I remember in EDF 4 we had a squad of Rangers chatting to each other: "It's big enough to close your eyes and shoot!" "You're not wrong!" Then they all roar in unison as they unload on a cave wall. 10/10
No no, you're absolutely right about the story. I recall a piece of radio chatter in 4.1 where a wing diver or a female comms officer broke down after bases were overrun, crying that she didn't want to die. I was completely moved.
My "favorite" is late in the game when almost everyone is dead Storm 1 is sent solo into a massive cave complex. We hear a lone soldier panicking somewhere else in the cave, when EDF demands a sitrep he shouts that his entire squad was wiped out. The commander expresses releaf "it could have been worse" happy that the one soldier survived. The soldier gets upset, raving about how his cousin was in his squad and now he is dead. The EDF commander solemnly says "so was my brother". The soldier is kinda taken aback and apologizes. The Commander of the Earth Defence Force's brother was a lowly recon unit and was torn apart deep underground by giant ants. I also like how the intelligence agent assigned to monitor Storm 1 just completely loses it and finds god and starts talking about egg-shaped ships.
The other day I had an NPC say "Do you remember what I told you yesterday?" and another NPC replied "No." and that was the end of the dialogue. I love this game.
One of my favorite things about this game, narratively, is that as time goes on and you feel like a badass super soldier taking on massive hordes of bugs, oftentimes by yourself, you're hit with the grim realization that not only are you the only soldier (or squad) of this caliber, but that the war is a global one... and one that humanity is losing. Badly. For every thousand bugs you kill, millions more swarm the globe, wiping humanity away with it. The song and the narrative both brilliantly reinforce it and the voice acting, especially in the later missions, is just fantastic. And oh man, The mission where we prove that there's hope to actually end the war and everyone rallies to our position in a desperate bid to destroy the mothership is some PEAK gaming and the lady on the comm's obsessive (and slightly concerning) rants and the lead up to the final boss reveal were amazing.
Honestly, while many were laighing at EDF soldiers being unable to force themselves to shoot at humanoid alliens - I felt their immense compassion. Their version of future united humanity is just THAT good-natured that they had troubles shooting anything even vaguely resembling a human (and later on an "innocence lost" moment when they are gleefully shooting down humanoids that seem to scream in desperation (the mission when flying humanoids appear)).
bonus points that every victory you earned, sometimes by the skin of your teeth is almost IMMIDEATELY soured by EDF command radioing in that we lost 4 others like this somewhere else. entire Battalions wiped or leftover survivors retreating, scrambling, desperately trying to build a front to get at least some semblance of a 2nd chance. WE may be in the lucky squad, WE might be the ones that are able to keep a push going, WE might be the super soldiers but overall WE are still in a losing battle
Yeah I always descibed the vibe of EDF is 'You're a one-man army. You're still just *one man* against a global invasion force.' Yeah your super soldier that can fight off entire swarms of enemies but elsewhere in Japan or the world entire fronts are being decimated countries are being razed to the ground and at the end only 10% of left.
@@ballisticwafflesThe crazier the setting, the more versatile and flexible the medium? I like to believe that's the reason lol, but EDF might just be smart with its writing honestly
I love how you start as ethier: Paul Blart: Base cop A dancer with a jetpack The envy of every WarThunder player or a certified forklift and then in jrpg fashion, end up killing God
Yo buddy, go dance with the angels on some crisp white sheets like a true ace. You'll reset this twisted game and save 10 million lives without borders.
This is the best way I've seen to describe it. All the (main-series) EDF games I've played(5,6, and a little bit of 4.1) honestly feel like Ace Combat games that center around ground combat instead
i am so glad someone else also found edf's story to be unexpectedly way more compelling than advertised. in certain missions there's periodically radio updates on how the war globally is playing out and certain ones mentioning casualties in the billions makes me feel genuinely kind of upset even after hearing them dozens of times. there's one fairly short mission in the caves where one radio operator starts screaming at people after hearing a squad was totally wiped out because he had friends in there. another radio operator calmly talks him down and then reveals at the end that he lost friends in that squad too, but they have to keep fighting. in my own life when things are dark and hopeless i always tell myself "you will be okay, there is no alternative" and edf manages to engage me on that level while also letting me vaporize thousands of giant wasps
Finally someone else liked the fkin Story/Narrative. I felt insane because no one was talking about how well delivered the voice lines are and how effective it was in conveying certain emotions, particularly of hopelessness. The final stretch of the game is really something to behold too, I was so immersed in being THE Storm 1.
It was well hidden behind B movie style wall and not to mention it doesn't force players to listen the story. you can pretty much ignore the story if you want to (Which is why a lot of people do/miss that a lot)
@@omnivrs2264In solo gameplay it should be. Storm team I believe is your group when you play online, whoever is host is 1, and I assume numbers are denoted by join order
Thank you so much for talking about the story. I won't say more to not spoil people but it's got some real gut punches, especially in the final mission. I'd like to add, a good chunk of the verses of the EDF song are available as chat "emotes" (there's no animation, only the voicelines, idk what the proper term is) They even get an exclusive tab labeled as "Sing". sometimes the random NPC chatter will play a couple pairs of verses, usually relevant to the stage of the game your at. What's REALLY COOL is if you have recruitable NPCs following you, and you sing a verse, the sqaud you've picked up will follow up with the next one automatically! Make sure to look up the one from 4.1 sometime, its a straight banger too.
I am SO glad you covered this game!! It's actually been a classic of mine for a while, so I'm so happy to hear this underrated gem getting a shout out!
@@brambl3014 Different people have varying definitions of what a classic is, they mean it's something they enjoyed playing some time ago and still come back to to enjoy
Playing the Fencer in this game is one of the finest videogame power armor representations. That thing feels powerful as a nuke, and I love leaping around like in Starship Troopers
Dude EDF is one of my favorite series of all time. From Monster Attack on PS2 (European only) to Global Defence Force (also PS2 European), EDF 2017, 2025, 4.1, and EDF 5, I absolutely love everything they make. I can't wait for 6 to get its English release this spring.
Totally agree with you on the atmosphere and the story. I love that shit. It's one of the few games where the apocalypse feels like the apocalypse. It also makes the small moments of victory all sweeter. I also love how EDF uses a sense of scale. I love how the mothership almost completely blots out the sky.
Yeah, the second half is only sung by soldiers around you sometimes and not available in the quickchat menu, nice to see Rata went out of his way to put the whole thing together
if it wasnt a wannabe hero shooter exoprimal def gives that feeling when you are doing the pve stuff or 10 man stuff or the one team trials each week dont get me wrong the pvp is actually fun but those situations feel like a better version of overwatch w better music i think that game had and has potential to be something similar to lost planet if they wanted todo single player or a more less live service style mode setup
I never expected you to cover EDF. My friends and I started EDF 5 last year with some friends for giggles, and we ended up loving the game. It's very well crafted and tons of fun with friends.
Me watching a 30-minute Air Raider advertisement knowing full damn well I played the entire game as Air Raider myself already. I'll add my own two cents to the story's greatness as well ig. In the trailers for the game, there's a really great mini-story involving a news channel and a live-broadcast of a soldier doing a solo mission in a depth crawler (spider tank) underground. The soldier is slowly overrun by insects as the news channel tries its best to spin the story positively and cover it up, ending off with the soldier being completely mentally broken, in a deep, dark cave, with nobody around, surrounded by gigantic spiders on all sides, and with no way to defend himself. I think that's a really good portrayal on EDF's story as a whole, and I personally love to share that specific trailer whenever I'm advertising this game to other people. It showcases both EDF's serious and silly tones really well and I think is a great example that proves EDF's atmosphere is completely purposeful and not at all an accidental clash in mood. Thank you for the wonderful video though, the EDF will remember your contributions!!
Holy shit, a review that goes into the story of the game. Yeah people don't give it enough credit, the sincerity that comes off as silly also helps make the sheer horror of the situation hit harder if you asked me. Otherwise, I disagree with how you conceptualize the Ranger. To me, ranger is simplicity and tradition. He trades the peaks that come from mastering the other classes for the baseline of a kit thats easy to make sense of. No fancy gimmicks. He can't fly, but he doesnt have an energy bar that can leave him hanging. No extra heavy weapons like fencer, but vastly more agility and less downtime from long reload times. No air raids, but he can hold ground on his own. He also has access to the reverser guns, which I think are one of the VERY FEW sources of healing in the game that aren't random medicrate drops.
Great video! EDF gameplay: let's blast these bugs boys! EDF lore: humanity is on the Brink of destruction, even if we win the war, humanity might still be doomed.
Heres a tip for how to get some of the best weapons without dlc: Step 1: go to mission 87 Step 2: at the start of the mission turn left and head to the waterfall Step 3: near the waterfall some of the rocks can be destroyed by gammas, but others cant. The unbreakable rocks form a small cave where you can hide. You might get hit due to glitchy hitboxes Step 4: camp the entire mission there, collect loot at the end. On inferno this will give you weapons with the average lvl of about 70
There's also a level called 'Falling Monster Balls. You can hide in a parking garage and safely cleanse our Dear Mother Earth of species Gamma as long as you avoid explosives.
EDF doesn’t try as hard to make its story pop out, and I think that’s amazing. Hell! I started a joke “cult” of the Sergeant of this game. Because to me and others he’s so cool! He was there from the start, and he fights with us throughout the war. And… Did what he had to, to get us to a safe place
My friend and I have wanted to play EDF since we first saw trailers and videos of the first one. Thanks to 5 min of your vid, 20 years later, we have finally played. We're not disappointed.
The scope of destruction is mad - I've never felt as powerful in a video game as when playing as the Air Raider using almost any one of their insane air strikes, cruise missiles or orbital lasers
Yeah after you mentioned having less than 1000 Armor for Inferno difficulty i understood that pain, i myself have spent a couple entire game days doing missions with like 1100 armor in a 4 player with others of similar armor.
in my experience a lot of inferno lobbies that are playing for actual progression will just straight up kick you if you show up with less than 5000-7000 armor. constantly having to revive low-armor players because they got one-shot is a HUGE liability because it costs the reviving player half of their remaining armor.
i remember one summer where I had to deal with a huge ass moth at night and after I was done I looked for a game where you just have to kill insects. that's how I learned about this game
I was reminded of this game after playing Helldivers 2. I thought it was a similar game, except I had a lot more fun with EDF. Helldivers 2 is often frustrating. EDF doesn't care about realism. It just let's you have fun. Jump off sky scrapers with no consequences, get ragdolled into outer space. Everything goes.
Most of the people were hard to noticed or hard to understand the story when they were so distracted with B movie dialogues, ridiculous gameplay or not used to these type of storytelling. But anyone who did noticed the game tend to gave you the best experience as possible. 👍
What a bizarre and unique game. Really drives home how the industry is living below its potential. Movie-games like God of War or Last of Us are great... But I'd also like to see more shit like this
EDF5 inspired me to write a book on allien invasion. The story was just that good. I envy humanity of EDF universe, they are the true example of how good we can be both in their times of compassion to their enemies (in EDF and EDF 6 especially) and deterministic resolve to fight to their last.
I'm really glad you talked about the story, yes its cheesy and the dialogue is written and delivered with hammy over the top B-movie bravado. However there is a bleak and gruesome cake underneath the cartoony frosting...and that elevates it in a way that is better experienced for oneself.
To add to the video's class breakdown: the Ranger in EDF5 is easily underestimated, because the best components of his kit are more tactical than the other 3, and his new-to-EDF-5 vehicle summons are likewise useful for diversifying combat options. His high mobility synergizes well with the ability to set explosives for particular missions. In addition, his vehicles are often faster or more agile than many Air Raider options. For example, the bike series and their front-loaded machine guns are excellent for sweeping through hordes of bugs and charging two-legged alien variants while cutting them down at the knees in addition to providing plenty of armor. The helicopters require a lot of practice, but can be incredibly useful for battlefield control while dodging slow-moving projectiles. The tanks are... well, they're tanks, and they make big booms, which are useful for clearing large batches of enemies or sniping massive targets. Altogether, this is the only EDF game where I've actually preferred playing the Ranger over the other options. In multiplayer, the Ranger (as I've played it) operates in more of a suppression fire role to cover the other three unit types so they can operate with abandon, and to sweep up enemies they tend to leave in their wake before those same enemies can surround and swarm them.
Ranger Squad -- UNITE! The Ranger is THE most powerful in a lot of situations, although not for the reasons you listed here imo. The Firecrackers and Stampede launchers propel him straight into S-Tier. Rata clearly wasn't using him at his highest efficiency. In the Inferno endgame, the Ranger can dominate, especially with the DLC weapons. There are very few weapons which surpass the Ranger's shotguns in efficiency, for the simple fact that the shots pierce through all their targets -- especially the "Slaughter" series which has crazy range and a perfect shot spread. I can't wait for EDF 6 -- I've watched some playthroughs and the Free Bike actually has a proper SUSPENSION now! lol no more flipping over as soon as you hit the tiniest rock
@@-TriP- Nice! I've been running Ranger largely without outside guides or input, so it's good to hear about even better alternatives and functions. I *really* love the bike, so I'm glad to hear EDF6 improved its literal balance.
I'm an old EDF player myself and I heartily approve of this video. You did it justice, and honestly YES, I'm very pleased to see someone appreciate the story beats. I think if I replay it I'll try playing it in Japanese. I want to compare the dialogue.
If you love air raider in 5, you'll love him in 6. Most of his gunship attacks now have an equivalent drone counter part- point a laser and fire. The other classes have some QoL tweaks changes. Ranger's grenades are now their own slot so he technically carries 3 weapons. Wing diver is also the same. Fencer is mostly the same, except some changes have been made to their boost system. All of the classes have new and returning weapons.
Wing Diver isn't entirely the same though. She's got here own utility slot too. Not just for her auxilary weapons but for new systems too. Like energy shields. Although her boosts had a bit of a nerf...
Welcome to EDF. For anyone who wants to try this, i suggest starting with 5. The prior games were fun too (esp 4.1) but the QoL diffrence is like night and day.
Edf is just a really fun arcady game. No matter if you play solo or multiplayer with friends you can have a lot of fun with the different kinds of weapons.
I've still not yet played the EDF series but I'm an absolute fan of one of the studio's earliest works, Robot Alchemic Drive. It's another game where you are dealing with an alien invasion, but it sees you piloting a giant mech. The gameplay twist for R.A.D. is that in universe you are controlling a regular human being with a controller (designed to look like a dualshock 2) controlling the mech. The robot movement is intentionally very clunky (Each stick controls an arm, each shoulder button a leg, etc.) and making sure to position your character where they can see the robot is crucial. It's one of my hardest "hear me out" games on the PlayStation 2 but god I love it so much. I think this video is the push I needed to finally go and check out the EDF games after all this time.
Funny thing is, they're STILL using the same game engine as R.A.D, even for EDF 6 -- so you'll probably feel right at home (they did streamline the robot movement a bit though lol) =P
@@-TriP- That's incredible, holy shit. A bit of a bummer about the robot controls though since the biggest appeal to the game (aside from the comedy of it all) to me was always that it felt purposefully miserable.
@@SticktheFigure It's MUCH more fast paced so I get it, but it's still a struggle to control most vehicles lol, especially the helicopters feel like steering an ocean-liner or like the air is made of jello. and then there's the Free Bike, which just flips as soon as you touch the accelerator (but CAN be mastered to be super-effective!) 😅 what Rata didn't touch on is that there are multiplayer vehicles like for example a huge mech that requires an individual person to control each limb (side cannon), the cockpit with a huge missile launcher, and the legs to move around -- like a super sentai combi-robot! those are great fun and it's incredibly satisfying when you've got a whole team working together in a single vehicle
Man this series is like in the bottom half of my eventually get to list. I remember when 5's promotion was starting up and a bunch of my favorite JP streamers were playing it. It looked fun then and it still looks fun now. I might have to jump in when 6 comes out.
I'm playing this game currently with a friend and we always joke about the dialogue that is happening, but we are also extremely immersed I think. We are filled with joy over every victory, we are crushed by every defeat we (as in the EDF) have too suffer and I think the voice lines you can use in the game also help (we always sing the song or shout "EDF!!" when we are storming the enemy). But I only ever realized how well the story works, when you told me in this video. I'm amazed by it. We never realized how immersive the story works with the gameplay. When we are crushing the aliens it fits the story and when they deploy their red UFOs and laser us to bits it also fits the story that was being told in that mission. Can't wait to play it again on harder difficulties, as we are currently playing on normal, because we already had a very tough time, when we tried to start with hard.
Holy shit another youtuber who acknowledge the story of these games! Its never self aware like world brothers which isn’t really like the others edfs. I think you will LOVE EDF6 in that departure. Its story is FUCKING GENIUS! Everything comes full circle and even the SMALLEST of things from 5 are referred. 6 is set 3 years after 5 on a dying world where hope and reconstruction non existent, the survivors all live underground. The global population is at 10%. Every single human who can fight is forced into conscription from the remnant edf forces led around Base 251, this is where your journey will begins again as storm 1, you will lead humanity from its darkest fate to its absolute greatest fate! “The identity of the aliens who long tormented the earth will finally be revealed!” Is one of the big marketing parts of this game. I actually cried playing this game imported, it was easily to understand the story as the game has actual subtitles now, making google lens easy. This is the PERFECT end to this iteration of EDF!
I've only played 4.1 and 5, but the story of survival of both are great. with 4.1 everyone that you have helped survives comes in the end to help, and 5 your the last real fighter left just doing your best.
Every time i see that there is a new EDF game, and it looks exactly the same as previous ones, I think to myself "how do they keep getting away with this!?" This video helped to explain it.
It's actually a lot more the same then it looks. They recycle a lot of the levels completely. Each new game is only like 25% new content. I'm pretty sure I saw him playing spearhead in here, a mission that's been in the franchise for like 5 games now (and is notoriously extremely difficult).
You will not believe how glad I am to hear someone really taking everything about this game seriously. It's a game worth paying attention to, not just dumb fun like everyone would have you believe.
Absolutely recommend your first 2 play-throughs on Hard to Inferno for the reasons mentioned in the video. You’ll never get that experience again with how the armour/weapon progression works
Really cool video. As someone who's been with the series for quite a while, it was interesting hearing your thoughts on all this. Been incredibly disappointed with 6's 'story,' such as it is, which really made me realize how much I appreciated 4 and 5's stories.
Great video! If you like EDF5 you will love EDF6. It's so good... I agree with you about the story, it is well done. The more you play and think about it the better it gets. When talking about EDF and comparing it to for example Helldivers, people say EDF is less serious and more goofy but I think it's the other way around. The game takes itself very seriously, always. There is no irony or 4th fall breaking moments. Games like Iron Rain try so hard to be an EDF game that they do try those things and then fail because of it. EDF is serious!
very well done! Thanks for the hard work and putting this video together. The story and the atmosphere reminds me a lot of Starship Troopers. I think there is a lot of depth in Verhoevens films, although one can just enjoy them as simple action flicks too. The way you described this game reminded me of that
Thank you for being the one who talk about how great EDF 5 story telling is. Would never expect this goofy arcady game story to be incredibly touching and worked me up emotionally so greatly. I remember tearing up time to time in the later missions of the game. And as you have said, this game did it masterfully by having the story reinforced through gameplay. Story was told through your eys, playing just as a grunt solider, thrown into the front line doing one suicide mission to the next, experiencing the full horror and despair of the war. This game has done what so many story focus, dialouge, cutscene ridden games can not even hope to achive. EDF 6 will be glorious.
Really brings back my time playing Reach for the first time, it came as a followup to playing as Master Chief, who always got theough whatever was in his way, a mostly mute and unstoppable demon, then you play as a member of Noble Team, a doomed squad on a doomed planet under the boot of an overwhelming enemy force. And surely enough, they dwindle, one by one, with every later miasion as you evacuate citizens only to watch their shuttles be blasted out of the sky, as you win a small victory over a huge shielded battle spire, only to have and entire frigate be cut in half as it sweeps in for the demolition of it, as a member gives his life to ensure a cobbled together displacement bomb tears a carrier in half, only to be immediately followed by four dozen+ of them warping in as you fall back to the ravaged planet. That feeling of dread that evolves into acceptance of never having a chance was something I had only ever faced before in Dark Souls, and even that game forefronted hope amidst the world ending over and over again.
Super glad you're covering EDF. Got hooked on EDF 2025 (4) and counted down the days until 5 released. Can't wait until 6! Air raider was always my favourite class, even in 4. He was significantly weaker back then in my opinion - he had no airstrikes where the camera moved back so you could see the whole battlefield and where your airstrike would land. This addition in 5 made airstrikes a lot more viable and tactical. I also remember he had a wire gun that was like the webs used by Species Beta, which was interesting because you could fire it and then roll around to catch more targets in the webs. This didn't make it to 5, but I understand why they took it out because it takes away from the intention which is to focus on how the Air raider is kind of an air traffic controller for the artillery assets of the EDF. Overall I think they really understand what makes Air raider (and the other classes) fun and unique to play, which gives me a lot of hope for 6.
And that's what I like online multiplayer in these games that it make players to balanced experience even on low levels missions and difficulties. Having op weapons and players that had op weapons tend to make missions easy and boring experiences. So it's nice to had this type of mechanic in these games.
Oh come on bro why you introducing me to all these series now I gotta play em all rata, souls monster hunter, baldurs gate, dragons dogma, edf, it just keeps going!
Happy when reviewers take note of the dead seriousness of the NPCs involved in this campy little alien invasion drama. You're right: What makes it work is that the dialogue shies away from being tongue in cheek-something it's a near certainty that a Western-developed game would be unable to resist. There is a certain moment in EDF5 that manages to give me chills every time I see it. It's this: 1:55 At this moment, a news report cuts in with a semi-no-nonsense jingle and you concretely hear a report about what you're witnessing in the flesh: Gigantic things silently rocketing across the sky at impossible speeds as part of an invasion. This moment puts me distinctly in mind of the movie _Threads,_ a cold war era movie about the bomb dropping. In that movie, before the end of the world, various segments are shown on TVs of the nuclear survival public information film _Protect and Survive,_ which is a real film that was intended to be shown when the threat of nuclear war became very real. Accompanying the dry delivery of details on e.g. how to survive fallout is a late 70s jingle that we hear a couple of different times. It's utterly chilling, and that's exactly the sensation I get when that moment hits in mission 2.
As someone who has played EDF 5 and beaten the main story, it really is something to watch and enjoy. The story is just such a treat and I really started to grow attach to some of the characters you meet along the way like Sarge (one of the first characters you meet in the story). My bro and I have been playing EDF since the PS3/360 era and boy was I glad to have picked up this awesome series. I eventually plan to get EDF 6 in the future, but I got the DLC for now (seriously this one cave mission has been a tough one for sure).
A note on the weapon level and armor level limitations, if the host of a lobby has over 70% completion, they can turn that limit off, allowing the use of any level of equipment on any mission difficulty.
Helldivers looks amazing but I'm expecting it to be a totally different type of experience, edf is one of those things that is distinct. There's nothing else quite like it.
YEAH THOSE DIFFICULTIES GET CRAZY HUH? I treat Hardest like an NG+ of sorts. where easy/normal/hard mostly just bump hp/atk values, Hardest and Inferno start to fundamentally change enemy composition and behaviour. Not only are you dealing with stronger variants of the basic enemies by default now, everything is also getting massive bumps to movement speed, attack speed, and aggression. The game sorta shifts into a more tactical experience, where carefully pulling small groups at a time becomes mandatory. I'm sure there's a bunch of other advanced tactics you need to pull off to succeed on Inferno. There's also the explicit expectation that you're doing successive runs of the game to build up the health pools and arsenal needed. A very common piece of advice I heard was that you might as well spend the time grinding completion stars with every class. You'll passively gather the resources over time, especially since EDF5 shares a portion between all the classes now. Back on EDF4.1, weapons and armor weren't shared at all. IF you wanted to swap to fencer, you HAD to start from scratch. Yes, it sucked a lot. If you're not down to play the game as a lifestyle commitment for a bit, you probably are better off stopping at hardest. I only cleared the game on Hard myself.
I remember there's mission we have to destroy 3 big flying saucers on very hard. Me and my friends had to run into a corner of the map. I was playing as AirRaider have to set up all the defence shields, had my WingsDiver friend lure the big saucer in one at the time so I can laser target it with my big ass nuke while my Fencer and Ranger friends kept the smaller flying saucers away from me.
It's definitely a timesink. Getting my first 100% completion save took around 500 hours and requires a *minimum* of 1332 completed missions (if you start on hard). A good way to do it is to use Solo play to farm up weapons and armor first, which then carry over to the Multiplayer (level progression being separate). Solo also doesn't have limits like MP does, so if you join some high-level lobbies and get some high level weapons as a result (by getting carried lol) you can then use those to get through the Solo missions much faster and go back and forth to speed up the process.
Fun fact fencers shield allows him to dash cancel by bashing. Pared with support that ingcrease dash and you can near constantly be fast the con though is developing carpal tunnel.
The absurd number of weapons not getting a shout out in the initial list is a serious oversight. You go from getting OP but expected weapons through normal mode. And then you dip into hard, and suddenly you last minutes and not levels. But you keep the loot assuming you can drop A BUG much less enough for a green weapon box. Neat things. Like bullet spray hose with 1% accuracy that bounce of walls and gain momentum when they do. Then you beat normal, dig deep enough into hard to touch the top difficulties (maybe clear Easy for the easy only weapon drops). Those weapons start getting super strong and super crazy.
I like this video, and maybe because I know that a certain lategame mission in EDF6 hits soooo good after you've played the third mission in EDF5 enough...
It's cool to see another video on EDF, now that were so close to 6. Something my close friends keep telling me is that I have to play Helldivers 2, they say it's so much like EDF and I love that so why don't I love Helldivers. Besides the gameplay differences, Earth Defense Force is not the Starship Troopers movie, there isn't an attempt to make satire or make you question if you are the bad guy. In this modern era of gaming where so many stoires are either robbed of genuine heroism or there is no good outcome, EDF is shockingly Ok with you being the biggest hero
I am astonished by how masterfully this game manages to be both ridiculous over-the-top hilarity and almost grimdark at the same time. I can't imagine anyone else pulling this off as well as EDF does.
Wingdiver from the beginning. Found this after playing Tribes Aerial Assault, and the vertical gameplay and speed that they had made me love them. I can reach areas that no one else can, and collect fast to make sure we get the new toys. The squad banter is some of the best, most unhinged stuff. It's hilarious. I feel like they have a "call" and "response" table, and they mix and match freely, to the point of nonsense. Showed Incect Armageddon to a coworker when it came out and he goes "ew, theres almost no story. You just go fight thousands of bugs with unrealistic weapons and robots" i tell him "everything you just said is why i love this game!" Looking forward to playing every game that comes out and seeing how they change and improve it. But even if they changed nothing and just made more missions, they're still welcome to my $60 each and every time.
I remember the mission on 4.1 with the 3 giant hornet nest on hard, this was the hardest level of the game for us, but this is still one of my best memory on the game, the moment the last nest was destroy and only a few wasp and spider was left, we just begin to sing out of pure joy, 2 weeks was nescesary to win, but the best 2 weeks of my life.
EDF is an amazing series and its peak coop mindless fun, the games although they seem cheap at first glance, have a lot of tought put into them. The voice acting in english is the perfect kind of mix between serious and overacted. "They look just like us!" will be etched in my memory. I love playing Fencer and Air Raider, the Wind Diver altough extremely powerful is quite finicky with her energy management (though I did play many stages with her, in fact, I completed the game up to 75% so far.), she is extremely powerful and can absolutely decimate enemies. Ranger was also surprisingly fun and I found myself really enjoying it on the earlier missions. Can't wait for EDF6. Hope more people give this series a chance.
Dragoon Lances were my best friend. Charge it > Hold Charge > Recharge Energy > Find a large target > decimate it at point blank range > fly away and do it again.
Just spend 700h+ over the last 3 years with 2 Friends playing this to 100% Completion including both Mission DLCs, can confirm, it's about as good as Multiplayer can get
The most brilliant thing to me about EDF is the fact that the aliens are literally just giant ants and spiders lol. This still always makes me laugh. I love this game so much
I remember in EDF 4 we had a squad of Rangers chatting to each other:
"It's big enough to close your eyes and shoot!"
"You're not wrong!"
Then they all roar in unison as they unload on a cave wall. 10/10
No no, you're absolutely right about the story. I recall a piece of radio chatter in 4.1 where a wing diver or a female comms officer broke down after bases were overrun, crying that she didn't want to die. I was completely moved.
I also heard a wing diver said "aah aah aah incoming!" 💀
Personally, "What does ... 'swallowed whole' mean?" Always gets me.
@@BaritoneBeard He just didn't wanna believe it.
You should play Muv Luv
My "favorite" is late in the game when almost everyone is dead Storm 1 is sent solo into a massive cave complex.
We hear a lone soldier panicking somewhere else in the cave, when EDF demands a sitrep he shouts that his entire squad was wiped out. The commander expresses releaf "it could have been worse" happy that the one soldier survived. The soldier gets upset, raving about how his cousin was in his squad and now he is dead.
The EDF commander solemnly says "so was my brother".
The soldier is kinda taken aback and apologizes.
The Commander of the Earth Defence Force's brother was a lowly recon unit and was torn apart deep underground by giant ants.
I also like how the intelligence agent assigned to monitor Storm 1 just completely loses it and finds god and starts talking about egg-shaped ships.
"the air raider also has a nuke" refuses to elaborate. transitions to next scene.
It's more of a cruise missile with a conventional warhead.
OH MY GOD. EDF content from Ratatoskr? MHW getting a Resurgence? DD2 coming in 2 months? EDF 6 hitting the west this year? This is the best timeline.
And after that wilds.
What is DD2. I assume darkest dungeon 2, but thats already out
Dragons Dogma 2@@zedrico8577
@@zedrico8577dragons dogma
@@zedrico8577I think he means dragons dogma 2
The other day I had an NPC say "Do you remember what I told you yesterday?" and another NPC replied "No." and that was the end of the dialogue. I love this game.
have you heard of the high elves?
"Why did you get married?"
"To protect the earth!"
*Radio on*
"Raaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!"
*Radio off*
One of my favorite things about this game, narratively, is that as time goes on and you feel like a badass super soldier taking on massive hordes of bugs, oftentimes by yourself, you're hit with the grim realization that not only are you the only soldier (or squad) of this caliber, but that the war is a global one... and one that humanity is losing. Badly. For every thousand bugs you kill, millions more swarm the globe, wiping humanity away with it. The song and the narrative both brilliantly reinforce it and the voice acting, especially in the later missions, is just fantastic. And oh man, The mission where we prove that there's hope to actually end the war and everyone rallies to our position in a desperate bid to destroy the mothership is some PEAK gaming and the lady on the comm's obsessive (and slightly concerning) rants and the lead up to the final boss reveal were amazing.
"Is that... God?" got me good, it got me really good.
@@DetectiveGrey honestly such an amazing moment.
Honestly, while many were laighing at EDF soldiers being unable to force themselves to shoot at humanoid alliens - I felt their immense compassion. Their version of future united humanity is just THAT good-natured that they had troubles shooting anything even vaguely resembling a human (and later on an "innocence lost" moment when they are gleefully shooting down humanoids that seem to scream in desperation (the mission when flying humanoids appear)).
bonus points that every victory you earned, sometimes by the skin of your teeth is almost IMMIDEATELY soured by EDF command radioing in that we lost 4 others like this somewhere else. entire Battalions wiped or leftover survivors retreating, scrambling, desperately trying to build a front to get at least some semblance of a 2nd chance.
WE may be in the lucky squad, WE might be the ones that are able to keep a push going, WE might be the super soldiers but overall WE are still in a losing battle
Yeah I always descibed the vibe of EDF is 'You're a one-man army. You're still just *one man* against a global invasion force.' Yeah your super soldier that can fight off entire swarms of enemies but elsewhere in Japan or the world entire fronts are being decimated countries are being razed to the ground and at the end only 10% of left.
EDF has something in its storytelling that is missing from a lot of other modern entertainment: Sincerity.
I never expected verisimilitude from my silly bug arcade shooter, but goddamn.
@@ballisticwafflesThe crazier the setting, the more versatile and flexible the medium? I like to believe that's the reason lol, but EDF might just be smart with its writing honestly
I love how you start as ethier:
Paul Blart: Base cop
A dancer with a jetpack
The envy of every WarThunder player
or a certified forklift
and then in jrpg fashion, end up killing God
The EDF series and the Ace Combat series hold a special place in my heart for full-throated campy dialogue mixed with gameplay.
Yo buddy, go dance with the angels on some crisp white sheets like a true ace. You'll reset this twisted game and save 10 million lives without borders.
That's an S rank comment
S stands for SOLITARY. NOW!
This is the best way I've seen to describe it. All the (main-series) EDF games I've played(5,6, and a little bit of 4.1) honestly feel like Ace Combat games that center around ground combat instead
i am so glad someone else also found edf's story to be unexpectedly way more compelling than advertised. in certain missions there's periodically radio updates on how the war globally is playing out and certain ones mentioning casualties in the billions makes me feel genuinely kind of upset even after hearing them dozens of times. there's one fairly short mission in the caves where one radio operator starts screaming at people after hearing a squad was totally wiped out because he had friends in there. another radio operator calmly talks him down and then reveals at the end that he lost friends in that squad too, but they have to keep fighting. in my own life when things are dark and hopeless i always tell myself "you will be okay, there is no alternative" and edf manages to engage me on that level while also letting me vaporize thousands of giant wasps
Finally someone else liked the fkin Story/Narrative. I felt insane because no one was talking about how well delivered the voice lines are and how effective it was in conveying certain emotions, particularly of hopelessness. The final stretch of the game is really something to behold too, I was so immersed in being THE Storm 1.
It was well hidden behind B movie style wall and not to mention it doesn't force players to listen the story. you can pretty much ignore the story if you want to (Which is why a lot of people do/miss that a lot)
I've seen 'Storm 1' everywhere. I'm assuming that's the air raider's official callsign?
@@omnivrs2264In solo gameplay it should be. Storm team I believe is your group when you play online, whoever is host is 1, and I assume numbers are denoted by join order
it's the player's callsign@@omnivrs2264
@omnivrs2264 it's the player's callsign, regardless of your class.
You cannot imagine the smile on my face when i saw you with this masterpiece of a game
Thank you so much for talking about the story. I won't say more to not spoil people but it's got some real gut punches, especially in the final mission.
I'd like to add, a good chunk of the verses of the EDF song are available as chat "emotes" (there's no animation, only the voicelines, idk what the proper term is)
They even get an exclusive tab labeled as "Sing".
sometimes the random NPC chatter will play a couple pairs of verses, usually relevant to the stage of the game your at.
What's REALLY COOL is if you have recruitable NPCs following you, and you sing a verse, the sqaud you've picked up will follow up with the next one automatically!
Make sure to look up the one from 4.1 sometime, its a straight banger too.
To save our mother Earth from any alien attack.
@@wk2337 From vicious giant insects who have once again come back
@@piscessoedroenWe'll unleash all our forces we won't cut them any slack!
@@doneedanickname3522 THE EDF DEPLOYS!
I am SO glad you covered this game!! It's actually been a classic of mine for a while, so I'm so happy to hear this underrated gem getting a shout out!
5 years old game are classic?
@@brambl3014 Different people have varying definitions of what a classic is, they mean it's something they enjoyed playing some time ago and still come back to to enjoy
@@brambl3014 ever heard the term "instant classic"?
Playing the Fencer in this game is one of the finest videogame power armor representations. That thing feels powerful as a nuke, and I love leaping around like in Starship Troopers
Dude EDF is one of my favorite series of all time. From Monster Attack on PS2 (European only) to Global Defence Force (also PS2 European), EDF 2017, 2025, 4.1, and EDF 5, I absolutely love everything they make. I can't wait for 6 to get its English release this spring.
Its the same game
Totally agree with you on the atmosphere and the story. I love that shit. It's one of the few games where the apocalypse feels like the apocalypse. It also makes the small moments of victory all sweeter. I also love how EDF uses a sense of scale. I love how the mothership almost completely blots out the sky.
I put well over 1000 hours and never noticed just how dark the song actually gets like damn!
Yeah, the second half is only sung by soldiers around you sometimes and not available in the quickchat menu, nice to see Rata went out of his way to put the whole thing together
Imagine if Capcom would wake up to the potential of this type of game and revive Lost Planet on something like this with a hint of Monster Hunter
if it wasnt a wannabe hero shooter exoprimal def gives that feeling when you are doing the pve stuff or 10 man stuff or the one team trials each week
dont get me wrong the pvp is actually fun but those situations feel like a better version of overwatch w better music
i think that game had and has potential to be something similar to lost planet if they wanted todo single player or a more less live service style mode setup
I never expected you to cover EDF. My friends and I started EDF 5 last year with some friends for giggles, and we ended up loving the game. It's very well crafted and tons of fun with friends.
Me watching a 30-minute Air Raider advertisement knowing full damn well I played the entire game as Air Raider myself already.
I'll add my own two cents to the story's greatness as well ig. In the trailers for the game, there's a really great mini-story involving a news channel and a live-broadcast of a soldier doing a solo mission in a depth crawler (spider tank) underground. The soldier is slowly overrun by insects as the news channel tries its best to spin the story positively and cover it up, ending off with the soldier being completely mentally broken, in a deep, dark cave, with nobody around, surrounded by gigantic spiders on all sides, and with no way to defend himself. I think that's a really good portrayal on EDF's story as a whole, and I personally love to share that specific trailer whenever I'm advertising this game to other people. It showcases both EDF's serious and silly tones really well and I think is a great example that proves EDF's atmosphere is completely purposeful and not at all an accidental clash in mood.
Thank you for the wonderful video though, the EDF will remember your contributions!!
Holy shit, a review that goes into the story of the game. Yeah people don't give it enough credit, the sincerity that comes off as silly also helps make the sheer horror of the situation hit harder if you asked me.
Otherwise, I disagree with how you conceptualize the Ranger. To me, ranger is simplicity and tradition. He trades the peaks that come from mastering the other classes for the baseline of a kit thats easy to make sense of. No fancy gimmicks. He can't fly, but he doesnt have an energy bar that can leave him hanging. No extra heavy weapons like fencer, but vastly more agility and less downtime from long reload times. No air raids, but he can hold ground on his own.
He also has access to the reverser guns, which I think are one of the VERY FEW sources of healing in the game that aren't random medicrate drops.
Great video!
EDF gameplay: let's blast these bugs boys!
EDF lore: humanity is on the Brink of destruction, even if we win the war, humanity might still be doomed.
no worries, citizen. The military junta will force in line survivors, or else.
Heres a tip for how to get some of the best weapons without dlc:
Step 1: go to mission 87
Step 2: at the start of the mission turn left and head to the waterfall
Step 3: near the waterfall some of the rocks can be destroyed by gammas, but others cant. The unbreakable rocks form a small cave where you can hide. You might get hit due to glitchy hitboxes
Step 4: camp the entire mission there, collect loot at the end.
On inferno this will give you weapons with the average lvl of about 70
There's also a level called 'Falling Monster Balls. You can hide in a parking garage and safely cleanse our Dear Mother Earth of species Gamma as long as you avoid explosives.
EDF doesn’t try as hard to make its story pop out, and I think that’s amazing.
Hell! I started a joke “cult” of the Sergeant of this game.
Because to me and others he’s so cool! He was there from the start, and he fights with us throughout the war. And…
Did what he had to, to get us to a safe place
My friend and I have wanted to play EDF since we first saw trailers and videos of the first one. Thanks to 5 min of your vid, 20 years later, we have finally played. We're not disappointed.
The scope of destruction is mad - I've never felt as powerful in a video game as when playing as the Air Raider using almost any one of their insane air strikes, cruise missiles or orbital lasers
Yeah after you mentioned having less than 1000 Armor for Inferno difficulty i understood that pain, i myself have spent a couple entire game days doing missions with like 1100 armor in a 4 player with others of similar armor.
in my experience a lot of inferno lobbies that are playing for actual progression will just straight up kick you if you show up with less than 5000-7000 armor. constantly having to revive low-armor players because they got one-shot is a HUGE liability because it costs the reviving player half of their remaining armor.
i remember one summer where I had to deal with a huge ass moth at night and after I was done I looked for a game where you just have to kill insects. that's how I learned about this game
I was reminded of this game after playing Helldivers 2. I thought it was a similar game, except I had a lot more fun with EDF. Helldivers 2 is often frustrating. EDF doesn't care about realism. It just let's you have fun. Jump off sky scrapers with no consequences, get ragdolled into outer space. Everything goes.
I've been scouring TH-cam for this take. Thank you for validation
Those devs and the owner killed their own game what a joke
Also helldivers is far from realistic with all the glitches and game breaking glitches and horrible optimization
Someone finally understands the story of EDF. Thank you.
Most of the people were hard to noticed or hard to understand the story when they were so distracted with B movie dialogues, ridiculous gameplay or not used to these type of storytelling.
But anyone who did noticed the game tend to gave you the best experience as possible. 👍
Excellent! As an EDF enjoyer and modder, I'm very glad you made a video on this
What a bizarre and unique game. Really drives home how the industry is living below its potential. Movie-games like God of War or Last of Us are great...
But I'd also like to see more shit like this
Pure stupid fun, especially playing with friends.
@@duongquan4986 Step 1: Make friends 😂 FUCK!!!!
@@austin0_bandit05if friends fuck they aren’t really friends anymore 🤔
Personally i don't want to see any movie games anymore
EDF5 inspired me to write a book on allien invasion. The story was just that good. I envy humanity of EDF universe, they are the true example of how good we can be both in their times of compassion to their enemies (in EDF and EDF 6 especially) and deterministic resolve to fight to their last.
I'm really glad you talked about the story, yes its cheesy and the dialogue is written and delivered with hammy over the top B-movie bravado. However there is a bleak and gruesome cake underneath the cartoony frosting...and that elevates it in a way that is better experienced for oneself.
EDF EDF!
I'm so hyped for 6. The snippets I've seen of the story are hilarious and outlandish..series is such. Gem
To add to the video's class breakdown: the Ranger in EDF5 is easily underestimated, because the best components of his kit are more tactical than the other 3, and his new-to-EDF-5 vehicle summons are likewise useful for diversifying combat options.
His high mobility synergizes well with the ability to set explosives for particular missions. In addition, his vehicles are often faster or more agile than many Air Raider options. For example, the bike series and their front-loaded machine guns are excellent for sweeping through hordes of bugs and charging two-legged alien variants while cutting them down at the knees in addition to providing plenty of armor. The helicopters require a lot of practice, but can be incredibly useful for battlefield control while dodging slow-moving projectiles. The tanks are... well, they're tanks, and they make big booms, which are useful for clearing large batches of enemies or sniping massive targets.
Altogether, this is the only EDF game where I've actually preferred playing the Ranger over the other options. In multiplayer, the Ranger (as I've played it) operates in more of a suppression fire role to cover the other three unit types so they can operate with abandon, and to sweep up enemies they tend to leave in their wake before those same enemies can surround and swarm them.
Ranger Squad -- UNITE! The Ranger is THE most powerful in a lot of situations, although not for the reasons you listed here imo. The Firecrackers and Stampede launchers propel him straight into S-Tier. Rata clearly wasn't using him at his highest efficiency. In the Inferno endgame, the Ranger can dominate, especially with the DLC weapons. There are very few weapons which surpass the Ranger's shotguns in efficiency, for the simple fact that the shots pierce through all their targets -- especially the "Slaughter" series which has crazy range and a perfect shot spread.
I can't wait for EDF 6 -- I've watched some playthroughs and the Free Bike actually has a proper SUSPENSION now! lol no more flipping over as soon as you hit the tiniest rock
@@-TriP- Nice! I've been running Ranger largely without outside guides or input, so it's good to hear about even better alternatives and functions. I *really* love the bike, so I'm glad to hear EDF6 improved its literal balance.
Look at peasants ranger lovers. Normies lol.
Fencer for live!
@@alalalal5952Buzz off, beginner mode! :P
double javaline forever, fencer is the inferno XD @@InfinityZwei
As cheesy and goofy it can be, it's also incredibly sincere. And it is a level of sincerity rarely seen in recent games.
I'm an old EDF player myself and I heartily approve of this video. You did it justice, and honestly YES, I'm very pleased to see someone appreciate the story beats. I think if I replay it I'll try playing it in Japanese. I want to compare the dialogue.
If you love air raider in 5, you'll love him in 6. Most of his gunship attacks now have an equivalent drone counter part- point a laser and fire. The other classes have some QoL tweaks changes. Ranger's grenades are now their own slot so he technically carries 3 weapons. Wing diver is also the same. Fencer is mostly the same, except some changes have been made to their boost system. All of the classes have new and returning weapons.
Wing Diver isn't entirely the same though. She's got here own utility slot too. Not just for her auxilary weapons but for new systems too. Like energy shields. Although her boosts had a bit of a nerf...
Welcome to EDF. For anyone who wants to try this, i suggest starting with 5. The prior games were fun too (esp 4.1) but the QoL diffrence is like night and day.
I don’t know about going back from 5. I feel like a turtle playing 4.1 as a ranger.
EDF is a legendary franchise. Great video
So true, played EDF 4.1 and it really has one of the best stories in gaming. Mission 29 "Brute Force" was gold!
oh man a EDF Video in 2024... such rare occasion. EDF 6 soon release and people said it have ze best story
Edf is just a really fun arcady game. No matter if you play solo or multiplayer with friends you can have a lot of fun with the different kinds of weapons.
Ratatoskr talking EDF? Count me in. Was not expecting a channel like yours covering it but it’s cool that you are.
I've still not yet played the EDF series but I'm an absolute fan of one of the studio's earliest works, Robot Alchemic Drive. It's another game where you are dealing with an alien invasion, but it sees you piloting a giant mech. The gameplay twist for R.A.D. is that in universe you are controlling a regular human being with a controller (designed to look like a dualshock 2) controlling the mech. The robot movement is intentionally very clunky (Each stick controls an arm, each shoulder button a leg, etc.) and making sure to position your character where they can see the robot is crucial. It's one of my hardest "hear me out" games on the PlayStation 2 but god I love it so much.
I think this video is the push I needed to finally go and check out the EDF games after all this time.
I have wished for a R.A.D. sequel for such a long time now. Or at least giving me more RAD like controls when piloting the giant robot
Funny thing is, they're STILL using the same game engine as R.A.D, even for EDF 6 -- so you'll probably feel right at home (they did streamline the robot movement a bit though lol) =P
@@-TriP- That's incredible, holy shit. A bit of a bummer about the robot controls though since the biggest appeal to the game (aside from the comedy of it all) to me was always that it felt purposefully miserable.
@@SticktheFigure It's MUCH more fast paced so I get it, but it's still a struggle to control most vehicles lol, especially the helicopters feel like steering an ocean-liner or like the air is made of jello. and then there's the Free Bike, which just flips as soon as you touch the accelerator (but CAN be mastered to be super-effective!) 😅
what Rata didn't touch on is that there are multiplayer vehicles like for example a huge mech that requires an individual person to control each limb (side cannon), the cockpit with a huge missile launcher, and the legs to move around -- like a super sentai combi-robot! those are great fun and it's incredibly satisfying when you've got a whole team working together in a single vehicle
Man this series is like in the bottom half of my eventually get to list. I remember when 5's promotion was starting up and a bunch of my favorite JP streamers were playing it. It looked fun then and it still looks fun now. I might have to jump in when 6 comes out.
I'm playing this game currently with a friend and we always joke about the dialogue that is happening, but we are also extremely immersed I think. We are filled with joy over every victory, we are crushed by every defeat we (as in the EDF) have too suffer and I think the voice lines you can use in the game also help (we always sing the song or shout "EDF!!" when we are storming the enemy).
But I only ever realized how well the story works, when you told me in this video. I'm amazed by it. We never realized how immersive the story works with the gameplay. When we are crushing the aliens it fits the story and when they deploy their red UFOs and laser us to bits it also fits the story that was being told in that mission. Can't wait to play it again on harder difficulties, as we are currently playing on normal, because we already had a very tough time, when we tried to start with hard.
Holy shit another youtuber who acknowledge the story of these games! Its never self aware like world brothers which isn’t really like the others edfs. I think you will LOVE EDF6 in that departure. Its story is FUCKING GENIUS! Everything comes full circle and even the SMALLEST of things from 5 are referred.
6 is set 3 years after 5 on a dying world where hope and reconstruction non existent, the survivors all live underground. The global population is at 10%. Every single human who can fight is forced into conscription from the remnant edf forces led around Base 251, this is where your journey will begins again as storm 1, you will lead humanity from its darkest fate to its absolute greatest fate!
“The identity of the aliens who long tormented the earth will finally be revealed!” Is one of the big marketing parts of this game. I actually cried playing this game imported, it was easily to understand the story as the game has actual subtitles now, making google lens easy. This is the PERFECT end to this iteration of EDF!
Now all that left is English voice acting. I wonder how they going to execute with it.
@@linkersjacken8032 hopefully as cheesy and with as much conviction as the previous installments
YESSS more people need to talk about this masterpiece of a series!
I've only played 4.1 and 5, but the story of survival of both are great. with 4.1 everyone that you have helped survives comes in the end to help, and 5 your the last real fighter left just doing your best.
Every time i see that there is a new EDF game, and it looks exactly the same as previous ones, I think to myself "how do they keep getting away with this!?" This video helped to explain it.
It's actually a lot more the same then it looks. They recycle a lot of the levels completely. Each new game is only like 25% new content. I'm pretty sure I saw him playing spearhead in here, a mission that's been in the franchise for like 5 games now (and is notoriously extremely difficult).
it's simple at the end of the day graphics are irrelevant, gameplay *is* king
You will not believe how glad I am to hear someone really taking everything about this game seriously. It's a game worth paying attention to, not just dumb fun like everyone would have you believe.
Absolutely recommend your first 2 play-throughs on Hard to Inferno for the reasons mentioned in the video. You’ll never get that experience again with how the armour/weapon progression works
Really cool video. As someone who's been with the series for quite a while, it was interesting hearing your thoughts on all this.
Been incredibly disappointed with 6's 'story,' such as it is, which really made me realize how much I appreciated 4 and 5's stories.
I agree.
I.............heavily disagree on that Kaggiekins 😐
Great video!
If you like EDF5 you will love EDF6. It's so good...
I agree with you about the story, it is well done. The more you play and think about it the better it gets.
When talking about EDF and comparing it to for example Helldivers, people say EDF is less serious and more goofy but I think it's the other way around. The game takes itself very seriously, always. There is no irony or 4th fall breaking moments. Games like Iron Rain try so hard to be an EDF game that they do try those things and then fail because of it.
EDF is serious!
Clicked because I played EDF5 recently and it was some of the most fun I've had in a while. Can't wait for EDF6 to come out! EDF! EDF!
very well done! Thanks for the hard work and putting this video together. The story and the atmosphere reminds me a lot of Starship Troopers. I think there is a lot of depth in Verhoevens films, although one can just enjoy them as simple action flicks too. The way you described this game reminded me of that
40 minute video from Rata that I’ve never heard about before? Perfect!
you have a beautiful way of words. i could listen to you talk about what ur passionate about for hours
Thank you for being the one who talk about how great EDF 5 story telling is. Would never expect this goofy arcady game story to be incredibly touching and worked me up emotionally so greatly. I remember tearing up time to time in the later missions of the game.
And as you have said, this game did it masterfully by having the story reinforced through gameplay. Story was told through your eys, playing just as a grunt solider, thrown into the front line doing one suicide mission to the next, experiencing the full horror and despair of the war.
This game has done what so many story focus, dialouge, cutscene ridden games can not even hope to achive. EDF 6 will be glorious.
Really brings back my time playing Reach for the first time, it came as a followup to playing as Master Chief, who always got theough whatever was in his way, a mostly mute and unstoppable demon, then you play as a member of Noble Team, a doomed squad on a doomed planet under the boot of an overwhelming enemy force. And surely enough, they dwindle, one by one, with every later miasion as you evacuate citizens only to watch their shuttles be blasted out of the sky, as you win a small victory over a huge shielded battle spire, only to have and entire frigate be cut in half as it sweeps in for the demolition of it, as a member gives his life to ensure a cobbled together displacement bomb tears a carrier in half, only to be immediately followed by four dozen+ of them warping in as you fall back to the ravaged planet.
That feeling of dread that evolves into acceptance of never having a chance was something I had only ever faced before in Dark Souls, and even that game forefronted hope amidst the world ending over and over again.
Super glad you're covering EDF. Got hooked on EDF 2025 (4) and counted down the days until 5 released. Can't wait until 6!
Air raider was always my favourite class, even in 4. He was significantly weaker back then in my opinion - he had no airstrikes where the camera moved back so you could see the whole battlefield and where your airstrike would land. This addition in 5 made airstrikes a lot more viable and tactical. I also remember he had a wire gun that was like the webs used by Species Beta, which was interesting because you could fire it and then roll around to catch more targets in the webs. This didn't make it to 5, but I understand why they took it out because it takes away from the intention which is to focus on how the Air raider is kind of an air traffic controller for the artillery assets of the EDF. Overall I think they really understand what makes Air raider (and the other classes) fun and unique to play, which gives me a lot of hope for 6.
This looks like Risk of rain 2 gameplay mixed with starship troopers story and you’ve convinced me to buy it.
And that's what I like online multiplayer in these games that it make players to balanced experience even on low levels missions and difficulties.
Having op weapons and players that had op weapons tend to make missions easy and boring experiences. So it's nice to had this type of mechanic in these games.
Air Raider gets a 9 min review, Wing Diver 30 sek review, I wonder which class Rata likes more
This is what I need. A "you did good, air raider" ASMR
Oh come on bro why you introducing me to all these series now I gotta play em all rata, souls monster hunter, baldurs gate, dragons dogma, edf, it just keeps going!
Happy when reviewers take note of the dead seriousness of the NPCs involved in this campy little alien invasion drama. You're right: What makes it work is that the dialogue shies away from being tongue in cheek-something it's a near certainty that a Western-developed game would be unable to resist. There is a certain moment in EDF5 that manages to give me chills every time I see it. It's this: 1:55 At this moment, a news report cuts in with a semi-no-nonsense jingle and you concretely hear a report about what you're witnessing in the flesh: Gigantic things silently rocketing across the sky at impossible speeds as part of an invasion. This moment puts me distinctly in mind of the movie _Threads,_ a cold war era movie about the bomb dropping. In that movie, before the end of the world, various segments are shown on TVs of the nuclear survival public information film _Protect and Survive,_ which is a real film that was intended to be shown when the threat of nuclear war became very real. Accompanying the dry delivery of details on e.g. how to survive fallout is a late 70s jingle that we hear a couple of different times. It's utterly chilling, and that's exactly the sensation I get when that moment hits in mission 2.
One of my favorite games to play with friends. Absolutely fun
One of my favorite games ever. Also amazing co-op game if you pump the difficulty
Ah yes, the super enemy with ton of health and damage.
As someone who has played EDF 5 and beaten the main story, it really is something to watch and enjoy. The story is just such a treat and I really started to grow attach to some of the characters you meet along the way like Sarge (one of the first characters you meet in the story). My bro and I have been playing EDF since the PS3/360 era and boy was I glad to have picked up this awesome series. I eventually plan to get EDF 6 in the future, but I got the DLC for now (seriously this one cave mission has been a tough one for sure).
A note on the weapon level and armor level limitations, if the host of a lobby has over 70% completion, they can turn that limit off, allowing the use of any level of equipment on any mission difficulty.
Im definitely intrigued! As someone who hasn’t played, it looks similar to how Helldivers 2 is shaping up. I’m curious how they’ll compare
Helldivers looks amazing but I'm expecting it to be a totally different type of experience, edf is one of those things that is distinct. There's nothing else quite like it.
YEAH THOSE DIFFICULTIES GET CRAZY HUH?
I treat Hardest like an NG+ of sorts. where easy/normal/hard mostly just bump hp/atk values, Hardest and Inferno start to fundamentally change enemy composition and behaviour. Not only are you dealing with stronger variants of the basic enemies by default now, everything is also getting massive bumps to movement speed, attack speed, and aggression.
The game sorta shifts into a more tactical experience, where carefully pulling small groups at a time becomes mandatory. I'm sure there's a bunch of other advanced tactics you need to pull off to succeed on Inferno.
There's also the explicit expectation that you're doing successive runs of the game to build up the health pools and arsenal needed. A very common piece of advice I heard was that you might as well spend the time grinding completion stars with every class. You'll passively gather the resources over time, especially since EDF5 shares a portion between all the classes now. Back on EDF4.1, weapons and armor weren't shared at all. IF you wanted to swap to fencer, you HAD to start from scratch. Yes, it sucked a lot.
If you're not down to play the game as a lifestyle commitment for a bit, you probably are better off stopping at hardest. I only cleared the game on Hard myself.
I remember there's mission we have to destroy 3 big flying saucers on very hard. Me and my friends had to run into a corner of the map. I was playing as AirRaider have to set up all the defence shields, had my WingsDiver friend lure the big saucer in one at the time so I can laser target it with my big ass nuke while my Fencer and Ranger friends kept the smaller flying saucers away from me.
It's definitely a timesink. Getting my first 100% completion save took around 500 hours and requires a *minimum* of 1332 completed missions (if you start on hard). A good way to do it is to use Solo play to farm up weapons and armor first, which then carry over to the Multiplayer (level progression being separate). Solo also doesn't have limits like MP does, so if you join some high-level lobbies and get some high level weapons as a result (by getting carried lol) you can then use those to get through the Solo missions much faster and go back and forth to speed up the process.
Fun fact fencers shield allows him to dash cancel by bashing. Pared with support that ingcrease dash and you can near constantly be fast the con though is developing carpal tunnel.
My friend described EDF to me as "an intentionally 7/10 game" and after playing it I completely agree and I love it for that.
The absurd number of weapons not getting a shout out in the initial list is a serious oversight. You go from getting OP but expected weapons through normal mode. And then you dip into hard, and suddenly you last minutes and not levels. But you keep the loot assuming you can drop A BUG much less enough for a green weapon box.
Neat things. Like bullet spray hose with 1% accuracy that bounce of walls and gain momentum when they do. Then you beat normal, dig deep enough into hard to touch the top difficulties (maybe clear Easy for the easy only weapon drops). Those weapons start getting super strong and super crazy.
I like this video, and maybe because I know that a certain lategame mission in EDF6 hits soooo good after you've played the third mission in EDF5 enough...
It's cool to see another video on EDF, now that were so close to 6.
Something my close friends keep telling me is that I have to play Helldivers 2, they say it's so much like EDF and I love that so why don't I love Helldivers.
Besides the gameplay differences, Earth Defense Force is not the Starship Troopers movie, there isn't an attempt to make satire or make you question if you are the bad guy.
In this modern era of gaming where so many stoires are either robbed of genuine heroism or there is no good outcome, EDF is shockingly Ok with you being the biggest hero
Gonna finally try the series out because of this. Thank you.
I am astonished by how masterfully this game manages to be both ridiculous over-the-top hilarity and almost grimdark at the same time. I can't imagine anyone else pulling this off as well as EDF does.
Great video. Good to see there's other people that appreciate the story as well.
Yessss i finally convinced my friends to co op through this one recently
I want to go back and do the dlc at some point
Wingdiver from the beginning. Found this after playing Tribes Aerial Assault, and the vertical gameplay and speed that they had made me love them. I can reach areas that no one else can, and collect fast to make sure we get the new toys.
The squad banter is some of the best, most unhinged stuff. It's hilarious. I feel like they have a "call" and "response" table, and they mix and match freely, to the point of nonsense.
Showed Incect Armageddon to a coworker when it came out and he goes "ew, theres almost no story. You just go fight thousands of bugs with unrealistic weapons and robots" i tell him "everything you just said is why i love this game!"
Looking forward to playing every game that comes out and seeing how they change and improve it. But even if they changed nothing and just made more missions, they're still welcome to my $60 each and every time.
Would also recommend the spin off series; EDF: World Brothers, which is also fantasttic
Not my type of game but I'm glad it exists. I might even give it a try
Too funny. I went back to this game over Thanksgiving break and it’s been stuck in the rotation sense. Love this game =]
"And most importantly, you can put a decoy on it!"
*proceeds to get serenaded*
I was laughing my ass off 😂
Guess I'll see some of you online when EDF 6 releases in the west, this spring.
why am I seeing this game everywhere lately? Friend started playing it, yours and other YT videos popping up.
I remember the mission on 4.1 with the 3 giant hornet nest on hard, this was the hardest level of the game for us, but this is still one of my best memory on the game, the moment the last nest was destroy and only a few wasp and spider was left, we just begin to sing out of pure joy, 2 weeks was nescesary to win, but the best 2 weeks of my life.
1 minute in and im convinced, thanks. Bought immediately.
I salute you good sir keep up the fight!!! 🫡
4.1 and 5 are masterpieces. I started with 2017 and never looked back.
EDF is an amazing series and its peak coop mindless fun, the games although they seem cheap at first glance, have a lot of tought put into them. The voice acting in english is the perfect kind of mix between serious and overacted. "They look just like us!" will be etched in my memory. I love playing Fencer and Air Raider, the Wind Diver altough extremely powerful is quite finicky with her energy management (though I did play many stages with her, in fact, I completed the game up to 75% so far.), she is extremely powerful and can absolutely decimate enemies. Ranger was also surprisingly fun and I found myself really enjoying it on the earlier missions.
Can't wait for EDF6. Hope more people give this series a chance.
Dragoon Lances were my best friend. Charge it > Hold Charge > Recharge Energy > Find a large target > decimate it at point blank range > fly away and do it again.
Just spend 700h+ over the last 3 years with 2 Friends playing this to 100% Completion including both Mission DLCs, can confirm, it's about as good as Multiplayer can get
13:26 my man! And you have the dlc decoys! Thats how its done!
The most brilliant thing to me about EDF is the fact that the aliens are literally just giant ants and spiders lol. This still always makes me laugh. I love this game so much