Of all the games produced for the Simple 2000 series of budget Japanese PS2 titles, none has had quite the same resonance or longevity as D3’s Earth Defense Force series.
I’m unashamedly a fan of most of the EDF games – as long as we can all agree that Insect Armageddon NEVER HAPPENED — and I’m guilty of buying most of them several times over for a variety of platforms. A day when I can’t enjoy a game series that little deliberately B-movie mashes with not-so-subtle pokes at militaristic tropes and ideals is a bad day.
EDF games do not take themselves seriously – that’s very much the point – but of all the EDF games, Earth Defence Force: World Brothers is arguably EDF at its oddest; it’s EDF with a voxel makeover that makes the whole thing look rather like it’s all made from LEGO, just because they could.
Matt loved it in his review and I likewise enjoyed it a lot simply for being a very different take on EDF, even if it was rather simplified in its gameplay approach.
Like any EDF game, there are swarms of giant bugs, flying saucers and obligatory Godzilla-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off appearances, but World Brother’s big change was shifting from collecting weapon crates to collecting comrades – the world brothers of the suffix – each with their own wacky aesthetic and weapon sets.
No more selecting your Ranger, Fencer, Wing Diver or Air Raider when you can instead choose from an explosive baseball player, Incan Warrior or bubble cannontoting Mermaid as your fighting crew. I mean, who wouldn’t want that?
And now there’s a sequel in Earth Defence Force: World Brothers 2.
Although, honestly, while it’s still got the same essential gameplay loop as World Brothers, it doesn’t quite feel as though it’s earned the rights to be called a fully-fledged sequel.
There is a plot – once again the voxel-based world of EDF has been split apart, and it’s your job as a variety of EDF squad members, ranging from classic EDF fare to more out-there characters to take on a horde of b-movie enemies, rebuilding the earth one step at a time.
You play Earth Defence Force: World Brothers 2, like the original, with a team of EDF squad mates, played either solo with switching on the D-Pad, or in groups (which is a lot more chaotic fun), only this time you get a bunch of characters and enemies that debuted in Earth Defence Force 6 (read Matt’s review here), from exploding robot Androids to poison spewing Scylla and more besides. It’s great to see voxel-ised versions of that games’ foes, and it’s still fun… but it doesn’t quite feel like it’s an entirely new game or new engine.
You’re still on the same quite small and short-level maps, you’re still going to be mixing up rescuing your “brothers” (some of whom are sisters) with taking out all the enemies on a given map. In-game characters converse as you fight with a mostly-funny script, though the constantly repeated catchphrases of most characters do lose their charm quite quickly.
Action is fast and mostly relentless in the classic EDF style, though the fact that you’re switching between squad members rather than selecting weapons does give it a different strategic feel from other mainline EDF games.
In a way, the biggest problem that Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 has is that the original game exists. To refresh my memory, I went back and played a little of the original before diving into the sequel, and honestly, the changes really do feel kind of minor. The addition of ED6 elements does add some variety, but the core gameplay loop is nearly identical. It’s still fun, but it’s the same fun.
I don’t want to ignore the fact that EDF games have all relied on quite simple gameplay elements, but when you strip it down to the even simpler style of World Brothers, it’s all the more apparent. All of that can’t help but make Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 feel more like it would be appropriately pitched as a DLC drop than its own fully-fledged game.
It also doesn’t help that while for its domestic Japanese home market, the gap between EDF 6 (2022) and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 (2024) was a decent enough time for desire for a new game to build up. Locally, because EDF 6’s English language translation took forever, we’ve seen both games get local releases within months of each other. You’ve waited ages for a new EDF game, and now you’ve got two to pick from within a few months of each other.
If you’re looking to scratch that EDF itch, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 is a decent enough way to do it – but EDF 6 is considerably better and more engaging, and that does make it a harder game to recommend. It’s still fun, for sure, because EDF mostly has that pizza-like quality that even when it’s slightly bland and predictable it’s still quite good – but I can’t help but feel that a fully-fledged World Brothers sequel should perhaps have taken its LEGO-like destruction mechanic a little further, or leaned more into the abject silliness of some of your comrades.
