Ugly graphics, unstable frame rate, quantity over quality and inconsistent gameplay. These are all characteristics of a bad game. Welcome back to THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM, and today, I'm going to be changing things up a bit. Yes, I know, it's been MONTHS since I last posted, and, yes, I do ALWAYS tend to post an "I'm back" blog whenever I'm, well, back, BUT THIS TIME, I may have found a working routine for my blogging scheme. So, let's jump right into it.
Video gaming is a massive part of our modern culture. You may be obsessed with Call of Duty, adore Pokémon, or just love driving around some famous area in Forza. No matter, most people have played, made or enjoyed games for a very long time, and that isn't going to stop any time soon. You've constantly got new console generations being rolled out one after the other, each with their own exclusives and cross platform games. That's enough of that, though. Handheld gaming has been around for a long time, too, mainly being a Nintendo thing, but eventually expanding into the microtransaction-filled world of mobile gaming. Nintendo had their GameBoys, DS's, Switches, etc., Nokia had the disaster child N-Gage, and Sony had the PlayStation Vita. I mean, there was also the PlayStation Pocket, but whatever. However, my personal favourite of the Sony handhelds is the PlayStation Portable, better known as the PSP, which is home to tons of my favourite games, one of which I shall be talking to you about now.
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| Yep, that's the one. Image Credit: Evan-Amos, Wikimedia Commons. |
If you're a Japanese gamer from the PlayStation 1 era and you are constantly looking out for bargains, you've probably heard about the Simple Series. For those of you that haven't, the Simple Series was a, well, simple series. Designed solely to be a quantity over quality experience, the Simple Series would provide gamers with a new and simple game every 4 months or so, gradually increasing the price in Yen for each Series. The PlayStation 1 had the Simple 1500 Series (costing 1500 Yen), the PS2 had the Simple 2000 Series (costing 2000 Yen), etc. etc. Originally these games would be, I know, simple, usually a remake of something classic, like a sport or popular card game. Sometimes you would get lucky and find an all-new original title, which is where Monster Attack comes in.
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| You read that right, this is the 93rd game in the series. Image Credit: D3 Publisher, Amazon |
Monster Attack was game #31 out of #107 (do you see what I mean about quantity over quality?) in the Simple 2000 Series, and offered a strange experience, something in the vein of a B-Movie. You are part of the Earth Defense Force, a group defending the Earth from all sorts of threats, including aliens who ironically look identical to Earth's insects and other little creatures. I won't talk much about Monster Attack, as it's a subject that I may cover in another blog post. Monster Attack did eventually receive a slightly altered version in Europe, and was later remade as Earth Defense Force 2017 (EDF3 in Japan), being the first game in the series to be released outside of Japan or Europe. EDF2017 was later rereleased on the PlayStation Vita, and more recently on the Nintendo Switch, albeit exclusively in Japan. A sequel to Monster Attack was eventually released two years later as Simple 2000 Series Vol. 81, known in Europe as Global Defense Force.
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| Look no further than the box art to see how strange this game is. Image Credit: Agetec, Retroplace |
Global Defense Force (or "The Chikyū Bōeigun 2" for the extremists) didn't change that much of the basic gameplay from Monster Attack. What it did add was a second playable character, larger maps and more variety in terms of weapons and aliens. Being part of the Simple 2000 Series, GDF was a PlayStation 2 exclusive, later receiving a PAL port for the same console. Unlike Monster Attack, in 2011, GDF received a PSP port titled "Earth Defense Forces 2 Portable", extremely late into the PSP's life span (in fact, it would only be 8 months until the Vita was released in Japan), although it was exclusive to Japan, despite the original PS2 version being available in Europe as well. I recently got my hands on Earth Defense Forces 2 Portable (quite a mouthful, but expected for Japanese games), and that's where today's history lesson ends.
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| Attack of the Killer... Ants?! Image Credit: GameSpot |
As I said in the beginning of this post, EDF2 should be a bad game. It has the characteristics of one, and I was expecting nothing at all. Well, I was kind of excited, knowing that D3Publisher also published Demolition Girl and Dead Head Fred (the latter of which is an excellent game in my opinion, while the former is, well, strange, and something that I'll hopefully discuss sometime soon). I was pleasantly surprised. I don't own a physical PSP, but rather use the PPSSPP emulator. In fact, I don't own any consoles, I'm really a Windows guy. First off, I'll talk about the story. There is none. Well at least to me, because I don't speak Japanese, and the PS2's English translation was not used for the PSP version. That's where the next interesting thing comes in: What lies inside the game's files?
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| There will always be a spot in my heart for Demolition Girl. Image Credit: GameFabrique (please don't use their site, they give you malware) |
Here is where I'll recommend you take a read of Zenade's post on EDF2 Portable (just click on the text). Zenade has a HUGE write-up of cheat codes for the game, and managed to find files for the English translation. He even gave a tutorial on how to use it! Sadly, he has only written up on how to use this translation on an actual PSP, but I have reached out to him to see if he knows how to use the translation on the emulator. Please, give Zenade's article a good read, and now, back to the game.
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| According to Zenade, you can do this. Image Credit: Zenade |
EDF2P (no, not that F2P) is a simple game, so even if you are clueless about Japanese text, you should be able to figure out how to play. The game has something like 80 single player missions, which can be played by two different characters, a male and a female. Both can be used for different strategies, and both can use different weapons. Also available for gaming pleasure is a multiplayer mode, which is incredibly fun and really enhances the gameplay. In terms of enemies, from what I've played so far, I've fought giant ants, giant spiders, giant FLYING ants, UFOs, Quadpods, laser dish thingies and Godzilla. I'm not kidding. The maps are quite large, and vehicles are often present, which are quite fun to use in grassy areas. So far, I have found tanks, a jet ski sort of thing (it looks like it's straight out of Jet Moto, a PS1 favourite of mine) and a helicopter, which I used to mow down flying saucers. This game truly is awesome. So, is this game good?
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| This game is lovely. Image Credit: Spike, CDRomance |
Now, I'm not one to usually use ratings out of 5 or 10. I prefer to just say whether something's amazing, great, good, bad, awful or horrendous. EDF2P is not the best game, far from it in fact. What it is though is a truly fun game that never fails in making me have fun. I would say that this is a PSP gem, and is definitely something that you should take a look at if you are interested in shooters, PSP or just games in general. I quite enjoyed rambling about EDF, so hopefully I'll be able to do the same in the future, be it Coded Arms (my favourite PSP game), more EDF or something else. Well, that's a wrap on THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM!
**EDIT (06/02/2022)** It turns out that Monster Attack was remade (source), and the post has been edited to reflect this. **/EDIT**
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