Right up there with zombies and vampires as a staple of video game enemies, is aliens. From Metroid to Mass Effect, aliens have been there to smash, shoot, and generally pummel into oblivion, regardless of the actual plot of the game. And, since 2003, D3 Publisher’s series, aptly named Earth Defense Force, has gotten in on the action. As an absolute lover of all things alien, I couldn’t say no when I was offered the chance to sit down and play a demo for their latest game in our Earth Defense Force 6 preview.
Admittedly, I went into this demo not knowing much about the series other than the fact that my colleagues have reviewed previous entries, but thankfully, it was easy enough to pick up the basic controls. I’m not great at shooters, first or third person, but the enemies were so enormous that it was pretty difficult to miss them. Literally, I was fighting giant alien frogs the size of office buildings, that came in waves of almost musou-like numbers.
In a strange way, I enjoyed the design of the alien frogs (called Colonists). While I wouldn’t give out any prizes for Miss America, alien frogs aren’t an overdone trope and managed to check both the boxes of suitably ridiculous and menacing at the same time.
On the topic of story for the demo, I was totally lost. Earth Defense Force games generally have two-part stories, and this entry is a continuation of the story from Earth Defense Force 5, taking place 3 years after the conclusion of the first game. Earth has continued to be devastated by recent alien invasions, despite your earlier victory, and you end up enlisted in the titular Earth Defense Force, given a gun, and told to hop to it, by a commanding officer vaguely reminiscent of R. Lee Ermey.
From what I’ve gathered, story is not the strong suit of the Earth Defense Force series. Certainly, the cringey dialogue and even cringier voice acting from the demo don’t help it along, but to be fair, the plot running on “shoot evil aliens” is easy enough to understand even for a complete newbie.
As a series, Earth Defense Force has a “so bad it’s good” reputation. While that isn’t my favorite genre or area of expertise, I can definitely see the ham and narm-charm turned up to 11 in the demo. The voice acting is borderline terrible, but it’s so terrible that it would be something to laugh about while playing with friends.
As mentioned above, the alien frogs are ridiculous and menacing at the same time. And, let’s be real – if you turned on the news tomorrow and it said Earth was being invaded by giant frogs the size of the Chrysler building, wouldn’t you be torn between laughing and crying?
While my slice of Earth Defense Force 6 preview was enough to prove that it’s not the game for me, I can still see it has the cheese to appeal to a fanbase already in place. Besides, sometimes you just want to shoot giant alien frogs until they explode into goo, and this game does a pretty good job of that.
TechRaptor previewed Earth Defense Force 6 at New York Comic Con 2023 on PlayStation 5.
