Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 by developer YUKE'S and publisher D3PUBLISHER—PC(Steam) review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
EDF! EDF! Save the world from giant insects and invaders! Join the EDF today to protect the world! This time in square voxel form! Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is your enlistment chance!
If you are familiar with the EDF franchise, I assume you're already well familiar with what you're getting into. If you aren't though, let me tell you a bit about it. Earth Defense Force is a series where you fight off giant enemies to protect Earth. The enemies are comically oversized and ragdoll something fierce when killed. If you know "what's the blast radius on this? YES" then you know how ridiculous the EDF series can be. World Brothers 2 is the voxel form with a massive host of different units and weapons to acquire and choose from, and tons of aliens and monsters to crush.
While the plot probably isn't going to be most people's first consideration in an EDF title, World Brothers 2 is about a giant creature that has broken the Earth into pieces, and a bunch of motherships are dropping invaders onto the Earth. You start out as Fyta Gether, a new recruit in the EDF. You join a quirky cast of characters as you fight (together) to fend off the alien invaders.
Gameplay is simple but surprisingly addicting. There are over 100 missions that you take on with a team of up to four units. Your goal is almost always to clear out all the enemies, and you can do so by switching between the units you've brought along. More units can be unlocked by rescuing teammates "in-stage", and after completing the stage they will be unlocked. Each unit has a weapon specialization, such as rockets, cannons, or shotgun style weapons, a unit specific special attack, alternate action, and sometimes dodge type. If one of your units goes down, you can swap to another to get the first one back up, at the expense of some health.
As I mentioned, there are a ton of units with different playstyles and abilities, as well as weapons. Units start with only one weapon type available, but if you rescue a duplicate of the unit, you can upgrade their "skill level", which increases the types of weapons they can equip. Want a flying Wingrider with a rocket launcher? That's possible if you're lucky with the unlocks. In addition to weapons you also have equipment you can put on your units. Both weapons and equipment are earned post mission after rescuing teammates, so it's really beneficial for you to do so. Harder difficulties mean better loot too, so there is a reason to up the difficulty.
Speaking of difficulties, you start with Easy, Normal, and Hard, where the harder difficulties count as completion for those under them. I.e. completing a mission on Hard counts as Normal and Easy as well. After clearing the game, you unlock two new difficulties that are separate from that, allowing for more replayability. Additionally, clearing a mission gives any unit that participated extra max armour (which is what this game calls health) based on difficulty, letting you take on tougher missions. Weapons also get experience and can level up to a certain extent, increasing damage. If the weapon tree (level 1 through 4 of the same series) is a unit's starting weapon, they also get a damage bonus.
As you're getting swarmed by giant insects and other creatures, you will earn SP for using the character specific special move whenever you kill enemies. There are also a lot of item pick-ups to be acquired that drop from enemies: white boxes that heal your current unit, red boxes that heal all units, and yellow boxes that give SP. You also get AI companions in a lot of missions to help you, and they can also revive you, and you them, at no health cost. Couple that with the different vehicles and tanks you can pilot, and there's a lot of helpful tools at your disposal.
EDF as a series is ridiculous, and it knows it. The dialogue in-mission is quirky and self referential while still retaining some serious nature. The units are all pretty interesting in their own right and are predominantly based off of different real world locations, and the massive amount of unit customization is great. Being able to bring four characters along is also really helpful for keeping gameplay fresh if you choose different enough units, because the playstyles feel different. The close-range shotgun feels a lot different from the cross map laser guided missiles you can fire.
The voxel style graphics and soundtrack also really lend themselves well to World Brothers 2. The aesthetics work well for the quirky and rather joking nature to the game, and the music tracks match with both the stage themes as well as the scenarios.
Good news for all of you worried about the multiplayer: it's really smooth. It's quick, I didn't have any lag issues, connecting and finding a room was easy, and playing with others was a blast. You also don't need any other additional accounts or services as long as everyone who is playing is doing so through Steam. With no peer to peer issues encountered at all, I was really pleasantly surprised.
Overall, I had an absolute blast with Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2, sometimes literally if I was too close to a building when firing a rocket. It's a wonderful mash-up of entertaining dialogue, tons of different units, lots of replayability, and overall just a really fun experience, whether by yourself or with others. Pick up EDF: World Brothers 2 and help save the Earth today!
Score: 9 / 10
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