Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain

Despite aggravating AI, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain's wealth of content, challenging difficulty, and empowering action make it the best EDF game to date. This is a tried-and-true EDF game for newcomers and veterans alike.

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is the best entry in the series. It's also just a ton of fun, in case you were worried at all that killing endless waves of giant bugs and aliens could be boring. I hope future entries will adopt and adapt everything Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain has added to the series. It's certainly a better game for it and retains so many of the things longtime fans have come to love about the series. I'm happy to report that the EDF is back in business.

Honestly, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain might just be my new favourite Earth Defense Force game. Sure, it doesn’t throw quite as many enemies at you, and performance isn’t as smooth as usual, but the latter issue isn’t so bad if you’re playing on a PS4 Pro. The improved visuals and gameplay tweaks make it more of an immersive and enjoyable experience, and that’s what really matters. Yuke’s has done a great job with Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain, taking the core experience and tweaking it to make it more personal and accessible. It’s a game that will not only make Earth Defense Force fans hap...

For the longest time, Earth Defense Force has been known as the cult B-movie of Japanese video games, combining charming jank with a ton of pure, unadulterated fun. The consequence of that is that the series has been stuck in its niche with a very dedicated and very passionate fan base, but few means of convincing newcomers to give it a try.

And that’s pretty much it. Despite the marketing of a more “serious” tone this is still very much EDF – a bug-shooting Dynasty Warriors-esque hack and slash at heart. Given that it’s a standalone game you can also just jump right in (not that you’d need to keep up with EDF lore regardless).

At first blush, I worried that Iron Rain was a little like EDF lobotomised – a little ‘saner’, more approachable, but lacking a certain something for the process. But as I played more, began diving into meaty, 15-20 minute battles, kept changing my loadout, and saw how different it could feel with friends, it became clear that this was far more than an experiment in sanitisation. Iron Rain is a true spin-off, a new take on an existing and much-loved (okay, somewhat-loved) idea. It won’t have done enough to draw in an audience that wants legibility and good looks. Paradoxically, it might have d...

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is a marked improvement over its predecessors in spite being a spin-off by a different developer. Fans of the series will definitely appreciate the additions made to the game while still retaining what made the series so enjoyable. If further installments are able to improve on what Yuke's has done with the series while also fixing some of its issues to bring it up to speed of other modern shooters, it could expand the game's market well beyond its cult following.

Giving another studio the opportunity to work on a well-documented franchise, especially one whose most notable creations are its WWE 2K titles for the past six years, is always going to come with risks. When developer Yuke’s was given the keys to the Earth Defense Force series, it promised a more western take on things - one that would place an emphasis on narrative and multiplayer. Worry amongst the fanbase was easy to understand, but the final product proves that it was in haste. Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is so, so much more fun that it has any real right to be. Despite its attempted g...

You might watch the gameplay of Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain and think to yourself “this is just another shooter, what’s the big deal?” and to that I would let out a hearty guffaw. Most of these third person shooters make you out to be an unstoppable force of nature in one way or another. I had to learn very quickly that this was not that kind of game. True, the gargantuan insects only need a few shots from a basic rifle to be killed, but when there are 50+ of these monsters barreling down on you, spitting acid, and generally causing absolute mayhem, this is not a situation you can run into ...

With this being the first entry in the series to appear on PlayStation 4 (Correction: This is is third entry to appear on the PS4, after the EDF4.1 port and EDF5. We apologize for the error), you might have certain expectations for Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain. When considering the quality of games that have released this generation, specifically towards the latter half, seeing a mediocre release is particularly striking, comparatively speaking. That’s why it’s super noticeable just how dated and so-so Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is. The novelty of killing space ants wears off quickly and...

The giant bugs move from Japan to the sunny skies of California.

If you're a fan of the previous titles, go ahead and buy Iron Rain, you're not going to be disappointed by this one. If you're not a rabid fan of giant bugs, give it a miss or pick it up in a sale. It's a giggle after all if a little frustrating.