Earth Defense Force Series - B-Movies Never Played So Good

[Bob Barbas]

Decided to pick up World Brothers 2 today. (I would have gotten EDF6 but I hear the crashing and horrible desync issues still exist unfortunately.)
Seemed like a neat casual little version of EDF and so far I've been mostly right. The only thing I dislike is vehicles being mission exclusive instead of being able to call them in, but I did play the old EDF games before that was a thing so I can't really complain. The huge variety of characters is neat and being able to equip any weapon on any character (As long as you level them to meet the requirement anyway.) is pretty cool.

Overall, I give it a Baby's First EDF/10 it's decent enough fun for what it is.
And I admit the gimmick of being able to bring along your own little team is fun.

 

[Jaimas]

Decided to pick up World Brothers 2 today. (I would have gotten EDF6 but I hear the crashing and horrible desync issues still exist unfortunately.)
Seemed like a neat casual little version of EDF and so far I've been mostly right. The only thing I dislike is vehicles being mission exclusive instead of being able to call them in, but I did play the old EDF games before that was a thing so I can't really complain. The huge variety of characters is neat and being able to equip any weapon on any character (As long as you level them to meet the requirement anyway.) is pretty cool.

Overall, I give it a Baby's First EDF/10 it's decent enough fun for what it is.
And I admit the gimmick of being able to bring along your own little team is fun.

I had a blast with the first one after I made a team out of the Insect Armageddon crew.

 

[Gravemind]

(I would have gotten EDF6 but I hear the crashing and horrible desync issues still exist unfortunately.)

I hear about this every so often and I question why because EDF6 worked just fine on my machine. I don't think I had any crashes, but I did make the game buckle to its knees once in one of the underground missions with the teleport spawners, but that was because I used high yield explosive ordinance to deal with it while it had a bunch of enemies spawned around it.

 

[Bob Barbas]

I hear about this every so often and I question why because EDF6 worked just fine on my machine. I don't think I had any crashes, but I did make the game buckle to its knees once in one of the underground missions with the teleport spawners, but that was because I used high yield explosive ordinance to deal with it while it had a bunch of enemies spawned around it.

From my experience these kinds of issues are a total 50/50 on whether you will never encounter them at all or the game just hates you in particular. So I figured this time I'd rather not chance it. Maybe next paycheck.

 

[Bob Barbas]

Oh yeah, another thing I'm enjoying about World Brothers is the character variety. Unlike main EDF where you just have the 4 main classes and a shitton of weapons and items I like all of the different classes World Brothers seems to have. Honestly really cool.

Personally however I've basically been maining the Ninja once I found him. He's literally just Mercenary from Risk of Rain and equally fun to play for me.
Plus how can you beat fighting giant monsters with a sword?

 

[Mooger Meng]

Oh yeah, another thing I'm enjoying about World Brothers is the character variety. Unlike main EDF where you just have the 4 main classes and a shitton of weapons and items I like all of the different classes World Brothers seems to have. Honestly really cool.

Personally however I've basically been maining the Ninja once I found him. He's literally just Mercenary from Risk of Rain and equally fun to play for me.
Plus how can you beat fighting giant monsters with a sword?

In the distance, a Fencer whispers "with a jetpack".

 

[Bob Barbas]

In the distance, a Fencer whispers "with a jetpack".

Hmmm, actually yeah. I should try giving the Ninja's sword to a Fencer and see how that goes.

 

[Bob Barbas]

Welp, I beat World Brothers 2. Honestly I enjoyed the game way more than I expected to.
Funnily enough I pretty much beat the game with the Iron Rain team. I've never played Iron Rain myself, I've just been told it's one of the worse EDF games but honestly playing as them in this game was fairly fun. Especially Prowl Rider. I don't know if they simply refined her movement in this title or if she functions the same as in her origin game but I had a lot of fun using her grappling hooks to traverse. It gets even better once you get items that increase jump height and movement speed I'd honestly argue she's the most fun character in the entire game to traverse maps with.

 

[Croaking Spider]

Welp, I beat World Brothers 2. Honestly I enjoyed the game way more than I expected to.
Funnily enough I pretty much beat the game with the Iron Rain team. I've never played Iron Rain myself, I've just been told it's one of the worse EDF games but honestly playing as them in this game was fairly fun.

I felt the same way with the first World Brothers. It's just campy enough to be endearing, and there's a lot of game fanservice in the dialogue. One of my favorite callbacks in WB1 was when you meet up with Lightning Alpha from Insect Armageddon and mentions he's going to be busy getting married. For those not in the know, the true (Inferno) ending to Insect Armageddon ended on a cutscene where Alpha and the radio operator confess their feelings for one another. Lightning Alpha reveals his name actually IS Alpha, the radio operator reveals her name is actually Roger Ops, and there just so happens to be an ordained minister on-board the aircraft they escape on. It's cheesy as hell, but it's very on-tone for EDF. The World Brothers main crew also gives Alpha shit for referring to Iron Rain as an Insect Armageddon sequel.

(God, seeing this again made me sad at how much of a faggot Steve Blum has become)

Iron Rain takes the prize for being arguably the best-looking yet most frustrating EDF to play. Enemies are lower in number and have much more health because of it, so everything feels like a bullet sponge. It also used a currency system for upgrades, which sounds nice in theory, but getting any weapon that wasn't a meme gun was expensive. EDF being EDF, you don't always know if a gun is a piece of shit or not until you used it, and it sucked to grind up currency for a weapon just for it to be ass.

There are some cool ideas though, like the Prowl Rider and the tracked Fencer class I can't remember the name of. The World Brothers games are a much better attempt by the studio to make an EDF title and I find it funny the studio has no issues cracking jokes in-game at their own expense. I kinda hope they get another crack at a mainline game to redeem themselves for Iron Rain.

 

[Bob Barbas]

I will say though, one thing I am not a fan of in these games is the equipment and armor limits for missions and stuff. Like, okay I get why they are there. But at the same time I'm a lazy fuck so I hate having to redo my loadout just because this one mission says "Erm akshully you're not allowed to use that gun." especially since one of my main weapons is a shotgun and the lower level shotguns usually suck ass because they have no range whereas later shotguns have a decent enough range to not feel grating to use. The issue is also exacerbated in WB2 specifically because you have four characters each with their own weapon and items you have to micro manage to fit the limits.

I do like however that some of the EDF games allow you to turn equipment levels and stuff off when making a room. What I don't like is that sometimes it's something you have to unlock. I say this because to unlock it in World Brothers 2 I had to get 80% completion. So of course I cheated because fuck replaying the campaign multiple times on different difficulties JUST to unlock a settings option that should be unlocked by default.
Full stop making what should be regular game settings unlockable is fucking retarded. Just make it a normal game option. If you're a lazy fuck like me and or just don't care about the game being "Too easy" when your friend shows up with end game guns? Just turn it off. If you want to preserve the challenge of the game and stuff turn it on. It should be that simple. Not some fucking bullshit reward.

Usually whenever I play with friends I just use cheats or download a mod to remove the weapon restrictions beforehand because I think it's more fun that way in all honesty.
Plus, imo it's hilarious giving your friends who are just starting out a preview of the crazy bullshit weapons they'll be getting later.

 

[Bob Barbas]

In all honesty, I feel like I like World Brothers 2 more than the mainline games I played just because it leans into the wackiness even more.
I mean, you can give Fencer fucking boxing gloves and punch the fucking spiders!

Any game that lets me punch spiders is an automatic 1000/10.

 

[Inco G. Nito]

On a whim I grabbed ((my)) copy of EDF 2017 and found out that it emulates perfectly on Xenia, played through it again and one thing led to another and now I'm playing through EDF 5 with my friends. I know each game is pretty much an upgrade of the previous, and it might be some kind of nostalgia talking. But I think there's actually good reason to go back to some of the older games and play through them. I mean, I never grew up playing Global Defense Force and I played through that a while back and it was a blast. Very interesting to see the subtle ways the franchise has evolved over time.

Also equally cool to see tons of callbacks and references to the older games in EDF 5. From vending machines advertising trading cards of the EDF 2017 soldiers to playground equipment with decorative silhouettes of the enemy roster from the very early Monster Attack/Global Defense Force era games. Sandlot isn't shy about their franchise's history at all.

 

[frozen_runner]

I'm just posting to say Earth Defense Force 5 is fucking peak. One of the best gaming values I've played recently, and totally unique.

And I was pleasantly surprised to see the excellent soundtrack (for almost the whole series, actually) is done by the legendary, ex-Grasshopper composer team of Masafumi Takada and Jun Fukuda.

I also bought World Brothers recently, which is cool. I don't like it as much a EDF5, though. I wish it just looked like WB but played more like EDF5.

Is there any reason to go back to the earlier games? I played through Insect Armageddon years ago and loved it, but I haven't played much of the other games.

 

[augment]

I have fond memories of the multiplayer on EDF 4.1, but I guess you could replay any and see for yourself. I know some people didn't care for the shop grind in Iron Rain, but since I never played it I cannot comment.

 

[Raikiri]

I'm just posting to say Earth Defense Force 5 is fucking peak. One of the best gaming values I've played recently, and totally unique.

And I was pleasantly surprised to see the excellent soundtrack (for almost the whole series, actually) is done by the legendary, ex-Grasshopper composer team of Masafumi Takada and Jun Fukuda.

I also bought World Brothers recently, which is cool. I don't like it as much a EDF5, though. I wish it just looked like WB but played more like EDF5.

Is there any reason to go back to the earlier games? I played through Insect Armageddon years ago and loved it, but I haven't played much of the other games.

Why not EDF 6 since it's EDF5 part 2?

I recommend EDF 4 if you have completed all the inferno dlc missions and really need to play something clunkier with some really cool missions.

Iran Rain is just 10 ish hours if it wasn't for grinding/p2w shit and S-class weapons. Interesting classes and weapons but much fewer enemies. Would recommend only if you have no other choice. Even in that case pirating and cheating to get resources and s weapons is only enjoyable way to play it.