Earth Defense Force: World Brothers | Review

Earth Defense Force

Naming Earth Defense Force in the mainstream media is always an appeal to a very large segment of the public that does not even know the famous series of Japanese origins, a bit like when it comes to Disaster Report so to speak. These products, carefully calibrated on a specific cultural profile, are difficult to find in the West and only in recent years, thanks to the efforts of publishers and a greater diffusion of digital products, have they been able to enjoy a more fertile community than many years ago when at most you had to find very alternative (and expensive) ways to access this particular category.

Earth Defense Force, in a nutshell, is a long-lived saga at the base of which there is always a massive alien invasion made up of hordes on hordes of bugs, mecha, Godzilla and any other doomsday scenario you can imagine. However, the peculiarity of Earth Defense Force is to have a B-movie tone and constantly exaggerate both in the scale of the clashes and in representing the patriotic / military spirit of the soldiers that the players impersonate. Each chapter is made up of hundreds of missions and just as much depth of customization or growth of troops in the field, ranging from simple soldiers to mecha pilots to armored women flying across the battlefield with laser rifles. And yes, if you're wondering it's damn fun to play with.

However, like all products of this type, Earth Defense Force has always suffered from a certain technical backwardness and the excessive repetitiveness of the grinding that Japanese-style "RPG" titles have by their nature. Despite being a third-person shooter, advancing through the ranks of the Earth Defense Force meant wasting hours upon hours on missions that all in all - while varying the enemies - always had the same story. Between one reason and another, Earth Defense Force has remained very niche by its choice, until today with the release of Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, the only real chapter for audiences of all kinds of genres. and age.

The answer in the blocks

Already in our hands-off preview we had the opportunity to see how Earth Defense World: Brothers had drastically changed the cards on the table, representing what it is an atypical path for a brand that until now has used a certain realism to reconcile that feeling from the very first Godzilla films with men in costume. While this approach up to Earth Defense Force 5 has worked enough, in the modern world there are now a thousand other third-person shooters with real apocalypses and gigantic monsters to take down, all with an infinitely superior graphics and less obsessive grinding. br>
It was time to change, take the big shot and see where you could go to discover an audience that distanced itself from grown-up fans. And the answer came from the voxel blocks, which were the perfect foundation for a mash-up of all the Earth Defense Force chapters in a strange royal rumble between heroes and invaders from all ages and nations. A product for young people and anyone, whose release in Japan has led to a new audience of kids thanks to the release on Nintendo Switch (portability at home is absolutely central) and the ease of co-op up to four players thanks to the teams of deployable heroes in missions.

And the title is damn fun precisely because it doesn't take itself seriously at all, there is insane destruction of everything and so many operators - each with their own unique abilities - to allow you to build a literal army of soldiers. The arenas are not as gigantic as some of the past, but they are long enough and present a series of enemies that do not lead to boredom after having faced a thousand of them, especially because being a collection of alien armies of many chapters you will have a very wide variety to fight. br>
Clearly the supplied arsenal, as suggested by the heroes, will be adequate to the threat and will give you a series of more or less simple weapons, including some really devastating based on their level. The idea to increase your power and your ranks is to "save" the various heroes of the Earth Defense Force who have fallen in the missions, recruiting them (in case you don't have them) and accumulating different versions of them to enhance their parameters. The more you use them in battle and help them on the field, the stronger they will grow and will be able to take on increasingly difficult missions. Compared to the past, the relationship between growth and challenge is more than generous and never becomes frustrating, thus making it fit for our Western hit and run standards.

Explosions of color

Although there therefore both the depth to which longtime fans are accustomed, the strongest point of Earth Defense: World Brothers is undoubtedly its light soul, both in terms of the style chosen for the aesthetics and for the humor it uses . Never taking itself seriously and coming to create crazy ideas of all kinds, even with some repetitions in the character design questionable, EDF World Brothers creates the perfect recipe for a title where the player connects, enjoys a couple of missions without any end. , and comes out satisfied because he has had a lot of fun shooting giant insects and commanding mecha capable of destroying the city. Every second of every World Brothers match is never wasted, there is never a stalemate and as you progress with upgrades for your team, the situation will become more chaotic or adrenaline-pumping.

Of course, it remains the old defect that often the elements on the screen are so many that the legibility of the clashes goes to be blessed: an EDF classic and with which the team has always struggled to come to terms. Trying it on Nintendo Switch then, albeit with the favor of portability, this problem is accompanied by quite evident drops in performance in a title that already runs at a very low resolution. Although it is still enjoyable, by virtue of this report we advise you where possible to prefer the other versions so as not to hinder your enjoyment with freeze and blur of the textures.

Not that Earth Defense Force has ever been a champion from a technical point of view, in fact he has always compensated with a good sound design and a clearly crazy dubbing. For World Brothers there is the possibility of having it in both English and Japanese with texts localized in English (but, as we said, we are certainly not faced with a complex narrative). The English dub really tries to do its best, and for some it may be preferable, but in Japanese World Brothers takes on a whole different tone also for the contrast between the urgent voice in military commando style and waves of enemies made in much more blocks. tender than fearful.

The nature of the enemies, like other aesthetic elements, is also an excellent point to demonstrate how Earth Defense Force: World Brothers is the very first title of the saga also suitable for a very young (and arachnophobic) audience ) and we also highly recommend it to audiences of all ages. Leaving aside the attractiveness of the voxel blocks and their success among the little ones, the structure of EDF World Brothers is easy to understand even if you don't know a single word of English, since every menu and action can be performed accompanied by clear graphical representations that give a picture complete from the first impact. For this reason, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers is undoubtedly the most accessible title of the whole brand, as well as the most fun. So don't deprive your children of the pleasure of repelling an alien invasion using robots, astronauts, cowboys and soldiers.