Publisher: D3 Publishing
Developer: Sandlot Platform: PS4, PC
Genre: Third-person Wave Shooter
Release Date: December 11, 2018

Alien invasion, giant bugs swarming, bioweapons and intergalactic battles are a thing of yours? Say no more, because Earth Defense Force 5 comes to sate your need for eradicating your foes in the most brutal and hilarious ways you could think of.

EDF 5 is the 5th main installment of a long running series from Japanese developer Sandlot. Basically a monster shooter with local and online co-op play. While yes, this game came 6 months ago for the PS4, the Steam version has finally been released on the 11th of July.

So it was at this point I've wondered what was made this game pretty enticing besides the fact that I didn't play any of the previous ones? After spending several long lost hours of saving the Earth from extinction, am going to talk about its impression on me.

Story

Surprisingly enough, this game actually has a pretty well-written story besides the whole cheesy vibe set around it. This game is basically a fresh reboot, not a continuation of the previous installments. Aliens have arrived to Earth and the EDF, being private contractors have the job of helping to combat the invasion.

As you progress through the game, the plot further delves into the aliens' discovery and more. The silly and oblivious news anchors keep you company with some awkward hamfisted dialogues that works along with schlocky rhetoric from your fellow soldiers on the field. All of this while you're busy doing business as usual.

It's obvious that the ideas it has, comes from old classic Japanese shows like Ultraman or Super-Sentai. Where as instead of iconic heroes, you play as the military that thwarts the threat.

Gameplay

The gameplay in EDF is somewhat outdated but nuanced in modern semantics. You play between 4 types of combat units. While first two are easy to play with for solo-play, the others require practice and training. They're especially handy for co-op play. Each of them has different control schemes, requiring you to revise them before using.

You shoot down various giant beings: From ants, alien lizard soldiers, flying saucers, giant robots and more. Some of them come in different types like red ants that charge towards you before grabbing and tossing your body, requiring you to shoot it down while under its effect. While grey ants spew hot slime from range. Some of the enemies are harder to kill, as you'll have to shoot their heads off before they regenerate or their weakpoints. Adding tension and challenging from one encounter of an enemy type to another.

Shooting down your target isn't enough, at certain points of each mission, you have to destroy their spawn points like pylons dropping from the sky or alien dropships bringing them in. It's difficult to assess that at first given how outdated these mechanics feel, but the fun factor comes when you're trying your best to fight waves of enemies before getting into a good position to destroy them.

Killing enemies drop items like weapons, armor or health kits. Weapons are drops for new weapons which you unlock after completing missions. Armor drops are used to increase your overall armor. Sometimes it was easy to miss these out but playing replaying same missions had helped compensate for that.

Some of these weapons come in various types, depending on which combat unit you play as. You manage their equipment before heading to the missions. Prolong use will increase their impacts and efficiencies by raising star level.

EDF's mission goals are pretty simple, you just stop carnage by killing everything that stands between you and your fellow humans. At certain points, the game requires you to do menial tasks but all worth tolerating for one and every battle. This is a Japanese co-op wave shooter that with its silly nature, draws you into one intense session after another. It's like Serious Sam but wide in scale. Including the ability to lay destruction to concrete structures and so on.

Local/Online Co-op

EDF 5 has split-screen local co-op, unfortunately, the problem is the game makes it difficult to assign control scheme between the two players. Like either keyboard/mouse or game controller.

Both screens are horizontally cut, making it easier to play for a game of this proportions. Though for better experience, widescreen monitor or bigger TV is advised. What mission you play depends on who is hosting the match.

In online co-op, you play with 3 other players playing each different combat unit within the missions. Since this is solely a story-based PvE wave shooter, finishing them in harder difficulties gets you better rewards though as long as you pick the item drops.

Graphics/Audio

The intriguing aspect of this game is graphics. The engine is pretty old, that's for sure. More like 7th gen era, but almost everything feels upto teat as a modern game. There's nice geometry, tesselation and texture details. Good lighting and shading effects including occlusion are present. Unfortunately, fire effects look terrible, explosions look like a jpeg from 2003 and lens flare doesn't seem to be JJ Abrams standards.

But I guess those choices were made for aesthetic reasons. I feel am ok with that, since this game isn't shy to point out how minimalist it is for visuals in favor of cheesy aesthetics as well as novelty in being nostalgic. It runs superbly well on my computer, I've had no issues so far. Did I forget to mention it has body physics and Destructible environment? This game can also process and render so many enemies on the screen, it's pushing over Dynasty Warrior territory for enemy A.I present in one battle.

The music, of course, is no stranger to the cheesy grandeur. Again taking inspirations from Japanese superhero shows, though whether it suits you or not depends entirely on your taste because there's nothing pretty evocative or invigorating about the score, it just plays well with the game's themes.

Sound design is bombastic and over the top just like it should be no less.

Summation

Honestly, this being my first EDF game, I could see why people got into it. It's easily accessible yet challenging enough to encourage improving over for the battle you lost or the one after this.

Sure, it's got its rough spots but being quintessentially the defacto monster wave shooter, that's a small issue to have.

Besides its silly nature, the game's progression makes you want to play out more often especially with your friends as weapons and gear comes in loads. It'll take you somewhere around 40-50hrs to finish the game since there are over 100 missions to play.

I had fun, especially with my friends, if you're a sucker for Japanese shooting games, there'll be nothing to regret.

Score: 8.0