Earth Defense Force 4.1 & 5 - "The EDF deeeploys!", now with more mission repetition!

Games
1

A game this bad has no business still being fun.

Just started playing this the other day. I can see why it’s part of the “so-bad-it’s-good” bin: just lots of explosions and repetitive baddies after repetitive baddies. Which you explode. And yet somehow it works. I think I destroyed more buildings than insects, though… they’re just in the way, y’know? Collateral damage is to be expected, y’know? I think the game also has some of the worst bad writing of any game. This is one of my new all-time favorites:

– Sir, the Air Force bombing runs are useless against enemy shields. Should we tell them to stop?
– The Air Force have honor too, let them try.
(Said bombing runs work fine for killing you, by the way)

Still, for a game that’s supposed to be madcap multiplayer fun, they sure make it hard to enjoy it with others. If you want to play couch coop, you have to leave to the main menu, log in again in your profile, then select 2 players. No drop in and play in this one. You have to do the same with online multiplayer, except progress is not shared. And you cannot join an ongoing session: you stand in the waiting room, waiting for them to finish without even being able to spectate.

Most multiplayer game sessions seems to be about grinding the same mission over and over and over again too. I think people might be chasing trophies: to get every trophy, you have to beat every level with every class on every difficulty level (single player and online progress ARE NOT shared. If you want help, you have to play online from the beginning). So it’s something like 4 difficulties x 4 classes x 80 levels x 5 minutes = 106 hours (a VERY conservative estimate). Oh, and weapons are alloted out randomly according to the mission’s difficulty. No way to know what weapon you might be missing or where to ge it.

The game does nothing to deserve being this grindy. These poor people. Oh, and how can a remaster of a PS3 game sell 30$ worth of DLC?

Anyway, I think to enjoy this game, you should not go for 100%. That’s the way it’s still fun.

Anyone playing this on PS4? I’d be interested in a coop run. This way we could maybe run different classes and support each other.

2

I’m not quite sure what you mean here. EDF is all about the grind after your first run through the missions. I must have cheesed mission 14 dozens of times to get easy high level weapons.

I have to say, I can’t really see the appeal of coop (other than in the way that all games are improved by coop). Partly because of the high level design issues you talk about, but also because it just doesn’t have any in-game mechanics that really leverage coop. It’s just more DPS (but with more bullet spongy enemies). Sure having different units/loadouts mixes things up a little, but not much.

3

My favorite bit of EDF dialogue is when the aliens are introduced as the Ravagers and then the announcer wonders optimistically whether they come in peace. I forget which installment it’s in.

4

That’s at the very beginning of Earth Defense Force 2017.

5

They wonder about whether they have come and peace THEN say they’ve decided to call them the ravagers. Gotta keep these things straight.

Btw 4.1 is on sale on steam this week for 40% off iirc. Thinking about picking up a couple of copies

I used to hand sell 2017 on Xbox all the time to parents who came in looking to buy the latest Call of Duty or whatever for their 6 year old without having a clue what they were buying. I can still remember saying more or less that:

“the graphics are cheesy, there are only a few enemy types, the missions are repetitive, but you just can’t stop playing it because there’s something incredibly satisfying about unleashing a rocket launcher on a swarm of giant ants.”

6

I’m down for this though I haven’t played for a while.

7

Sorry, yes. Very important distinction.

8

It is truly one of the most hilarious moments in gaming, though, no argument there.

Oh, and @Woodlance, when you sing along, and who doesn’t, it’s both more fun and more accurate to sing “the EDF deeestroys!”

10

Added!

11

EEEEDDDDFFFF!!!

Once again, I have failed to protect the giant insects from the terrible buildings.

My modus operandi:

  1. Shout or sing the greatness of the EDF!
  2. Destroy buildings
  3. Listen to insane radio banter
  4. Go to 1
12

Argh! Why is this not backwards-compatible for XB1!!!

13

I really need to try playing it on the PS4 Pro with boost mode.

14

It’s on Steam!

15

But I already own the PS4 version. Just reminded I should try it now that they added boost mode.

16

Okay, I’m bored again now. Does this game ever end? It’s the same thing over and over again.

When I looked up a guide, I read that the quality of the weapons you get is much more consistent on hard. On hardest or impossible, you can get higher-level weapons, but also much lower ones, so the range is greater. How 'bout that, huh?

17

There’s about 90 missions, and five difficulty levels (though there’s no need to do easy, really).

18

Keep in mind you can also jump up in difficulty at any time, iirc. No need to finish the campaign.

19

And it’s highly recommended to do so, as the weapons you’ll pick up will drastically improve as you step up a difficulty level. There’s something of an armour threshold unless you’re super careful/good, but, generally you’ll want to be doing say Inferno level 2 before Normal level 50.

20

The worst part of EDF for me has always been the requirement to do each difficulty level separately in order to get credit. It just makes no sense whatsoever. If I can do a level at Inferno then I should get credit for the lower difficulties on the same run.

21

I tended to go back and complete the hardest level i could on inferno to get some crazy powerful weapons. There’s a beach level… 14? When you fight some airborne ships and then walkers come in from the sea, but this got me enough firepower to complete the game on normal/hard.