Niyeaux

Earth Defense Force 2025

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...possibly? It's so long since that my addled brain can't remember any other Thumbs who might have turned up beyond Miffy and myself.  :getmecoat

 

So... apologies. But I love you dearly, you know that. (Also you, me and the Miff should get on this again!)

'blix definitely played a few rounds, and if memory serves Patters did as well? You and I got through the campaign, and I think we had a third slot that was filled by a couple of different people over the course of that. Either way, I would certainly be in for more, especially if this shows up on PC.

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I played this at PAX. It was about as crazy as the first one was. I didn't really like the mech I was playing as, it was really slow and had super inaccurate weapons, but when I finally got close and opened up with chain guns, it was pretty awesome. My wife had the quicker, more maneuverable mech type and that looked a lot more fun. I didn't get to look at the customization options at all, so I didn't really get an answer to my question :(

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I also played it at PAX, and spent enough time with it to play all the classes and finish the demo mission they had on display.

 

I wrote a feature about it. http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/17258/article/earth-defense-force-2025-still-the-king/
 

It looks pretty excellent, and has all the stuff that made the first one great, plus cool new bits.

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Awesome, i saw that that was the American release date, hopefully it'll be the same in Europe (You would think so if Eurogamer was reporting on it)

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I don't know why that's surprising, i don't think Sandlot has ever put out anything on the PC.

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This is out today.

There's lots of very grumpy, negative reviews going around that nobody will pay attention to because the people who want this game already know exactly what to expect.

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I dunno...

The review by EDGE makes it sound like a lazy remake of the original, but now it's been stretched out over nearly twice the number of levels. And with fewer weapon drops.

That sounds... pretty terrible to me.

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I dunno...

The review by EDGE makes it sound like a lazy remake of the original, but now it's been stretched out over nearly twice the number of levels. And with fewer weapon drops.

That sounds... pretty terrible to me.

I just spent the last four hours or so playing through the early parts of it with a friend and had a ton of fun with it. It's got online co-op across the entire campaign and holds up well aside from a few sync oddities. The new player classes are really different too. Boosting through mobs of bugs while dual-wielding giant power swords as the Fencer has been a ton of fun. I can't think of much else i would have wanted from a sequel to 2017. My friend, who hasn't played 2017, was also way into it.

 

I really don't think there's anything wrong with the frequency of weapon drops, either. I played a lot of 2017, up into the inferno difficulty, and the frequency feels about the same so far. What might create the wrong impression about that is trying to grind the same levels on lower difficulties over and over for new weapons, because in many cases, a lot of weapons simply won't appear on earlier levels/lower difficulties. That's how it was in 2017, and that's probably how it is in 2025.

Really though, 2017's such a little cult darling now, are people forgetting that 2017 was also critically panned on its release? In fact, it was definitely even also regarded as a lazy entry into the EDF series. 2017 dropped a lot of the features that had been introduced with the second game. 2025, by comparison, brings a lot of new and expanded stuff to the game.

 

I mean, and i see people complaining about stuff like the goofy ragdolls, the kinds of things that absolutely shouldn't be changed.

 

The game is definitely very framey, but even there, it's about comparable to 2017. (If not actually a tiny bit smoother.)

As for it being too long, it's not exactly a narratively focused adventure. Stop when you want to stop.

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Twice the number of levels? Did it have 50 levels? Or it that just the Vita remake?

 

I've heard Pale Wing is in the game. I hope you don't have to play the whole game to unlock the Pale Wing, because the jetpack makes moving around so much less annoying, not to mention that her weapons were more 70's sci-fi looking.

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The four player classes are all unlocked from the start, and yeah, one of them is the one you're looking for. Jet pack and energy weapons.

2017 had around 45 levels, i think. 2025 apparently has around 85.

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2025 is great, not going to say much now but I am really impressed how they managed to enhance the game without breaking what made 2017 great.

 

Edge review is nonsense.

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It feels like a game designed with a lot of hindsight, one that is now more purposeful in its jankiness. It's subtly improved all-around with a lot of the weird, broken stuff smoothed over in a way that leaves the things still kind of fucked up feeling like they have a reason for being fucked up. I mean, the vehicles are completely viable now, but they still control terribly. It's that kind of game. It didn't suddenly stop being EDF, it was quite overtly made for the people who were already on board with EDF, and i can't imagine such a person being disappointed with what 2025 delivers. It's more of 2017, it's that game, but better and bigger. The massive crowds of enemies, the hugely open-ended and completely destructable environments, and the ridiculous weapons. That's what it still is, and it's awesome.

 

I also really like the new classes, i will add. Returning from the previous games in the series are the Pale Wing/Wing Diver class and the standard Ranger, but there's now also an Air Raider class that can call in air strikes and vehicles, as well as place a variety of support emplacements and stationary weapons. The other new class is the Fencer, which carries four weapons in two dual-wielded sets. The fencer has extremely limited mobility starting out, but some weapons confer various kinds of booster movement, in addition to the Fencer also being able to carry large shields to absorb damage. Set up right, you can go zooming through a large mob taking virtually no damage, tearing apart those enemies with a large pile driver. (I've been using a fencer in the co-op campaign i've been playing and i just got a giant telescoping robot fist, it is weird and awesome.)


There are some sync issues in the co-op though, mostly player positions being presented erroneously and creating some frustrating friendly fire accidents. It hasn't usually been an issue, but if you're using weapons that have a wide area of effect, don't necessarily trust what the game is showing you and put some extra space between yourself and your allies. (You would generally want to do this regardless.)

2025 is great though, i love it.

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