Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain Reviews
It is still very much good old fashioned EDF fun and its refined fun at that. However, being punished for using your hard earned and awesome gadgets by deducting money from your mission rewards is purely anti-fun and the complete disconnect of the on-screen action in multiplayer is unacceptable and disappointing.
One of the best and worst things about Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is that it continues to use a tried and true formula, only changing a few necessary elements, and adding in a few minor ones to make itself really stand out from the rest. While it sounds as shameful as it could be, it isn’t, and it’s a welcome change in a series that had begun to grow stagnant over the past few releases.
Iron Rain is a decent spin-off which focuses on a more Western Market. Although the game has a better story driven campaign and upgrade in terms of graphics, it delivers less of a comical arcade experience than the original titles do.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is light on narrative and heavy on fast paced action.
When it comes to Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain, a lot of things are set in, well, iron. It isn’t a good game, not by a long shot, though it also isn’t trying to be one either.
Overall, Earth Defense Force: Iron Raid is rather lacking as a whole. While the gameplay is ok and I don’t particularly mind repetitive stages (heck, I finished Robotron 64), some of the unfair situations you can get into really put a damper on it. While not unplayable, the combination of choppy frame rates and frustrating mechanics leave you feeling like Iron Rain can often feel like more of a demo than a full game. While I would recommend picking it up if it’s on sale or packaged with something else, I would be a little more reserved about getting it flat out, unless you’re a fan of the series or are looking for a multiplayer game to play with your friends.
EDF: Iron Rain is a game that the even fan of the genre can not unseen the technical and artistic weaknesses.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain improves on class and loot mechanics but fails at delivering an entertaining level design. The new war movie inspired presentation falls flat compared to the previous B-movie horror aesthetic.
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is definitely a very different experience to past games in the series.
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain makes a few much-needed tweaks to the old formula, but it's still just another bug hunt.
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain plays around with the concepts players have gotten used to with previous EDFs. Classes are open, and the new Prowl Rider offers a new flavor of play that hasn't been seen in the franchise before. Weapons are open, giving more player freedom in terms of character loadouts. But Iron Rain loses some things from the main series, notably the huge swarms of enemies in favor of larger, more meaningful enemies. It's a fine entry in the EDF franchise, but it doesn't step far beyond its predecessors sadly.
Unpretentious entertainment that drags too many technical and artistic aspects too outdated today.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
What hurts the game the most isn't the lack of follow through on its initial critical gumption, but rather a lack of compelling drama in its later levels.
For more on Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain, check out our interview with series producer, Nobuyuki Okajima, where we discuss the series and more.
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain sacrifices the franchise standards of city scale battlefields and hundreds of enemies for the sake of flashier graphics, but in doing so loses some of the unique charm the series offers. The grind required to unlock exciting weapons undermines the fun potential, unless you're looking to spend a lot of time with the game.
When compared to the other entries in the series, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is a major low point. The various changes that improve on the formula are outweighed by other design choices that actively hurt the title's overall appeal. The actual combat still has some of the magic the series is known for, and even if online co-op is barely there unless you coordinate with others beforehand, the game is still fun to play with friends. If you're new to the series, playing Iron Rain won't be so bad, but if you've already killed bugs several times before, this title won't be able to scratch that itch again.
I personally think Earth Defense Force: Iron rain is pretty good, maybe not so much my style of gaming as I didn’t feel the “nag” of wanting to go back and play it more like I usually would with many other games, the storyline is nice but I also think if I were to play the previous games I would understand the game and enjoy it more! I am going to give this game the thumb culture silver award as it did open my eyes to a whole new genre of gameplay, I just didn’t have the ” I NEED TO PLAY NOW” feeling towards it.
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is more of the same Earth Defense Force, and that’s great for fans. You will still spend your time battling giants, trying the save the Earth from certain doom. Even for how cheesy the acting can be, for how slow it feels, and for how janky the animation looked, I still had fun doing it.
It’s a different kind of EARTH DEFENSE FORCE, but not necessarily a bad one. IRON RAIN carries on the B-movie schlock in a new series, all in good fun. It’s like the newer Starship Troopers movies, they have newer CGI but it’s still not that great, and it has changed many things about it that you’re used to. You still watch of course, because it’s a good time. EARTH DEFENSE FORCE: IRON RAIN is bug-squashing fun at its finest, with some changes to core systems you may or may not like.