By: RJ (@rga_02)

• Earth Defense Force 4 (Earth Defense Force 2025)
• Developer - Sandlot
• Publisher - D3 Publisher
• PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360
• Rating - T

I’m on a Musou break right now. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing like ravaging through battlefields as Lu Bu or Wang Yi that screams out fun, but I just got fatigued from the genre. But during this hiatus, I need something to fill in that void of senseless fun. I was about to purchase Call of Duty: Advance Warfare to fill in that void but then I saw that Earth Defense Force 4 (known out in the west as EDF 2025) was free on the Japanese PS+ selection, so why not? 

This game has little to be desired. It looks like a PS2 game. It’s framerate will make most Ubisoft ports on the PC look like a performance masterpiece. But beneath all that janky facade is pure mindless gameplay at its core. It is straight unapologetic about that. While other comparative games, such as those under the Musou label have some strategy, this game has no sort of strategy whatsoever. Whatever class you pick prior to the mission all you do is run and shoot giant insects and sometimes a spaceship here and there. That’s it. It’s awful and repetitive to the max. That goes on for 80+ missions. Yes, there are 80 missions doing the same thing over and over again. but you know what? I love it dearly. It’s like one huge ironic joke you partake in. This game is absolute garbage, but I’ll keep playing it because it’s garbage.

Being the theartre person I am, I always preferred a small production than a full scale Broadway tier play. And that applies to videogames as well. I’ve always had a soft spot for low budget video games. And Earth Defense Force 4 has that low budget feel you can only get from now disappearing mid-tier videogame developers. At the end of the day, even if it looks awful, and performs awful, you just can’t let go of that controller. I mean, who doesn’t want to level cities in Japan to help fend off giant insects?