Every time Starship Troopers pops up as a topic, we get to “enjoy” the most surreal arguments on the Internet as a bunch of people argue that the film is not a satire of fascism, and that the book is not an argument for fascism. These are some of the least subtle art works in the history of art works, and yet so many people seem to totally misread both. It is truly surreal. It makes me wonder that if Earth Defense Force had the same mainstream prominence of Starship Troopers, would people also miss the point of it? Is it even possible to miss the satire and parody of militarism in Earth Defense Force 6?
It very probably is, to be honest. As totally unsubtle as it is, it wouldn’t be the first blunt game whose message goes misunderstood, either. Now, it is true that it doesn’t really matter whether you do “get it” or not in order to be able to fully enjoy this one. EDF is perfectly enjoyable even if you pay no attention to the narrative whatsoever. However, if you do actually pay attention to the narrative, then you’ll be bombarded by a constant stream of humour that is both an endless stream of kitschy homages to just about every B-tier sci-fi trope you can imagine, as well as plenty of less-than-subtle satire of the Starships Troopers variety (the film, not the book). It’s nowhere near as biting or astute as Paul Verhoeven’s masterpiece, but the intent and spirit is there, and the end product is that you’ll feel like you’re playing the film.
For long-term fans of the series, EDF 6 has been a long time coming – it’s been out in Japan for more than two years now. The game is a direct sequel to the previous title (i.e. Earth Defense Force 5), and starts out with the cleanup of an invasion of aliens and monsters that humanity prevailed over, but only after losing around half the global population. Sadly, before the cleanup can be finished, a whole new invasion begins. And this time around there’s time travel, because EDF wasn’t already enough of a laundry list of B-grade science fiction.
That’s about the point where the action picks up, and it is nothing short of extreme. The swarms of giant bugs and beasts that descend on you are massive, your allies start scrambling madly, and any civilians in the area run around in a panic. It’s a maelstrom of bedlam and chaos, like you’re playing a Dynasty Warriors game, but rather than facing down armies of people, mundane and small as they are, you’re instead confronted with wall-to-wall giant ants, wasps, frogs and more that totally fill up the screen in front of you.
Aiming becomes largely pointless, since it doesn’t really matter where you aim because you’re going to hit something, but that doesn’t mean that EDF doesn’t involve skill. You need to be able to stay on the move to limit your exposure to enemy projectiles, while also maintaining awareness of everything that’s going on around you. You also need to be efficient with movement, so you can split time between defeating enemies and collecting the many new weapons and health drops that defeated enemies leave behind. It’s a twitchy, fast, arcade-style shooter and as you can probably guess, it gets even better when you can find buddies to play with.
An extensive loot and class system further enhances both the single player and teamwork quality of the game. There are four base classes, each with its own utility on the battlefield. You’ll want to start with the standard soldier for the standard shooter action, but all three of the alternative classes play very differently and have different utility on the battlefield. This becomes even more entertaining in multiplayer, as you all try to bring some order to the chaos and coordinate efforts. Most of the time it just results in random screaming and uproarious laughter.
The one problem that EDF6 faces is that it’s been one-upped in some ways by the series’ own spinoff: Earth Defense Force: World Brothers. That was released a few years ago (and there’s another one imminent), and the blocky LEGO-like world and bold colours do a much better job of capturing the whimsical glee of the EDF action. It doesn’t work as well in terms of the commentary, but as something to look at and simply enjoy, World Brothers is exquisite. EDF 6’s aesthetics and engine by contrast does a great job of depicting intimidatingly large swarms of enemies, but not much more than that. Levels take place over large chunks of space, but it’s so messy and archaic to look at that the scope feels irrelevant. The developers really need to graduate to a new engine and rebuild all the art assets for EDF, because in places it’s easy to believe that the game still relies on assets developed back for the PlayStation 3 titles in the franchise.
Ultimately you won’t be looking for a photo mode for this game, and won’t care that it doesn’t deserve one. Ultimately, the balls-to-the-wall action and humour is more than enough to carry it. However, it’s hard not to wish that the developers approached the aesthetics with the same glee as the action and concept. Why go for a Z-tier “gritty” aesthetic and invite the comparison to the standard AAA-blockbuster made today, when you could have leaned heavily into a colourful, silly Ed Wood aesthetic and had fun with the nonsense of giant monster ants? With this series there’s a disconnect between what the visuals try and do, and what the game stands for, and it’s becoming more and more obvious with every generation.
Still, Earth Defence Force 6 is pure fun distilled into a video game and it is impossible to put down. It’s based on B-grade sci-fi, and is B-grade in every way itself, and I would take that over over-produced, self-important, vapid blockbuster nonsense any time.
