Me and my friend have been playing EDF games since … well, we played two on the XBOX 360 anyway, and so it was a nice treat when he turned up with Earth Defence Force 5 in his bag over the summer. With 110 missions and us only managing to get together for a few hours a week it took a while but as per usual it was an absolute blast. It may not be much to look at or listen to but it’s hard to find a more fun example of “couch co-op”. Let’s take a look!
Background:
Yes I named my character “Boourns”, and no player 2 can’t have a name other than Player 2. Now screenshots will make a bit more sense going forward!
Earth Defence Force 5 (which is actually the eighth overall game after several attempts at spin-offs and an ill-judged “more realistic take on the source material”) first released in Japan on December 7th 2017 and wouldn’t find its way west until December 11th 2018, both for the PS4 exclusively. It’s a smaller franchise with a smaller team behind it so it taking so long for localisation isn’t a surprise. It eventually got a PC port in July 2019.
Gameplay:
I hope no-one has a wasp phobia… well, even if they didn’t I think it’s okay to be afraid at this point!
The gameplay is deliciously simple as you pick on of four classes in Ranger (generic soldier), Wing Diver (jetpack soldier), Air Raider (able to call in airstrikes and support vehicles), and Fencer (basically in a small mech) and each class has tonnes of unlockable weapons you pick up via random boxes dropped by fallen enemies, and the higher your difficulty level the better the weapon. Classic “looter shooter”. Enemies can also drop armour increases which will give you more health and carry over across each mission while health pick ups will refill health there and then but not expand it like the armour. For the most part, that’s it: you just fight waves and waves of giant bugs, mechs, spaceships, kaiju and this time also large bipedal aliens with guns in mostly destructible cities, forests and beaches.
There are some missions with a bit of unique spin, like the standard series of missions underground in an insect nest or a few missions against a gigantic alien mothership but this time there are also a few missions when you get to pilot a massive mech and fight a kaiju one-on-one, which was great fun. There are also sometimes vehicles spread about the map that you can enter and use as well, though a lot of the time the weapons you have are often better. I’d love to go into the nuances of the gameplay but there really isn’t any, though there is practically infinite ammo for most weapons the reload time can vary greatly, plus the range of weaponry can be quite different between the classes so there is some reply value there, I guess!
Graphics and Sound:
Yet the framerate was fine. Go figure!
The graphics by themselves are nothing to shout about but that’s intentional in order to fit literally 100s of enemies on screen at once without the framerate tanking, and in that sense it works really well because playing split screen with tonnes of enemies exploding I didn’t feel much of any slowdown.
In terms of sound the music is generic and the voice acting awful (in a cheesy b-movie way though, so for the most part its just funny) but the weapon and explosion sounds are satisfying, as are the creature shrieks so… where it counts its good! For online players there is a speech system where you can ask for help, congratulate people etc but also oddly some generic sentences and even a few propaganda EDF songs to sing. The thing is you can do it offline as well, which led to some funny moments with my character suddenly bursting out into song after all his allies had just been wiped out by a killer alien laser.
Story:
If you thought taking down giant ants was weird, try shooting down giant stereotypical aliens!
The Earth Defence Force is a private military organisation that ends up being the only line of defence as aliens send gigantic versions of ants, spiders and more down to Earth in order to wipe it clean of humanity. As EDF find their footing the aliens start sending down robots, ships, massive alien kaiju and eventually their own footsoldiers to try and wipe the EDF out, and as the story progresses Earth’s population dwindles and dwindles. It would actually be quite dramatic with real high stakes if you weren’t flying in the air on a jetpack firing a bazooka at a field of giant red ants…
In the end you take down their mothership and defeat some sort of angelic God-like being that I can’t quite remember the backstory of and that it! The EDF live, like 90% of humanity don’t so… bit of a hollow victory, I guess.
Downloadable Content:
Ha, it looks like the giant ant is saying “Thank You” as its being killed… Okay, it’s not that funny.
Apparently there was some DLC, with additional missions and weapons, but we never downloaded them. I don’t think we knew about them, or I certainly didn’t anyway. Still, 110 missions was enough, especially as re-playing them on a higher difficulty with some new classes is always fun for a re-do anyway.
Thoughts Now:
It was my turn for the giant mech!
Earth Defence Force 5 brings a couple of new things to the table, including more enemy variety and lots more of them on screen, but the key gameplay stays the same and honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. Still a top tier couch co-op game that I’ll happily recommend to any pair looking for a fun night in.
Hogan Reviews 