Earth Defense Force 5 (PS4) Review

THE WORLD HAS AN ANT PROBLEM.

I love Earth Defense Force. I have played every game in the series, including the European only “Monster Attack”. I’ll be the first to admit that this series really hasn’t evolved much since its time on PlayStation 2, but with only seven unique titles in fifteen years it hasn’t worn out its welcome. I will however say right now, anyone who has played and not enjoyed any past EDF title will not enjoy this iteration and therefore can save themselves the following read. To anyone who hasn’t played the EDF games or is looking to know what’s new, read on.

The plot of every Earth Defense Force title is that aliens attack. The idea is simple; kill all the alien invaders with a huge arsenal and unlimited ammunition. Nearly every mission involves murdering all the things until there is nothing left to murder, with plenty of wanton destruction of cities.

PLATFORMS: PS4
MSRP: $59.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $39.99

There are four classes to choose from that will change how to go about destroying everything. Ranger is standard infantry, with a wide array of assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, and an assortment of vehicles and special weapons at their disposal. This has been the standard class from EDF’s inception. Just run and gun.

Wind Diver is the all-female special forces equipped with a jetpack and laser weapons. They can’t take a lot of hits, but they are extremely mobile. Their weapons are all energy based and have charge times rather than standard reload.

Air Raider is the support class, requesting air strikes and setting bombs as well as healing comrades who are down. The real appeal of this class outside of co-op play is its selection of vehicles and powered exoskeletons (mechs).

By far the coolest class though is the Fencer. This heavily armored class gets to equip two loadouts of two weapons each. Heavy weaponry and melee weapons are the forte of this class, trading speed for pure firepower. When using melee weaponry, the game works very differently. The movement feels heavier, strafing around enemies, with a stamina meter being replaced by the ammo counter (swords and spears have a certain amount of swings before having to reload and shields only being able to absorb so much damage).

Enemies start with giant ants and expand out into drones, spiders, and aliens that “Look just like humans.” Not until 30 missions in will there start to be more than this, which is annoying because monotony kicks in much faster when fighting the same enemy in similar environments. To get new weapons and increase health, crates labeled “WEAPON” and “ARMOR” must be collected after enemies are defeated. This means there might multiple missions where the same enemies are fought with the exact same weapons and this also gets monotonous. I found an assault rifle and grenade launcher early on that were so powerful that I nearly never switched them out.

There are large numbers of underground missions that just lack the same appeal as the wide open battlegrounds in the mountains, cities, and fields. They also lack the pure joy of watching towers fall from the heat of battle.

I like this game a lot, but solo play will wear on some for sure. There is luckily co-op play, both online and split screen and with friends. With such a small barrier to entry (point and shoot) it should be easy to find others to play with even if they aren’t super familiar with video games. The only odd control option is the touch pad and the d-pad activating pre-made quick chat lines. That means cycling through pause menus has to be done with the analog sticks and while moving there will be times the quick chat wheel will pop up.

There is however an Earth Defense Force 4.1 on PS4 as well with similar graphics and options, and that title will likely not be full priced anymore. There hasn’t been any great graphical leaps since 4.1 (which was also on PS3 as EDF 2025) and there is still plenty of slowdown in later levels based purely on the amount of enemies and explosions on screen at one time. The dialog is just as campy. This series started as a budget title and still looks like a budget title when compared in both depth of gameplay and graphics to other full priced games. It’s hard to recommend this title at $60 to anyone but the hardest of hard core EDF fans.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

Good
  • Pure chaotic fun
  • Fair amount of variety
  • Giant robots and monsters
  • Online and local co-op
Bad
  • Can get monotonous
  • Full price is absurd (wait for a sale)
  • Looks a lot like the last game
7.5
Good
Written by
Anthony is the resident Canadian. He enjoys his chicken wings hot and drinks way too much Coca-Cola. His first game experience was on his father's Master System and he is a loyal SEGA fanboy at heart.