Enemies Rush You… THE GAME!
Regardless of Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable having wide open areas, virtually every mission will start and ultimately end with a bunch of enemies rushing you. Unfortunately this dynamic holds true for every enemy in the game, so the gameplay is pretty one size fits all. This is a real shame since some missions make a genuine effort to be different, but it all boils down to the same mechanics. While this makes it hard to play for a long period of time, it also makes it quite intense to play in short bursts or with a friend online.
Controls Suck
In addition to having several hundred different weapons to unlock and use, there are also a few different vehicles you can pilot. These include a mobile suit, tank, motorbike and a helicopter, but they all suffer from serious control issues. For instance it takes several seconds to move the mobile suit around, which is plenty of time to get rushed and lose the mobile suit. Thankfully there are some items that boost the performance of these vehicles, but you get to sacrifice another weapon to benefit from these perks. Additionally it doesn’t seem possible to reload outside of wasting all your guns ammo, so they could have done a MUCH better job with controls.
VERDICT
Despite all the not’s, I still think Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable is a fun pick up and play game. Sure it’s not the best title out for the PlayStation Vita, but it’s also a 6-year-old port of a budget game, so is there any mystery there? With this being said, I strongly suggest waiting for a price drop, since there is virtually no one playing this game. Hopefully this will be resolved when they lower the price, but it’s hard to say when or if this will even happen.
[Editor’s Note: Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable was reviewed on the PlayStation Vita platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]