IT TAKES MORE THAN JUST FANCY FLYING
Continuing with this "Event-marathon" of shmup reviews, here's Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wing Diver The Shooter.
Laser fire is the most effective bugspray.
D3/Sandlot's Earth Defense Force series take a break from their traditional Third Person Action-Shooter games and decide to give the shmup genre a try.
Being their first (and only) shmup, they had some interesting ideas. First off, the scoring system, which is a combo multiplier that begins to climb as soon as a bullet hits the enemy, in the case of beam artillery like the LAZR-197, the beam damage will rack the combo hits faster, You have a very short time to move and hit another target before the multiplier resets. To put it simple, this scoring mechanic can be compared with Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth where each shot counts. Like in Vanishing Earth, you have a defensive move to dodge the enemy fire. Not a shield, but a boost, which is a dashing move similar to the Zero Teleport from Alien Soldier, and you're gonna need that very often as the game throws you bullet hells that will rivalize with Cave's early shmups. Since we're talking about Sandlot's E.D.F. games, one thing is certain for sure: Easy is not gonna be as the name says. The bullet patterns here are more like the "Normal" level of DonPachi and Triggerheart Exelica. On every E.D.F. game, your enemies will drop Armor crates which grant you armor points that increase the life gauge of your Wing Diver allowing you to star the level (and later gameplays) with more health. Let me give you a word of advice: Stick to the Easy level until you have around 500 AP (Armor Points), then repeat that on Normal until you get 1200 or so. E.D.F. games are basically a tug-of-war of who survives based on your total health since they have the -- You've guessed it! -- Turridamage. Health drops with no recovery time. In the original games, this was a problem on the Hard difficulty, and All-Hell-Breaks-Loose when the levels were played on Hardest and Inferno. I tell you this by experience, since I had to rack more than 30,000 AP to barely survive on E.D.F. 2 (not to mention the dozens of PS2 controllers that I've broke on anger rants and a couple of PlayStation 2's that died out during the AP farming process), and it's sad to see how Sandlot didn't learned the lesson, which only causes trouble on this game.
Another critical flaw is the weapon's energy. On the main games, the character had to reload its ammo and each weapon had its reload time which was from two to ten or more seconds depending on the equipped weapon. The problem was carried on Pale Wing the Jet Armor and the Wing Diver on E.D.F. 2, Insect Armageddon and E.D.F. 2025 as their engine and the weapons shared the same Energy battery. Forcing them to land and walk for cover. On Wing Diver The Shooter, the Boost (dash) and the weapon have the same problem, but its much worse. Once the energy hits zero, your Wing Diver won't be just unable to fire, she will also reduce her speed, making her extremely slow and prone to insect fire. While the energy issue might work on the main games in order to make you use your weapons and abilities wisely, this becomes fatal on a shmup since you need to fly at a certain speed and have your main weapons available at any time.
One thing that any E.D.F. fan remembers is the destructible environment. From trees to buildings, the players were able to either destroy structures that block their way or use the buildings as shields to cover themselves from enemy fire. Wing Diver The Shooter omits that aspect and its a real shame since this had potential to increase the hi-scoring fun. Twin Eagle II: The Rescue Mission is a great example of destructible environments for the sake of bonus points along with the zen of blowing things up.
But the mother of all flaws is that the game crashes. Constantly. I've just played the game twice, and on my two runs I had no crashes. But postman suffered those issues and when he contacted D3 Publisher...well, just check this out.
Yeah, they basically told him "It's YOUR FAULT the game crashed". Good Lord.postman wrote:So I contacted D3 about the constant crashing, and here is the response:
"Hello, this is D3PUBLISHER.
Thank you for contacting us.
Regarding the matter of your inquiry, we would like you to attempt the following contents to check if the issue will be improved.
-Update the System Software of PS4 to the latest version.
Operations: Settings > System Software Update.
-Update the game version to the latest.
Operations: Select the game in Library > Press the options button > Check for Update
-Re-install the original HDD.
If you have upgraded the Hard Disk Drive ("HDD") in your system, please re-install the original HDD.
If the error occurs again, back up your saved data, and then go to Settings > Initialization and choose Initialize PS4.
In case the issue persists we kindly suggest you to contact PlayStation Support since there is a strong chance that your PS4 console may be the cause of the issue."
So it's MY fault EDF doesn't work, and not crappy programming and lack of QA. Got it.
ANT-astic, a whole swarm of giant ants.
Let's talk of the positive aspects of the game, shall we? Everytime you're halfway through a level you'll enter on a "Bonus Game" mode called Shoot Up Mode where the objective consists of killing a certain number of insects in order to get rewards from Med-kits (Recovery +20) Armor Points and an unlockable Weapon. While at first you've may not be able to reach the weapon, getting the Armor Points are the top priority. You can also unlock weapons throughout the stage since the enemies also drop them randomly. Playing the level in a higher difficulty will provide you stronger weapons, so you can take all of them and rack Armor Points faster.
Your Spider-Sense didn't warned us about giant spiders.
Boss battles retain their simplicity at least on the first five stages as they're "All-one-piece" bosses which rely on Final Fight-styled multiple life bars (Green > Yellow > Red). Only the final stage has multi-part bosses since we're facing a giant mothership, and curiously that's when the game reaches its highest note as we face challenging enemy waves, fancy bullet and laser patterns and destructible parts to rack up combos above 1,500 and up to 2,000, giving us a short rush of action and fun for a few minutes.
The "Fast, Good, Cheap. Pick Two" dilemma hits the E.D.F.
Everyone who's familiar with Sandlot's E.D.F. knows perfectly well this single aspect: The game has a colossal amount of stages up to at least 60 of them. Well, It's not the same for Wing Diver The Shooter, as it only features 6 stages making it look more like an quarter burning arcade game rather than a console shmup. I mean, this had the potential to be the new CS Mode like in Dariusburst CS: Chronicle Saviours. If we had to compare this with the "Fast, Good, Cheap. Pick Two" adagio, then we can think D3 Publisher, Sandlot and Clouds took the Fast and Cheap 'cos this deserved to be a bigger game just like its main counterparts.
At least you've tried to color her like a Triggerheart.
Like R-Type Final 2 and Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, the game gives you the option of customizing your Wing Diver. The E.D.F. series (Both Sandlot and Jaleco) are familiarized with weapon variety for the sake of a more strategic performance and destructive results. All the characters of the E.D.F. can carry two different weapons regardless of the unit you're using. Wing Diver The Shooter makes no exception with that and allows you to pick two weapons. Ironically, the color change also changes the NPC Wing Diver's color killing the originality and that feeling of "My unit is unique" this game tries to aim.
There's plenty of training exercises for you today!
To "compense" the lack of missions in the main game, Clouds, D3 and Sandlot released a free DLC called "Training Mode" which consists of 60 missions with unique objectives, and some of them require you to unlock and equip a particular weapon. 60 missions with a total of 180 medals (3 per level). For me, this makes no sense since they've could added more levels to the almost empty main game.
E.D.F.: Redefining the concept of "Girl Power" to whole new levels.
It's sad to see how a well detailed shooter with spectacular scenery and urban settings gets sometimes slammed by graphic issues like in the boss fight of stage 3 where a lot of tanks are destroyed simultaneously causing the game to stop as if the cutscene was badly rendered. On the other side, the mechanical enemies are the best detailed of the game, especially the mothership. One thing that I've also noticed is the recycled models on everyone. The running citizens are basically the same businessman and housewife repeated again and again, and ALL the Wing Divers are long-haired brunettes, making things look a little bit generic.
Sandlot's E.D.F. series are a homage to the Sci-Fi-Horror films of the 50's and Kaiju movies altogether, which is noticed on the cast of enemies which are giant insects (ants, spiders and bees) inspired by movies like The Deadly Mantis and Tarantula!, as well as the usual Godzilla-influenced dinosaur-dragon-like monster.
While the music is based on the sci-fi horror movies in most of the stages, it breaks with the pattern on Mission 6 as we have a dance-techno song that feels like it belongs to RayStorm and adds more action to an already action packed stage.
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1: TRIVIA DIVER - THE CURIOSITIES
- Please, for the love of God, don't confuse D3/Sandlot's E.D.F. with Jaleco's classic shmup of the same name.
- The logo wrongly writes Wing Diver as "Wingdiver".
- The game is a spin-off of Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair which is an update of Earth Defense Force 2025.
- The Wing Diver is the successor of the Pale Wing from Earth Defense Force 2/Global Defence Force and the Jet soldier from Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon.
- The name Pale Team is also a nod to the Pale Wing.
- Second time the aerial unit is female, being the Jet units from Insect Armageddon the lone male instance.
Can't wait for the next shmup to review.
Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wing Diver The Shooter is an curious twist in the series. They had some good ideas, but the flaws carried from the original game are an indication that the game needs to ditch them for a more flexible and fair gameplay, not to mention the glitch reports which D3 Publisher denies telling you "It's your fault the game crashed".
I can only recommend this game for fans of D3/Sandlot's E.D.F. series since this is gonna be one of those games that will keep you racking Armor Points for a damn long time. Other shmuppers will be bored with this game.
The "Lea Scale" remains neutral with the game's results.
Shizuka agrees on that.