Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2
Developer: Yuke’s
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $49.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
The Earth Defense Force franchise may have, once upon a time, tried to play thing straight but along the way the franchise has embraced its absurd side and nowhere was this more evident than with the arrival of Earth Defense Force: World Brothers just a few years ago that put a more childish and comedic spin on the world-ending threat of aliens, giant bugs, and voxels. Now, arriving hot on the heels of their time traveling trickery that was Earth Defense Force 6 D3 Publisher has brought us Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2. Promising to deliver even more absurd content, strange characters, and over-the-top bombastic battles, is this spin-off even better than the first?
Story
Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 takes place almost immediately following the events of the prior game though knowledge of what actually happens in the original is unnecessary to enjoy this one. Before humanity and the Earth Defense Force have a chance to celebrate their previous victory over the dangerous alien overlord that split the square Earth apart they find that the Earth has once again been shattered but this time it was not from an outside force, but from within the Earth itself calling itself Gaiark. With this titan shattering the planet the Earth Defense Force must do what it does best and band together once more to squash this new menace and try to return the Earth back to the way it once was.
Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 features a rather ridiculous plot that runs a bit on the thin side but persists far more than in the original release, introducing far more important characters that both join the player’s team as playable characters as well as other more mysterious characters that simply fight alongside them and chatter during battle. The plot itself is as absurd as it can be and the idea of adding more zaniness to the camaraderie players will form as they fight countless waves of enemies is always a plus, especially with how downright ridiculous some of the events can be and the many characters players can recruit to their team. It also must be said that there is a lot more humor this time around that plays up the long running jokes and fourth wall breaking humor of the franchise such as saying how the Primers look just like humans and another character telling them to get their visor checked or another one appearing and saying how their weapon is far more impressive this time around and not to leave them behind.
Similar to the first game players will enter a stage and find that at least two, rarely more, fighters have been downed in the stage and need assistance. If the player’s team has an opening the EDF member or a Brother or Sister will immediately join their team otherwise they will be placed into the ever growing roster of selectable characters. There are easily over a hundred different characters for players to recruit and the variety is as strange as ever. Sure, some may be a bit on the stereotypical side when it comes to representing some nations around the world but players will be hard pressed to find anyone actually offended by these representations. That being said, it must be said that the character design team went wild here with some of these character designs and going off the wall with their personalities including straight up references to other popular properties including a certain horse racing franchise and numerous others.
Gameplay
In many ways Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 still plays the same as the first game. Players select one of over a hundred missions that they will eventually unlock throughout the game and find themselves dropped into a stage where they will fight with a team of up to four characters of their choosing. Their mission? Kill anything that might be a threat, be it a giant red ant, flying giant hornet, UFOs, literally giant space frogs, motherships, and more though occasionally the team will be tasked with defending something or wiping out a nest that will endlessly spawn enemies until it is destroyed.
The four units that players can bring into the fray at any given point come in all shapes and sizes as mentioned before and while there is some customization available, these characters all have set special skills and attacks that remain unchanged. This generally involves their special ability as well as their ultimate “Special Power” that has to be charged up through either slaying enemies or grabbing drops from defeated foes.There is some customization though, with players gaining extra accessories that can be equipped to boost a character’s stats in various ways or even swap out their weapon for one of the same class, though the weapon owner will always have a 20% damage boost regardless. That being said, should players want to take their favorite fighter into a stage that requires long range weaponry and primarily uses something like a sword, bear claws, or even exploding apples, well they are out of luck.
In fact it almost feels like some of the Brothers and Sisters that players can recruit have a rather wide range from being extremely powerful and must-have units to clear some of the harder stages on high difficulties (of which there is Easy, Normal, and Hard) to being downright useless in nature. This can involve having skills that are either unreliable or useless to having a kit that rarely works for even the simplest of fights which can be a bit disappointing since some of the more eclectic characters tend to also be the most useless. That being said, having such flexibility in how to deck out the player’s four member team often keeps things moving quite nicely and keeps the flow of combat brisk and fast paced, even more so than the core franchise. This is thanks to the ability to use characters like Wing Divers to zip around the battlefield through the air, swap to a heavy hitter in mid-air and deal tons of damage in what would be a slow moving unit, and swap to yet another version of a Wing Diver or even a zippy sliding character to keep themselves on the move and out of the clutches of a giant insect or barrage of enemy lasers.
The best way to strengthen a unit is to simply use them more in combat as they will gain additional Armor (health) by fighting in missions and gaining experience with their equipped weapon. Unfortunately after a certain point this doesn’t really improve units much and players must rely on the randomization of rescuable allies to unlock additional abilities for their favorite units. This is because obtaining a second unit of the same type will often reward players with an accessory and useful skill, making their favorite unit even stronger. Though since players will always need to keep thinking on the fly for some stages, it is always good to keep a number of different teams ready to fight and the game offers plenty of pre-set selections for players to create.
It must also be said that the multiplayer action in the game is some really chaotic fun. Each player in a match is able to bring their entire team of four with them and while this can trivialize even some of the hardest missions, watching this chaos unfold is truly something special, especially when some of the more outlandish SP moves are being fired off. There are some issues with joining matches unfortunately but these are minimal at best and while there is plenty of fun to be had online, the game’s single player content is more than meaty enough on its own.
Audio & Visuals
Obviously one of the most unique elements of Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is the way it uses colorful voxel artwork to create the stages players battle on, the characters they play as, and even the different enemies they destroy. The characters are as delightful looking as ever and the world is as destructive as ever when players use powerful enough weapons or abilities to blow apart buildings or even turn enemies into nice voxel sized chunks. It is worth noting that there does appear to be some recycled efforts here both in stages as well as characters but this isn’t too much of an issue thanks to how fast stages can be and how chaotic the action can be all while the game runs completely smoothly even with the largest skills blowing away enemies.
The voice work for the game is about what one would expect from even the most basic Earth Defense Force game but it is nice to note that there does seem to be quite a few more lines mixed in here to keep things feeling a bit fresher though there will still be plenty of repetitive lines being barked out during fights even while the storyline dialogue plays out in the background. As for the soundtrack the game features a solid set of background music that works well for the game and the action playing out in stages though it rarely stands out as anything special.
Overall
Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 doesn’t reinvent the wheel from the original and that is for the best here as D3 Publisher has found a wonderful blend of simple and colorful chaos with just enough of a plot and humorous writing to help keep things flowing nicely. Sure, it might be a bit basic at times and some characters are just downright useless compared to others, but World Brothers 2 offers a fantastic time of protecting a voxel filled world from even the most chaotic enemies with just as chaotic weaponry and abilities.
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