasa game they did for Namco Bandai, or the upcoming new Bleach fighting game, but i will never forget that they cut their teeth and for most of their career they were hacking out a lot of budget games for D3 Publisher, eventually making franchises with Oneechanbara, curating various hack n slash spin-offs of series like Neptunia (also, the cancelled Hinomaruko project, i remember) and working on pretty much all Senran Kagura titles in some fashion, even the later spin-offs.

But today we’re reminiscing (this is a rewrite, FIY) about one of their absolute worst titles ever, with Demolition Girl, one of the many titles they cranked out for PS2 in D3’s Simple 2000 Series, some already reviewed in these pages like Shogun’s Blade, others that might be worst revisiting and talking about again, as with the horrendous Deep Water (AKA The Daikaiju) and Zombie Attack, or freshly feature here, stuff like “Taxi Rider” or “Pink Pong”, i feel like i should clarify yes, they were brought over in NA and-or PAL territories with those titles for real, i’m not altering them for a lark.

As to why this one over so many shitty games from that era of the company… you’ll soon see.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Earth Defense Force 6 PS4 | Back To The Futures

Earth Defense Force 6 is finally here, with the infinite struggle for every new entry to upstage the previous game, and somehow it still managed to up the ante following Earth Defense Force 5, where you try to arrest and then kill God.

Admittely, it does this by relying on EDF 5 not only for continuing its batshit insane story and somehow making thing crazier via time travel…. which is a baked-in story excuse for reusing a lot of assets from EDF 5, while graphics remain identical to make even more insane amounts of enemies come at you, regardless if it tanks the framerate (it often does) by how ludicrously huge the hordes can be, in order to increase the overall challenge.

Gameplay offers some incremental QoL features that improve the experience, and they did address some issues, like better controls, there are some new locations, a good amount of new enemies and a better distribution of those… even though it’s almost made moot by the usual asset recycle and the campaign being the biggest yet, with nearly 150 missions in the base game alone; it’s still a budget game, despite D3/Namco Bandai selling it at 60 bucks, or 90 for the deluxe edition that includes Hololive EN decoy launcher weapons (which have better graphics than anything else in the game XD).

But at the core it’s EDF, mainline EDF, with all its issues, but still incredibly fun, arguably the best it ever has been, thanks to more enemy types, more flexible customization for the builds, new absurd weapons, and some welcome QoL features, like subtitles for the hilarious campy dialogue.

Not too many, as it’s a formula that ironically would fall apart if you try to “fix it”, and honestly there is still nothing quite it.

THE EDF DEPLOYS!!

Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow Of New Despair PS4 [REVIEW] | #summerofedf

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.

Continua a leggere

Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon PS3 [REVIEW] | #summerofedf

The EDF wasn’t quite new to spin-offs, as EDF 2 got a tactical turn based spin-off, developed by thinkarts and released westward as a PAL only release under the Global Defence Force: Tactics title, but it’s fair to say this is the more well known one, as it released globally after EDF 2017 as a sort of “fail safe” title, just in case the mainline titles were too niche and “japanesy”, here’s another more tailored to western gamers of the time, developed by now defunct Vicious Cycle Software (Robotech: Battlecry, Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords, Dead Head Fred – which i really should review, it’s an interesting little game – The Matt Hazard games, the Pac Man and The Ghostly Adventure duology, alongside a dozen or so of licensed and-or tie-in games about kid oriented IPs like Ben 10, Flushed Away and actually ended their run on a Kung Fu Panda licensed title).

Basically EDF 2017: USA Edition, as willed by D3, which i can’t blame them for, not in retrospective, as it the late 2000s-early 2010s saw basically a giant racist crusade against anything gaming related coming from Japan sweeping the industry, i lived through it and remember too well, so yeah, not surprised D3 went for this option just to be sure it got some footing for EDF.

That aside, the premise is basically EDF: USA in terms of plot as well, very B-movie stuff as expected and desired: aliens, bringing in tow robots and giant insects (and giant robots, which also include giant robot insects) invade the city of New Detroit, and is up to the Strike Force Lightning, a team of elite soldier from the Earth Defense Force, to blast them aliens bastards to bits and save the day.

Continua a leggere

Earth Defense Force 3 AKA Earth Defense Force 2017 X360 [REVIEW] | #summerofedf

When of i think of when the series officially, globally managed to “hit it big”, Earth Defense Force 3 is when it actually happened, after word of mouth did its thing and helped reach the audience for a more arcadey and un-serious gaming experience, almost a pure one, if you want.

Sorry, Earth Defense Force 2017, as it better known, which is a fitting title for another reason besides keeping in tone with the 50/60’s style of sci-fi cheese, and the obvious hiding of this being the third entry of the series (the main one, anyway) to make the new potential audience of the previously Playstation centric IP not feel like they were missing out.

The reason being curiously a story one, as with EDF 2017 will start what would become a recurring approach to the plot, as in this does not follow up from the events of EDF 2, nothing from that game is ever mention, because EDF 2017 it’s a remake of the first EDF, which was set in the…. back then still not that far away year of 2017.

Continua a leggere

Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space PS VITA [REVIEW] | #summerofedf

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.

Continua a leggere

The Summer Of EDF & The Shark Six

So, to celebrate EDF 6 finally releasing westward in late July, we are gonna have ourselves a little Earth Defense Force retrospective, covering all the games yet not reviewed here (EDF 5, EDF Iron Rain and EDF World Brothers – alongside the PAL release of the first game in the series – have already been covered, FIY), mostly mainline ones, with 4 reviews spread across June and July.

This was already planned as such before D3 finally put down an actual release day (after the delay from spring 2024 to summer 2024), and since those months will have the now regular weekly release/cadence for articles/reviews, i’m also bringing back the sharks with 6 selected films about these poor animals, with 3 reviews per month.

August will be a surprise. For now.

Also, an expresso review of Furiosa – A Mad Max Saga is coming up next.

Samurai Maiden PS4 [REVIEW] #meleemay

I’ve been waiting to cover this one for a while, but i had to wait for it to go on a decent discount, since D3 Publisher went extra crazy and asked 50 bucks (70 for the Deluxe Edition that includes all DLCs, mostly costumes and music from other D3 franchise like Bullet Girls) for what was obviously another budget game of theirs.

Having played all Oneechanbara games and waiting for the Namco Bandai owned company to finally announce the western release for EDF 6 (which was supposed to be out this spring but was eventually delayed to late July 2024), i did want to play Samurai Maiden earlier, but the absurd price really held me off, i’m not fucking paying 70 bucks for a complete edition of a digital only release of a D3 Publisher budget hack n slash anime game.

Curiously, despite the publisher involved and the premise of hack n slash action using a japanese anime high school girl, this is NOT the fanservicey fest you’d expected, i guess after the “prude crusade” Sony went (for whatever reason, since they were the main platform for most Senran Kagura games before), niche titles like this had to tippy toe on their tits to see what’s ok now.

the plot sees regular high school girl Tsumugi transported back to the Sengoku period, isekai’d directly during the Honno-ji incident so she can chat up Oda Nobunaga and have three female anime ninjas explain she was summoned there because she’s a discendant of a so called “Miko Of Prosperity”, and a prophecy involving her and a Demon Lord was foretold, etc.

Continua a leggere