Earth Defense Force 2025 Review

Eric’s Take: THIS IS NOT A TRIPLE-A GAME! I apologize for the all-caps exclamation, but it needed to be said right from the start. The Earth Defense Force franchise’s roots are in the Simple-2000 Series of Japanese budget titles. What the U.S. got as its first EDF game, Earth Defense Force 2017 on the Xbox 360, was actually the third in the series. A few years after 2017 gained cult-classic status in the U.S., D3 released an Americanized and American-developed sequel called Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon to mixed reviews and fan reaction. People wanted a proper follow-up to 2017 from the original developer, Sandlot. Now, almost seven years to-the-day after 2017 released, their wish has been granted.

Earth Defense Force 2025 is a full-on continuation of 2017. The story picks up, big surprise, in the year 2025 as giant bugs have been spotted munching on people yet again. As a soldier of the Earth Defense Force, you are assigned the task of saving humanity from invaders called Ravagers. The plot is as simple as it seems. 2025 is not a game you play for its engaging characters or page-turning narrative. This one is all about shooting evil space aliens with big, fancy weapons and watching bug guts pop like zits. In that regard, 2025 accomplishes its mission.

The gameplay has been noticeably spiced up since 2017. EDF soldiers no long have a rickety running animation. Havok-powered physics have been implemented, allowing for ragdoll motions for friends, foes, and even the new three-dimensional item crates. The new physics engine also enables robots and bugs to be blown to pieces when defeated. Arguably, the biggest change from vanilla 2017 comes from the class system. EDF veterans will remember how Insect Armageddon had three different types of playable soldiers, each with their own fighting style. 2025 takes that even further with four different class types; Ranger, Wing Diver, Air Raider, and Fencer.

Rangers are the standard EDF troop and uses most of the basic weaponry, like shotguns, sniper rifles, and the like. The Wing Diver is an all-female (read: fan-service) brigade that appeared in 2017 Portable on the Vita as the Pale Wing. This class makes use of jetpacks and futuristic weapons to defeat Ravagers. The downside is that armor is sacrificed for mobility, meaning they can’t take much of a pounding. Health bar progress is much slower, as well, since it takes several armor pick-ups to gain a single point of overall health. The Air Raider is for the tactical gamer. As the name suggests, a sizable part of his offense comes from friendlies in the sky. Tossing colored smoke grenades serves to mark a location for air strikes against the Ravagers. Additionally, the Air Raider can also request vehicle drops, for those times when a tank or battle suit would be more effective. Speaking of tanks, vehicles have been substantially improved over the extremely clunky and unresponsive controls found in 2017. The final class is the Fencer, a heavy unit. Armed with two sets of weapons, Fencer is all about stopping power. Since it moves so slowly, he can have boosters on his back for high leaps or dashes. Inexperienced players will want to steer clear of this class until they have a good understanding of the game.

The main campaign features eighty-five missions of varying length, plus a handful for multiplayer. Unfortunately, most of the first forty stages feel like rehashes of 2017 missions. In fact, there are several scenarios and mission names ripped straight out of the previous Sandlot EDF title. “Crimson”, a beach-front battle against three waves of fire ants, is a perfect example of this. Aside from the redesigned map and enemy spawn points, it’s practically the same mission all over again. Where 2025 hits its stride is in the second half of the game. New enemy types begin to appear much more frequently than in the first portion. Bees, new Hectors, the mysterious “Earth Eaters”, and even a dragon (don’t worry, it’s not a spoiler you wouldn’t see on the back of the game box) go a long way in making 2025 feel less like a remake of 2017 and more like its own game. It’s a shame it takes so long for 2025 to really get going, especially considering there’s already an $8.99 mission pack out for it as DLC.

With regards to performance, the PlayStation 3 version is nowhere near perfect. Frame-rate problems start to appear when things get hectic or there are a large number of buildings on-screen. When these dips happen, you can see the targeting reticle warping slightly in the direction you were moving it in. Fortunately, 2025 at its worst never dropped to the levels 2017 hit on 360. The PS3 gets the short end of the stick on the multiplayer front, too. Unlike the Xbox 360 version, the PS3 does not support split-screen co-op plus online players. That means you and a buddy sitting on the couch playing split-screen can’t play online with other people at the same time. It’s a small minus that won’t affect many people, but it is still a loss. By all accounts, the 360 version is the way to go if you have the option.

It took me a while to warm up to Earth Defense Force 2025 because of the familiarity issues I had with first half of the game. Once I got over that hill, 2025 became the game it should have been from the beginning. The new soldier classes and enemy types keep the tried-and-true EDF formula fresh. With a staggering amount of weapons to collect and a checkbox for each class and difficulty on every mission, 2025 has, literally, hundreds of hours of replay value. Day one paid DLC mars my satisfaction a bit, but this is the sequel I’ve wanted for years. Suit up, Earth needs saving.

Earth Defense Force 2025 was played on the PlayStation 3 with review code provided by the publisher.

Robert's Take: First introduced in Japan in 1998, D3 Publisher’s Simple series of budget-priced games has become a modest phenomenon. With an assortment of nearly four hundred titles spread across ten different hardware platforms, the concept asked developers to utilize smaller budgets and condense development cycles in an effort to produce an inexpensive product. Woefully, stateside gamers only saw a small fraction of this frugally minded output- mainly localizations for Agetec’s A1 line of games, the OneChanbara franchise, and the shining star of the Simple series- the wonderfully goofy Earth Defense Force franchise. EDF’s success on this side of the…