Review Foregone_Premise 4/5 · Mar 15, 2024
A Fun Romp With Friends
I recently beat Earth Defense Force 5 along with two of my friends. I say I beat it, but I only completed the game's 111 missions on normal difficulty. The game is more or less a wave defense against first hordes of giant ants and then stranger aliens as the campaign progresses.
You can play one of four classes. The …
I recently beat Earth Defense Force 5 along with two of my friends. I say I beat it, but I only completed the game's 111 missions on normal difficulty. The game is more or less a wave defense against first hordes of giant ants and then stranger aliens as the campaign progresses.
You can play one of four classes. The Ranger is the most conventional you use traditional guns like rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, and grenades. The Wing Diver uses a variety of strange energy weapons while zipping about on a jet pack. The Fencer has you play a soldier in an armoured exoskeleton wielding weapons more suitable for a tank like miniguns, autocannons, and mortars. The final class is the Air Raider which calls down a variety of artillery strikes down on enemies (and friends).
The games story is silly in so bad its good sort of way, I'm not sure if its intentional or not. Much of the dialogue is deeply cheesy. As you play the game you get a constant loot drip from missions that can be quite satisfying. The game has hundreds of different weapons, though many are simple variations of other ones. Missions vary from very easy to quite challenging. My friends and I initially played the game at hard but had to tone it down to normal as we progressed. It seemed the harder difficulties are intended as a sort of new game+ mode, where you come back with a stronger character. With a few roadblocks the campaign took 45 hours for us to complete.
The main drawbacks of the game are the poor graphics, terrible ui, and lack of a compelling single player experience. The games graphics look very dated, notably some assets seem newer than others. The most impressive visual aspect of the game is its scale, even a basic of enemy of which they are hundreds is many times larger than the player. Also the sheer number of things on screen can be impressive. However, graphically its feels like a game from 2010. The UI is also very poor, very crowded and not good at conveying important information. However the amount you have to interact with the UI to play the game is relatively limited. Finally, the game really isn't intended to be played single player. I'm not sure how easy it is to find other players in the community either. Id recommend arranging to play the game with a group of friends if you can.
Overall, id say EDF5 is a unique and fun experience but if you're not in position to play in a group I'd avoid it. Otherwise its a fun game with a charm and a good social experience.
