Now that I’m back to playing the games in the right order, we finally come to Earth Defense Force 2025. The bugs have been gone for 7 years, but now, they’re back. And the EDF is ready…or so they think. But as an enlisted man, was I ready? What about you as a review reader? We’re about to find out as we press start on Earth Defense Force 2025!

Having played all three games (EDF 2017, EDF Insect Armageddon and now EDF 2025) in rapid succession, it’s impossible NOT to notice the evolution of the series. Finding ourselves back in the hands of game developers Sandlot, a lot of the mood and cheesiness from 2017 are back…and as such a lot of the narration is going to sound VERY 1950’s sci-fi B-movie-esque. That’s a big plus for me. However, this game keeps the new character classes introduced by Vicious Cycle in the previous entry. Naturally, they’ve been altered to fit more in with Sandlot’s aesthetic, most notably the Jet Trooper becoming the all-female Wing Diver corps and the Heavy Troopers becoming the even more mecha-like Fencers…and those guys are packing a lot more than epees and foils. [Only about 2…maybe 3…people are going to get that joke. – Ed.] I gotta admit that I like the gender-swap on the Wing Divers…given that Insect Armageddon was feeling like one of those Call of Duty sausage-fests…and we don’t need anything to draw in that crowd. [We’d actually prefer the giant insects. – Ed.] Insect designs and the graphics in general have gotten a shot in the arm, being more detailed than in the previous entries. The spiders, for example, not only spew webbing as they’ve done in past games, but can also draw you up into a web that you CAN get caught in…all the while draining your health. As you’d expect with the reversion to Sandlot, the structure of the game has more in common with the first entry than the second. Missions are bite-sized and the controls are largely identical to the original game with one exception, 2025 does allow you to reload at will with a press of the X button. As my brand-new copy of this game did NOT come with an instruction booklet and, like 2017, this game throws you directly into the action whether you like it or not with little in the way of a tutorial, I’d highly recommend taking a look at the Controller Options from the opening menu if you’ve only played Insect Armageddon.

It’s weird…but it feels really difficult to write this as there’s not much more with this game that hasn’t been said in the other two reviews. It’s you against swarms of giant bugs…and then the robots and gunships and all sorts of future/alien tech come into play. If you were on board with the last two games of the series, you’ll be on board here too. One thing worth mentioning…in Classic Game Room’s review for this title, he mentions periods of slowdown/framerate stuttering on the PS3 version of the game. I haven’t seen anything like that on my Xbox 360 version, but at the same time I’ll admit I didn’t get very far in my initial playing. All that said, Earth Defense Force 2025 really does feel like the culmination of the series to some degree. After two ‘rough drafts’, 2025 feels like the game that developers were trying to make all along…and if you look forward to the PS4 exclusive Earth Defense Force 4.1 as well as the upcoming Earth Defense Force 5 and the PSVita re-release/update of Earth Defense Force 2…you can see this is pretty much the style of the series moving forward. Well, with the exception of Earth Defense Force Iron Rain, developed by Yukes and not Sandlot, and that looks to return to the aesthetics of Insect Armageddon except for avoiding the sausage-fest aspect of that game…keeping the Wing Divers female.

As a standalone game, if you’re looking into getting into this series (and why wouldn’t you?), you’re pretty safe starting off here. But as I said before, I’ve really enjoyed watching this series evolve, so my own personal recommendation is to track down all three games and go through them in order. All totaled, the entire trilogy only ran me about $45…which is still lower than a brand new game. So, what are you waiting for soldier?!? Get out there and kill some bugs!

Oh, yeah, the stats…

Playing time: 47 minutes. After that, I was killed by a damn spider and his web…which will constantly eat away at your health. Dirty pool old man, dirty pool.

So…of course Earth Defense Force 2025’s pizza is free. Pfft. Like it could be any other way!

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