What Is The Best Earth Defense Force Game
Leanna Perr
This column is \u201CRetro spotlight,\u201D which exists mostly so I can write about whatever game I feel like even if it doesn\u2019t fit into one of the other topics you find in this newsletter. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.
Enjoyment or non-enjoyment of Earth Defense Force games is a real sticking point for me. I absolutely understand people who want the best graphics, a moving and powerful story that fully uses the technology at its disposal, and all of the other little modern amenities we\u2019ve come to expect from the games of today. I enjoy those things quite a bit myself! You know what else I love, though? Running around shooting comically powerful sniper rifles at alien ants the size of buildings, and occasionally destroying actual buildings in the process. If that just doesn\u2019t do anything for you, well, games that are not that are out there in full force these days: just let me have this one.
Earth Defense Force 2017 isn\u2019t the first EDF game in the long-running series, but it is the first to have released outside of Japan. It\u2019s the third entry in the franchise, and despite being a budget release for the Xbox 360 that looked like someone developed a game for the Playstation 2 and then upscaled it to 720p, it was a hit in Japan: in 2009, three years after it first released, Earth Defense Force 3 was the region\u2019s best-selling Games on Demand title. It remains highly playable now, even if it\u2019s pretty basic in comparison to the more modern Earth Defense Force titles, and because the Xbox 360 title is backwards-compatible with the Series X, you can play it with upscaled graphical fidelity as well as a rock-solid frame rate \u2014 even when there are more alien bugs and ships and laser beams than you can physically handle on screen.
The first Earth Defense Force title was developed by Sandlot for the Playstation 2 in Japan, as part of D3 Publisher\u2019s Simple series of budget games (Sandlot\u2019s EDF has no relation to the 1991 arcade and SNES shoot-em-up of the same name.) It was developed by a dozen people at its busiest, and took all of four months to create \u2014 those Simple games were meant to be rushed out the door as quickly as possible, and Sandlot certainly delivered there. This one also received a release in PAL territories, but nothing in North America. The same goes for its 2005 sequel, Global Defense Force, though that did eventually make its way to the region on the Playstation Vita a decade later. Global Defense Force is actually a bigger game than EDF 2017, as there are two wildly different playable characters to choose from \u2014 one a footsoldier, the other capable of flying via jetpack, and there are twice as many weapons since the two classes utilize more standard and energy-based weapons, respectively.
That\u2019s not to say that Earth Defense Force 2017 is missing anything, though: unless you knew Global Defense Force was larger \u2014 which anyone besides an importer would be unaware of, especially at the time \u2014 you wouldn\u2019t necessarily miss what\u2019s missing. As is, you still have 53 levels and 150 weapons to collect, as well as five different difficulties to complete in order to have actually mastered and completed the game. More on all of that in a bit.
The reason the game didn\u2019t release in North America is entirely due to Sony, and that comes from Sandlot\u2019s own people. In a deep dive interview with Polygon, series producer Nobuyuki Okajima explained:
\u201CThey didn\u2019t want cheap games, or games with bad graphics, or games with unstable framerates, and so on,\u201D Okajima says. Even in the PAL releases, D3P was forced to remove Japanese dialogue due to platform restrictions, a situation that Okajima described as \u201Calmost unacceptable.\u201D
Now, I love Earth Defense Force 2017 and will defend it on a number of levels, but it was cheap, and the graphics were not any good, and the framerate certainly wasn\u2019t stable. Since Sony\u2019s North American arm wouldn\u2019t budge on the idea of releasing this highly successful series there \u2014 the first two EDF games sold a combined nearly half-million units in Japan, a country that had 22 million Playstation 2 systems by the time of Global Defense Force\u2019s release, and all of this despite being attached to a budget series of games that weren\u2019t known for their quality \u2014 D3 decided it was time to remove the Simple series label, and develop the next entry from the ground up for the Xbox 360 and a worldwide release:
\u201CIt\u2019s actually a simple story \u2014 we couldn\u2019t sell this game internationally on PlayStation, so that\u2019s why we decided to develop it exclusively for the Xbox 360,\u201D Okajima says. \u201CBack then, Microsoft used to tell everyone that they weren\u2019t going to give up on making the Xbox a success in Japan, so many companies including us hoped that the sales would increase and help our sales of Earth Defense Force overall.\u201D
The bet paid off. Earth Defense Force 2017 sold more than 200,000 copies between North America and Europe, as well as 130,000 more in Japan. While that latter figure represented a decline in sales for D3P\u2019s domestic market, Okajima says the performance was amazing given the active install base of just 200,000 consoles at the time \u2014 more than three in five Japanese Xbox 360 owners bought the game.
Think about some of the highest attach rates you can for non pack-in titles. Three copies of Earth Defense Force 2017 for every five Xbox 360 systems in Japan? Those are Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U numbers right there, and that\u2019s with it shifting from its budget price of 2,000 yen to a higher one. Not up to a $60 price, no \u2014 EDF 2017 still released at budget prices by North American standards \u2014 but still more than before. And it didn\u2019t slow sales down one bit.
Why so much love for Earth Defense Force in Japan? Simple (heh): because it rules. Here\u2019s the basic premise and gameplay for EDF 2017. You are Storm 1, an unnamed unit of the Earth Defense Force, which is a military made up of people from countries all over the world in response to a potential extraterrestrial threat. When said threat arrives in the form of UFOs dropping whatever B-movie monster and robot they can across major metropolitan areas around the globe, the EDF is sent in to start taking down these new foes. You\u2019ll start small, with engagements against a few dozen giant ants that spew acid at you if you let them go unbothered long enough, but you\u2019ll work your way up to hopping spiders that trap and damage you in webs, red ants that bite hard, and fighter-sized spaceships that arrive in overwhelming numbers. You\u2019ll eventually take down the UFOs that drop these things in the first place, as well as bipedal mechs with massive laser cannons for arms, even larger bugs that birth the many forces you take down in each bug-centric stage, and also kaiju.
Outside of a luchador who helps you fight Dracula through time travel, you\u2019ve got about every B-movie convention you can shoved in here. (And the lack of that last bit is a little bit of a surprise, considering Sandlot formed out of some of the developers who used to work on Fire Pro Wrestling in the 90s.) As was explained in the Polygon interview, part of the reason for all the B-movie stuff and the focus on insects is because it already existed out there in the world: less time was needed to conceptualize for the series when it had a very short development window and small budget. Earth Defense Force games have grown since those early days because they can afford to, both in terms of time and money, but those severe restrictions did help them create something all their own that\u2019s now two decades deep: Earth Defense Force 6 released in Japan in 2022, and will eventually hit shelves in North America, too.
Back to 2017 (the game), though. To go with the B-movie visual aesthetics, the voice acting is purposely a bit hammed up, between breathless reporters and an EDF military leader doing the kind of deep, authoritative voice that I basically always think is Cam Clarke even when it\u2019s just someone doing their \u201CCam Clarke in a JRPG\u201D voice. It\u2019s all cheesy \u2014 especially all the oorah or hooah rah rah soldier chatter \u2014 but there\u2019s a difference between an intentional cheesy read and one that just kind of comes off that way because there\u2019s a disconnect between the performance and what\u2019s on screen. EDF 2017 feels of a piece: the cheesiness in the voice acting is needed and bolsters the whole deal, given what it is you\u2019re doing while you\u2019re hearing it. The music, too, adds the appropriate level of drama and tension when needed. It\u2019s all a little over the top, but this is a game about one guy saving the world by killing giant alien bugs and mechs, so, yeah. Duh.
There aren\u2019t any different character types here, just the standard footsoldier who can equip two weapons at once. There are vehicles to choose from sometimes \u2014 a tank, helicopter, hoverbike, and your own bipedal mech to pilot that looks a lot like Ripley attached guns to the Power Loader \u2014 but they tend to be tough to control due to being the only realistic-ish thing in the game. Turning is tough and slow, as is firing accurately, and by the time you get to playing on Hard, you\u2019ve got more health than they do. Still, as just a damage sponge that can wipe out a small army of foes if you do it right before it inevitably explodes, vehicles can be useful in the right hands. The helicopter is a personal favorite, if you can keep the thing in the air while firing and away from spider webs.
For more conventional weaponry, there are standard rifles and such, as well as rocket and missile launchers, sniper rifles, shotguns, and more experimental weapons developed during the war utilizing recovered technology. You\u2019ll want to find a balance in loadout that compliments your play style as well as general needs: I tend to use a shotgun and either a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher, and the shotgun spread changes depending on which of those I pick. If I have a sniper rifle, which will take out one target at a time, then I might need a wider spread on the shotgun in case a whole mob of ants arrives in front of me. If I have a rocket launcher for long-distance engagements (or very precarious closer ones), then a narrower shotgun spread makes more sense, since I already have my crowd control. The weapons start out not all that powerful, but by the time you\u2019ve made your way through a bit of the Hard mode, you should have a sniper rifle that can take out a UFO with a single well-placed shot to its glowing insides. Assuming you can live long enough to get the shot off, anyway.
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