What? Did you think I was done with the Earth Defense Force games?

Get down on the ground and give me 20, maggot! You’re never done with the EDF! And the only time you might come close is if you find yourself as little bits in the mandibles of a giant ant or if we finally manage to kick those aliens off this planet so hard that every single generation of those insect bastards that follows will be born with an unending pain in their thorax…DO YOU GET ME?!?

[Maaaaaaybe you might want to take a bit of a break, eh? – Ed.]

Ahem…that might not be a bad idea. In the meantime, though, we’re taking a look at Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair. Released back in late 2015 here in the west, EDF 4.1 is a PS4 port of Earth Defense Force 2025…with most of the glitches that plagued that earlier release fixed and the graphics updated somewhat. With no release on the Xbox One, what we’re looking at here is the game that finally made me break down and buy a PlayStation 4. Was it worth it? Well, there’s part of me that says for any EDF game…yes. On the other hand, I’ve heard that in the case of EDF 2025 on the Xbox 360, playing that game on an Xbox One system will mitigate if not completely eliminate the framerate issues. So just on the merits of EDF 4.1…I can honestly say no…it probably wasn’t worth it. However, we do have to factor in the future. As a fan of this series, knowing that EDF 5 is already out in Japan for the PS4…and yes, of course I imported it…and another game in the style of Insect Armageddon, EDF: Iron Rain, is on the way for later this year…well, it looks like this franchise may go the way of some of Bandai/Namco’s others and become a PlayStation exclusive.

Plot-wise, again, it’s the year 2025 and the “Ravagers” are back…and with them are all the giant bugs, robots, spaceships and the like. It’s time for the EDF to stand up once again and make like some Black Flag…killin’ bugs dead. [I agree…the Raid analogy is starting to get old…nice switch of brands! – Ed.] And you know the drill: 4 player classes (the standard trooper, my favorite Wing Divers, the vehicularly inclined Air Raiders and the slow-moving Fencers), collecting armor and weapons, higher difficulties bring better weapons…and boy are there a lot of weapons. Oh, and did we mention lots of bugs? Yeah, lots of bugs.

The big selling point for this port is that it feels like EDF 4.1 gives us a fully realized vision of what the creators had intended all along…and if you couldn’t tell from my previous reviews, for me that’s a very, VERY good thing. At this point, it’s a foregone conclusion, but hey, we’re talking pizza here, so let’s get to it:

Playing time: 1 hour, 17 minutes…[Minus the 40 minutes it took for me to get to missions I hadn’t already played on EDF 2025]…so that leaves 37 minutes.

Of course, Earth Defense Force 4.1, your pizza is free.

So if you’ve already got a PS4 and want to get into this series, EDF 4.1 is a great place to start…and with it currently going for only $20 new on Amazon…you’ve really got no excuse to enlist now. Is this game worth buying a PS4 for? Only if you’ve got an eye to the future of this series and plan to stick with it for the long term…otherwise, it really doesn’t do that much different from the games already available on the Xbox 360 and playable on the Xbox One.

And now the prerequisite chant:

EDF! EDF! EDF! EDF!!!!

#HypnoCat #videogames #FreePizza #games