Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair Review (PC)

  Earth Defense Force is dumb. Earth Defense Force is fun. I'd even go so far as to say Earth Defense Force is dumb fun.

  Harkening back to the days of cheesy science fiction movies like Starship Troopers or the kind you'd see on MST3K, in Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair you're a single soldier tasked with eliminating droves of giant insects, towering robots, dragons for some reason, and... Godzilla? Taking a kitchen sink approach to enemy design, there's really no rhyme or reason to what you're shooting at, but honestly who cares? If it's big and dumb and can be lumped into the general “sci fi” genre it's fair game.

  There's a loose story about aliens attacking Earth, and you're humanity's last hope because you have a rocket launcher. Despite the mission briefings before starting a level (it's usually the “biggest threat you've yet faced”) and battlefield chatter, most missions have the exact same objective: kill everything. Kill the monsters by any means necessary, even if that results in entire cities being razed to the ground.

  Turn your brain off and keep your finger on the trigger; this is essentially an old school arcade game. Hundreds of enemies will mindlessly swarm your position, and you're doing your best at crowd control as they assault from the ground, sky, and the sides of any buildings you haven't destroyed yet. The scale of the battles are truly impressive. At first glance the graphics are bland and outdated, PS2-era quality. However, once the shit hits the fan you appreciate the trade off; massive environments and enemies, decent explosions and effects, almost fully destructible structures... and it all runs buttery smooth.

  The old school nature of the game bleeds through to the presentation as well. Menus have little personality, they are just there to get the job done. Select what you want to do from a list of options and be on your way. After a few missions it's easy to see how the overall game has been structured: the developers made a sandbox, then populated different sections with enemies to create the scenarios that make up the missions. There's nothing wrong with this approach, it just once again feels decidedly PS2, almost simulation game design. Truth be told I think any other method would fundamentally break the game and rob it of it's charm.

  Despite the simplistic nature, a few niggling issues I found got in the way of achieving complete arcade zen. There's a grind to be endured: weapons and armor upgrades (that increase your maximum health pool) are dropped from defeated enemies in the form of physical loot boxes. The weapons are RNG, so if you want better/specific ones it can become a time sink. Some people may enjoy playing the same stages over and over to “level up”, but I find it slows down the otherwise frantic vibe the game is going for. The same type of issue is a result of having to walk over to boxes to collect them; after fighting through an army of bugs and robots with heavy metal blaring to get your blood pumping, it's quite the mood killer having to march through those barren, massive levels to collect loot while keeping the last enemy alive. It just seems like an unnecessary slog. Why not just award XP or credits for kills? There's also a fair amount of enemy types that enjoy slowing/stunning/tripping you, and that's always annoying.

  Don't be fooled by the low budget dressing Earth Defense Force wraps itself in. There's a lot of game here: almost one hundred missions that can be tackled on a half dozen difficulty levels, four unique classes to pick from, and the entire game can be played cooperatively. It took me about twenty hours to complete on Normal with one class, and there's hundreds of hours of replayibility beyond that if you're inclined toward the grind. What a gloriously stupid game.