Earth Defense Force: World Brothers by developer YUKE'S and publisher D3 Publisher—Sony PlayStation 4 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
It was just another day, humanity was simply minding its own business, and then bam. Aliens attack. Again. Actually again, again, again, again as this time around, you've got enemies from across the Defense Forces seemingly under a banner of a new big bad that has split the world into literal pieces. With no choice to pick up a weapon and fight in humanity's defense once again, welcome back to the field Commander in Earth Defense Force: World Brothers.
The latest EDF entry is an interesting one as it takes the campy-ness, doubles it, and makes it work in a family friendly style that the rest of the series cannot say the same for. I was a bit worried about this direction as I wondered if it may not be too campy for long-time fans but it doesn't take long to settle into the action and the dialog across the sixty missions that make up the first stretch of the game. Once that's done, higher difficulties are unlocked and the rest of the trophies can be hunted down.
Returning to a class based structure as is common with the core EDF titles, this time around you'll be creating a squad of four to take out and fight back against the invaders with in a 3D action style. Going this route allows for one customizations such as four Lancers with different weapons or four separate class types to really be able to adapt to the field. Hell, with all of the campiness you can even take Aya from Onechanbara to fight against the invading hordes!
The overall structure is simple enough but without some of the provided DLC I could potentially see some frustrations at times especially when getting into late game. The reason is, as standard, your squad units will receive armor points for successfully completing a mission. That's about all that is given to you as if you want new or more powerful weapons, you're going to have to rescue one to three other EDF members in the field and hope that they give you what you want. Generally speaking? This was not that case.
This is where I worry that may turn off some people due to the fact that it's random and there's no control over any of it. There are no skill trees or upgrade paths, it's just random to acquire variations of a class, new weapons, and new accessories. If you already have one it's a bonus as it gets upgraded but over the course of the main campaign? I was rocking only a handful of level 2 squad members, weapons and accessories.
Otherwise, if you're here to hunt down giant monsters and space aliens you've come to the right place as there's no shortage of that! From start to finish the objective is simple, shoot to kill everything in sight. From time to time there may be another objective such as defending a landmark but overall, it's done in the same manner as eliminating everything coming at it. Between the classes and the weapons (as they unlock) there are plenty of different ways to go about this and there are trophies for all of them!
Finally, while there is some diversity in gameplay from an Infantry Unit to a heavy infantry unit like a Lancer, to a Wing Diver that takes to the skies into a Ninja (yes Ninja) that strikes lightning quick, when it boils down to it it's not really what these individual units can do separately, but what they can do together which makes this combination of a four person squad interesting. Fly around to quickly get out of harm's way and then drop back in with a heavy weapon (as long as you're in range) and let loose. Enemies getting too close and your weapons take time to fire up or would cause your units themselves harm? Keep someone close that either specializes in melee weapons like swords or punching gloves or go with the classics, a shotgun. If it comes to getting up close and personal you can't go wrong with either or these two!
Summary
That's really all there is to it. Earth Defense Force: World Brothers is simplified fun and even at its toughest running on normal, players shouldn't have an issue dispatching the newest set of does to attack Planet Earth. The only real issue is the pacing of the upgrades but once you're passed that there's nothing to worry about other than how many missions can be crammed into an evening.
Score: 7.5 / 10
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