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.

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Tank! Tank! Tank! WIIU [REVIEW] | The Tank Defence Force Deploys?

Nintendo ported the shit out of the Wii U library, reasonably so, hence there are very few exclusives that are “trapped” on the Switch precedessor… most are crap like Devil’s Third and Sonic Boom: Rise Of Lyric, Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, some sports-fitness games or party games, and somehow STILL the HD ports of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess.

Tank Tank Tank is technically not an exclusive, since it’s a port of a 2009 arcade game published and developed by Namco Bandai internally (itself a spiritual successor on a previous arcade game by Namco, 1996’s Tokyo Wars, according to Wikipedia), rereleased in 2012 on Wii U, serving as launch title for the console in North America.

It was initally released digitally as a free to play thingie where you could play the single player campaign for free but had to buy the various multiplayer mode as DLC (which it eventually reverted to 1 year later) but it was also released physically as a complete package, which its the version i own and i’m basing the review on.

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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”.

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[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.

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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.

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The Summer Of EDF will resume tomorrow

the new review for Summer Of EDF should’have been published today, but due what i can only described as “scholar fatigue of cramming too many exams and barely sleeping”, the review will come out tomorrow instead.

Sorry.

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.

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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.

Earth Defense Force AKA Monster Attack PS2 [REVIEW] | Thus The EDF Fought

As we wait for the western release date of EDF 6 (which came out in Japan last August), let’s go all the way back to the beginning, with the original Earth Defense Force on PS2.

Unlike EDF 2 which got an enhanced port on PS Vita, the original Earth Defense Force still remains a PS2 only game, one that americans didn’t get, as the first EDF was only localized in PAL territories as Monster Attack and distributed by Agetec in… lets say limited numbers, since today finding an original copy can be fairly pricey, if you find a PAL copy to begin with, instead of the many cheaper japanese PS2 copies floating around the net.

I did manage to get a used PAL copy under 30 bucks, but one could suggest it’s better to just emulate the thing, if you’re really curious to see how EDF started as a fan of the series, otherwise there’s really no point to simply recommend you play EDF 4.1 or 5 nowadays.

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