Earth Defense Force has always defined having cult following in the gaming world. The graphics were never cutting-edge, the story was always bare-bones, but there was always something endearing and engaging about the gameplay. Whether it was the cheesy one-liners or just blasting giant insects, Earth Defense Force managed to entertain the masses and carve out a little niche for themselves in a crowded gaming space. Thankfully, Earth Defense Force 2025 follows the path that its ancestors paved and caters to the people who love this franchise. It isn’t anything flashy or revolutionary, but it is more EDF and if you are a fan, that is all you’ve hoped for.
The story of Earth Defense Force 2025 is pretty much the same as in all the other games. You play as the humans who are experiencing an invasion from giant insects. There is a very loose and very cheesy story about the invasion but it is hardly worth mentioning. EDF makes no effort to hook you into a narrative-driven story. This game is about the gameplay and that is what drives you forward. In the game, you simply choose a class and kill everything that moves. If it sounds overly simplistic, then you haven’t played and EDF game.
From a technical standpoint, the game is on-par for other entries in the series, which is generally not impressive. Textures pop-in and pop-out, the enemies frequently clip through different obstacles and part of the stage, the frame rate drops off frequently, trees will get uprooted and disappear soon after, all standard technical issues for the franchise. Many fans of the franchise would say that this is what makes the franchise fun because it is like playing a B-movie. While I would agree that the graphics do not make or break the game, we are at a point in the consoles lifespan, and the franchise has been around long enough, that these mistakes should be fixed.
Luckily, there are some redeeming qualities about the game. EDF 2025 allows you to choose between four distinct classes, which all have their strengths and weaknesses, but they all feel good to play. To start you have your ranger class, which is the most balanced of the four different classes. They use your standard mix of weaponry like machine guns and rocket launchers. Next, there is the wing diver which has the ability to fly around the map. However, the wing diver draws weapon power from the same reserves as flying draws from. This limits the wing divers ability to fire as freely as the other classes can. Then you have the air raider which can call in air strikes, vehicles and healing wards. This class is an essential class for a party of players, but it pretty much useless on his own since he is too weak to take on lots of enemies on his own. Finally, there is the fencer class which is a mech-class that can carry up to four different heavy weapons into battle. However, the fencer is very slow to control so he can get overwhelmed easily. These classes are similar to those found in earlier iterations, but there were some balancing tweaks and they all feel distinctly different which is the whole point to utilizing a class system.
Earth Defense Force has always done a good job of getting you into the action quickly, and with a full party as often as possible. This game is no different with an excellent split screen co-op mode or an equally excellent online four-player co-op mode. Finding players is easy to do and you can pull in random players if you lose friends along the way. It is drop-in, drop-out so no matter whether your friends join you or leave you, you’ll never notice the transition.
Finally, let’s address the gameplay. This game is all about blasting insects into oblivion and that is all-and-good, but this premise isn’t enough to support an entire game. The objectives are always run to the enemies, kill them all, run to the next checkpoint, rinse-and-repeat. After a few missions, this formula gets old and it looses the player in the endless monotony of the gameplay. Sure, it is really cool to shoot a rocket into a giant ant, but to do that five hundred times in a row just diminishes the fun to be had. The level design gets slightly more interesting in the later levels, but it usually consists of a terrain that requires the use of a specific class. For instance, you’ll have a large piece of land you’ll need to cross and while you could trudge along with the fencer, it will take much less time to use the wing diver. The forcing of class is fine, however the objectives are still the same so any relief the switching of class may provide is quickly diminished.
Overall, Earth Defense Force 2025 is a mixed bag. The arena style combat, B-movie style voice acting and effects and just the light-hearted tone of the game make this an interesting foundation to build a game on. However, this game possesses some serious technical issues that severely limit the games performance. In addition to technical issues, the repetitive nature of the gameplay objectives work negatively hand-in-hand with the technical limitations to make a bad experience; worse. Aside from the hardcore EDF fans that probably already purchased the game, if you are looking for your next gaming adventure, this is probably not a great place to look.
This review is based on a review copy of the PlayStation 3 version of Earth Defense Force 2026 published by D3 Publishers.
