Review: Earth Defense Force 6 Is Funny, But Tedious

Earth Defense Force is a series known for its campy, B-movie vibe. It’s known for being far from the greatest in its genre, but a perfect game for when you want to turn your brain off and blast some bugs. Earth Defense Force 6 is no different, but maybe we should be asking for more at this point.

Earth Defense Force 6 begins with you being brought in as a new recruit for the titular military group. However, you’re the hero of Earth Defense Force 5 who has somehow been mistaken for a rookie that now has to undergo basic training again. Along the way, you and your fellow new recruits take on a series of missions to eradicate the remaining alien threat that’s been wrecking Earth.

It’s a silly opening, and one that set a tone right out the gate. The story here is poorly written, melodramatic, B-movie grade schlock, by which I mean it’s amazing. Aside from heroes being somehow recruited for basic training, the opening missions feature a lot of ham-fisted dialogue clearly meant to impart an important message about humanity and war but stumbling over itself at every turn.

For instance, after fighting off your first batch of giant bipedal frog monsters who shoot you on sight, your squadmates will openly discuss the possibility of them simply being refugees from their home planet that we’re misunderstanding. This is naturally peppered with some awkward, entirely out-of-place “what if we’re the real monsters” comments while you’re being chased by giant ants that have no qualms about devouring you. This is then replaced in a later mission by every squad member reminding you that the aliens killed their entire family at every opportunity, completely ignoring the attempts to humanize them moments ago.

Every line of dialogue feels like something out of an Ed Wood movie or The Room. The clumsy attempts at gravitas. The characters who openly discuss their backstories in stilted, inhuman ways. And a story that often feels meandering and full of cliches. However, every part of it feels deliberate, as each terrible line is comedy genius. One exchange in a mission about the appearance of humanoid aliens legitimately caught me off guard in how silly it was, especially when the eventual punchline was revealed.

In terms of gameplay, this is a standard third-person shooter. You pick one of four classes of soldier, with different abilities and play styles. There’s the Ranger, a basic grunt with an assault rifle and various other weapons. The Wing Diver is a flying unit who swoops around with a jet pack. The Air Raider specializes in throwing drones and traps around for maximum damage. And finally, the Fencer is a big stompy suit of power armor that can tank through most trouble.

Or at least in theory, these are the things that differentiate them. However, one thing that becomes abundantly clear after a few hours of playing Earth Defense Force 6 is that none of them are particularly great to play. Each class has strengths and weaknesses, but at times the weaknesses can become such a hassle to deal with it can be frustrating. The Wing Diver is best swooping around in the air, and yet is given a ton of weapons that only work from short range. The Air Raider is capable of causing a ton of damage but is awkward to use. The Fencer is slow and unwieldy to control, and sometimes doesn’t feel as resistent to damage as it should be. And the Ranger is just…kind of boring.

These problems are often exacerbated by the bland mission design. Every mission feels the same. You move to one portion of the city overrun by monsters that mostly resemble bugs, kill them all, then repeat the process roughly three or four times until the game feels you’ve had enough. Sometimes you might get to blow up a spaceship or some wasp nests, as a treat, but most of the time the level design repeats this same formula over and over.

Even the enemies begin to feel samey. Sure, they’re all different species of bug or weird alien beings and spacecrafts, but the attack patterns are consistent across the board. The only real changes are later missions when your alien foes get endlessly firing automatic weapons that are next to impossible to dodge. Usually while also gaining the ability to fly into a position you don’t see them. Which turns the tedium into frustration very quickly.

It doesn’t help that Earth Defence Force 6 is not a good-looking game. Every mission map feels like a bunch of ruined city assets thrown together without much rhyme or reason. There is some mild entertainment to be had from the generic ants and spiders being presented as horrific Eldritch beings, but the joke does wear out its welcome fast.

On top of this, the visuals have all the fidelity of a game from 2006. It certainly doesn’t try to make up for its dated, low budget visuals with a coherent art design either, as nothing was visually interesting enough to pay much attention to. There is a point where the visuals do get an upgrade, but even after this the game feels at least a decade out of date.

I get that this is part of the charm of this series. Earth Defense Force has always been intentionally bad. But while the b-movie grade writing feels purposeful and fun, the gameplay and visual design feels sloppy. It’s a tough tightrope to walk between making a game deliberately bad in a fun way and making a game that’s just bad. Unfortunately, EDF6 lands firmly in the latter category, as its tedious mechanics and limited strategy simply don’t feel good to play.

Fans of the Earth Defense Force series probably don’t care about any of this. If that’s you, you’re probably here for everything I just described. Feel free to add a couple of points to the score in your head if that’s the case. However, I did come into the game fully aware of its reputation and perfectly ready to mindlessly blast away some bugs, but even I felt disappointed with the end result.

Earth Defense Force 6 is a joke that outstays its welcome. The writing definitely has its moments of brilliance, but it tries so hard to be “so bad it’s good” that it just ends up bad.

Earth Defense Force 6 is out now for the PC, PS4 and PS5.