• Huge maps
• Hilarious dialog/voice commands
• MASSIVE amount of level content
• Diverse armory of weapons, gear, and vehicles
• Great melee and ranged action with four bombastic, anime-esque
  soldier classes

• Wild balance
• Too much "hilarious" dialog
• Excessive monologues ON TOP of dialog
• Many of the weapons and vehicles are duds
• MASSIVE and disorganized weapon selection due to duplicates
• Extremely compounded grind with obsessive-compulsive
  progression features


The EDF series is a strangely delightful mashup of genres and generational gameplay. It's old-school, with massed swarms of enemies and gamey weapons, but there are modern adaptions such as limb and armor destruction. This in tandem with the awesome feel of the weapons provides massive satisfaction to slaughtering big, bad aliens! With dense, destructable cities, the gameplay loop adds up to a winning, brilliant palette! Those moments when you're frantically blasting a swarm of giant bugs, froggies, or stompy robots are just too good to miss out on, especially in co-op!


So I don't have to repeat myself in the following chapters: all classes have a large number of useless weapons. However, some are only useless until reaching higher grades. All weapons start at one star. Their upgrades end at ten stars. Some low level variants are useless, while high level variants are superior; vice versa.


Hot take: Armored Core's melee is mainstream, sweaty, boyhood, mall ninja fantasy.

Fencer is no frills. Grizzled. Pure badassitude. Also, unintuitive and entirely up to you to make it work! In the beginning, you'll be like Tom Cruise scrambling to find the safety on his exosuit. It's no accident the Fencer's power armor is an exosuit rather than a mech. Eventually, you'll be shooting across the battlefield 5x faster than a Wing Diver, unloading massive payloads and/or eviscerating, perforating, or pulverizing absolutely everything that stands, crawls, or flies.

Fencer's weapons typically have realistic ballistics (unlike Armored Core...). The cluster mortar makes no sense, but each weapon's payload has decent physics. The best part is they're affected by your momentum! I think the cream of the crop is the High Altitude Launcher; exactly replicating mechanics of a real handheld SSM launcher.

The oddest thing about Fencer is mobility options are slaved to specific weapon choices. To gain access to horizontal and vertical thrusters (Dash and Booster) simultaneously, you need to pair a melee weapon with a short(er) range gun. Your second weapon set can be whatever you want.

Two massive QoL changes needed in a new EDF to give us the Fencer we all deserve:
1.) Utilities need to be their own, always available features.
2.) There needs to be an option to use all four weapons as one set!


Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew!

Ranger's got practical, boring small arms (he carries 2). What can you expect? Ranger's just a dime-a-dozen jarhead. That said, he does have some exciting, more exotic options for shotguns and launchers that can rival Fencer's in the right situation. As for mobility, Ranger gets the fastest vehicles in the form of an armed motorcycle. However, the meta is to choose support equipment over a vehicle to help you in actual combat.

I say do whatever you like! A vehicle can help you get you where you're needed in a reasonable time, and you can be the team's crate looter and/or mobile defibrillator. Just running everywhere is not a good option, but your only choices are that or a Kawasaki! Not to mention, sprinting zooms the camera on Ranger's ass. What game did they take inspiration from when deciding on this awkward viewpoint that blocks the view...


Do you need to be a little sophisticated to appreciate the Air Raider's complex flavor? Perhaps!

Polar opposite to the Ranger, you need some good thinking here as to what you want to do on a map. Air Raiders play kind of like a Helldiver; powerful, diverse air support, vehicle drops, and small but effective field equipment. You can even go entirely without a gun, and that's perfectly fine because Air Raider weapons are extremely specialized and cannot deal with swarms.

Until you get a vehicle, you're better off away from the action. Vehicles range from light tanks to choppers to gigantic, stompy, punch robots. In order to call a drop, you need to accrue points from (anyone's) kills. This exerts a metagame: keep track of your vehicle drop graphic and call the drop ASAP or you'll eat those points and limit your vehicles on a map.

Field equipment includes explosive piton rifles, turrets, support constructs, and supportive boosts. These allow Air Raiders to operate viably underground, but nothing stops you from bringing any of it to a surface map.


Taking flight is real eats and treats, but I dare say there is such a thing as too many sweets.

Flight is a Wing Diver's main feature, with pretty, dazzling laser weapons a close second. Contrary to what her arsenal may suggest, close-quarters is her specialty because the most powerful laser (Phalanx) has an effective range of around 40 meters, and it is devastating at <20m. Other competitive weapons boast full damage as far as 160m, but it's best to consider them as secondary. In fact, everything else should be considered as support to deal with special threats or situations.

I'm very disappointed with how locked in the competitive choices are. Just like a straight diet of candy, too much skirmishing leaves me a tad disgusted. I enjoyed sniping with lightning, area control through static weapons, and bombing with EDF 4's Wing Diver.


Most missions have excessive and insanely incoherent "radio chatter." It's like an extra-dimensional alien wrote it all. On the "radio" (or whatever it is), you have a direct line to mission command, a world government board with "scientific" advisors, extremely unprofessional soldier commentary from the battlefield, TV broadcasts from an anchor, and other odd things that don't belong on a soldier's communications channel. The amount of ex machina and exposition vomited onto the radio is mind blowing and worthy of a permanent Joker smile or—perhaps—a permanent deadpan facepalm.

Special mentions to how the radio partially mutes the game volume! In fact, the radio intrudes on the experience through half the gameplay on every level. Sigh...


If you like the action and you stick around long enough, its charm can rub off very positively! In general, EDF is a good example of how slaving gameplay to itemization can utterly ruin playability. It creates a grotesque metagame for you to work around instead of just letting you enjoy the action! In EDF's case, it leads to the absolutely mind-numbing collection of crates from enemies being a huge part of the game. It's also harder than it should be to line up an experience in which you don't annihilate your enemies instantly and nor do they annihilate you instantly.

The variety of equipment is outstanding, though the itemization of it all is massively overblown! It's an arcade game, not a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MMO!! Not only is there obscene grinding to get all the weapons, there's often multiple variants ranging from level 1 to 120 and every weapon's stats may be randomly upgraded after mission completion. SHEESH!!!!

My advice is to give Sandlot/D3 Publisher the middle finger, then speed things up with a certain tool while farming certain missions to get all the armor you need in a relatively short time. Maybe farm a nice assortment of weapons too because the grind is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥! The early and even middle period can be awkward for all classes.

Regardless, EDF boasts a one-of-a-kind horde shooter experience.

[h1]PROS[/h1] • Huge maps • Hilarious dialog/voice commands • MASSIVE amount of level content • Diverse armory of weapons, gear, and vehicles • Great melee and ranged action with four bombastic, anime-esque   soldier classes [h1]CONS[/h1] • Wild balance • Too much "hilarious" dialog • Excessive monologues ON TOP of dialog • Many of the weapons and vehicles are duds • MASSIVE and disorganized weapon selection due to duplicates • Extremely compounded grind with obsessive-compulsive   progression features [h1]You got your MMO/Action-RPG in my horde shooter![/h1] The EDF series is a strangely delightful mashup of genres and generational gameplay. It's old-school, with massed swarms of enemies and gamey weapons, but there are modern adaptions such as limb and armor destruction. This in tandem with the awesome feel of the weapons provides massive satisfaction to slaughtering big, bad aliens! With dense, destructable cities, the gameplay loop adds up to a winning, brilliant palette! Those moments when you're frantically blasting a swarm of giant bugs, froggies, or stompy robots are just too good to miss out on, especially in co-op! [h1]Intermission[/h1] So I don't have to repeat myself in the following chapters: all classes have a large number of useless weapons. However, some are only useless until reaching higher grades. All weapons start at one star. Their upgrades end at ten stars. Some low level variants are useless, while high level variants are superior; vice versa. [h1]The Meat[/h1] [i]Hot take: Armored Core's melee is mainstream, sweaty, boyhood, mall ninja fantasy.[/i] Fencer is no frills. Grizzled. Pure badassitude. Also, unintuitive and entirely up to you to make it work! In the beginning, you'll be like Tom Cruise scrambling to find the safety on his exosuit. It's no accident the Fencer's power armor is an exosuit rather than a mech. Eventually, you'll be shooting across the battlefield 5x faster than a Wing Diver, unloading massive payloads and/or eviscerating, perforating, or pulverizing absolutely everything that stands, crawls, or flies. Fencer's weapons typically have realistic ballistics (unlike Armored Core...). The cluster mortar makes no sense, but each weapon's payload has decent physics. The best part is they're affected by your momentum! I think the cream of the crop is the High Altitude Launcher; exactly replicating mechanics of a real handheld SSM launcher. The oddest thing about Fencer is mobility options are slaved to specific weapon choices. To gain access to horizontal and vertical thrusters (Dash and Booster) simultaneously, you need to pair a melee weapon with a short(er) range gun. Your second weapon set can be whatever you want. Two massive QoL changes needed in a new EDF to give us the Fencer we all deserve: 1.) Utilities need to be their own, always available features. 2.) There needs to be an option to use all four weapons as one set! [h1]The Potato[/h1] [i]Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew![/i] Ranger's got practical, boring small arms (he carries 2). What can you expect? Ranger's just a dime-a-dozen jarhead. That said, he does have [i]some[/i] exciting, more exotic options for shotguns and launchers that can rival Fencer's in the right situation. As for mobility, Ranger gets the fastest vehicles in the form of an armed motorcycle. However, the meta is to choose support equipment over a vehicle to help you in actual combat. I say do whatever you like! A vehicle can help you get you where you're needed in a reasonable time, and you can be the team's crate looter and/or mobile defibrillator. Just running everywhere is not a good option, but your only choices are that or a Kawasaki! Not to mention, sprinting zooms the camera on Ranger's ass. What game did they take inspiration from when deciding on this awkward viewpoint that blocks the view... [h1]The Malbec[/h1] [i]Do you need to be a little sophisticated to appreciate the Air Raider's complex flavor? Perhaps![/i] Polar opposite to the Ranger, you need some good thinking here as to what you want to do on a map. Air Raiders play kind of like a Helldiver; powerful, diverse air support, vehicle drops, and small but effective field equipment. You can even go entirely without a gun, and that's perfectly fine because Air Raider weapons are extremely specialized and cannot deal with swarms. Until you get a vehicle, you're better off away from the action. Vehicles range from light tanks to choppers to gigantic, stompy, punch robots. In order to call a drop, you need to accrue points from (anyone's) kills. This exerts a metagame: keep track of your vehicle drop graphic and call the drop ASAP or you'll eat those points and limit your vehicles on a map. Field equipment includes explosive piton rifles, turrets, support constructs, and supportive boosts. These allow Air Raiders to operate viably underground, but nothing stops you from bringing any of it to a surface map. [h1]The Dessert[/h1] [i]Taking flight is real eats and treats, but I dare say there is such a thing as too many sweets.[/i] Flight is a Wing Diver's main feature, with pretty, dazzling laser weapons a close second. Contrary to what her arsenal may suggest, close-quarters is her specialty because the most powerful laser (Phalanx) has an effective range of around 40 meters, and it is devastating at <20m. Other competitive weapons boast full damage as far as 160m, but it's best to consider them as secondary. In fact, everything else should be considered as support to deal with special threats or situations. I'm very disappointed with how locked in the competitive choices are. Just like a straight diet of candy, too much skirmishing leaves me a tad disgusted. I enjoyed sniping with lightning, area control through static weapons, and bombing with EDF 4's Wing Diver. [h1]Flapping Gums[/h1] Most missions have excessive and insanely incoherent "radio chatter." It's like an extra-dimensional alien wrote it all. On the "radio" (or whatever it is), you have a direct line to mission command, a world government board with "scientific" advisors, extremely unprofessional soldier commentary from the battlefield, TV broadcasts from an anchor, and other odd things that don't belong on a soldier's communications channel. The amount of ex machina and exposition vomited onto the radio is mind blowing and worthy of a permanent Joker smile or—perhaps—a permanent deadpan facepalm. Special mentions to how the radio partially mutes the game volume! In fact, the radio intrudes on the experience through half the gameplay on [i][b]every[/b][/i] level. Sigh... [h1]CONCLUSION[/h1] If you like the action and you stick around long enough, its charm can rub off very positively! In general, EDF is a good example of how slaving gameplay to itemization can utterly ruin playability. It creates a grotesque metagame for you to work around instead of [i]just letting you enjoy the action[/i]! In EDF's case, it leads to the absolutely mind-numbing collection of crates from enemies being a huge part of the game. It's also harder than it should be to line up an experience in which you don't annihilate your enemies instantly and nor do they annihilate you instantly. The variety of equipment is outstanding, though the itemization of it all is massively overblown! It's an arcade game, not a fucking MMO!! Not only is there obscene grinding to get all the weapons, there's often multiple variants ranging from level 1 to 120 and every weapon's stats may be randomly upgraded after mission completion. SHEESH!!!! My advice is to give Sandlot/D3 Publisher the middle finger, then [i]speed things up with a certain tool[/i] while farming [i]certain missions[/i] to get all the armor you need in a relatively short time. Maybe farm a nice assortment of weapons too because the grind is bullshit! The early and even middle period can be awkward for all classes. Regardless, EDF boasts a one-of-a-kind horde shooter experience.