I am speaking as a newcomer to the EDF franchise and EDF 2025 (from what I understand, the European version of EDF 4.1) was my entry point.

To date, I've completed a full playthrough (including the first 5 DLC missions) as Ranger and have logged about 85 hours of playtime. Most of it was on Hard, some on Normal, and now I'm working my way through on Hardest and Inferno.

When I got started with this game at the end of last month, I was pumped to constantly be unlocking new weapons. However, the shine wore off pretty quick once I started doing some math and realized that most of what I was unlocking was useless crap that was already overshadowed by weapons I previously unlocked. It was around this time that I found out that weapon unlocks were not only random, but that weapon "levels" are completely meaningless in offline mode.

The levelling system in this game is inexcusably bad. In most games, levelling is pretty straightforward: Complete missions, kill enemies, and gather some currency/XP/crafting resources. On occasion, it might be necessary to either scavenge levels for certain special weapons or complete certain missions to unlock them in the store/research center/etc. In these other games, though, jumping to higher difficulties or farming tougher levels still speeds the process up significantly due to how higher difficulty levels offer bonuses for taking on the extra difficulty. More importantly, it's guaranteed.

This is technically the case in EDF, but it also really isn't. From the tables and posts I've seen, the only thing that running higher- level missions at higher difficulties does is kind of- sort- of- but not really increase the chance to possibly unlock a better weapon. You could be running the last mission of the base game on Inferno, farm every single pickup on the level, and still not unlock anything new.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to liken EDF's levelling system to a gacha game: instead of actually working to earn better weapons, you're basically praying to the gods of RNG that maybe, just this once, you'll actually get an S- tier "pull". Sure, your odds improve when you move up on the difficulty scale, but that's all that happens. And at the very least, most gacha games have a "pity" system that lets you still get what you want after enough failed attempts.

If I was being absolutely charitable, I'd say that maybe it helps to discourage farming easier missions since there's no guarantee that you'll get better results. But that's BS; if anything, it pushes you even harder to it since, roughly speaking, moving up in levels and difficulty can only take you so far.

I came into this series really wanting to like it. But considering that the devs still seem to think this mess of a levelling system is a good idea, I'm questioning if this series will have any staying power for me- especially since buying the later games would require me to jump into a completely different console ecosystem.

Rant over.

I got Earth Defense Force 2025 (EDF 2025 from here on out) a few weeks ago and have had the chance to do a full playthough on one of the game's four classes.

TLDR: Especially because it offers offline couch co- op, I can recommend this game. However, it is absolutely not worth current- gen prices. So get it the next time it goes on sale, but otherwise don't rush out to buy it.

Basic Premise

EDF 2025 is one of the many entries in the EDF series and the plot is pretty much the same as every other entry: Giant bugs and aliens are invading the Earth and you have to kill them all.

The Good

EDF does a good job of conveying a sense of scale. Whether they're anatomically impossible ants or alien space ships, your character (and all the other humans) feel miniscule by comparison. During a mission, you'll see massive space craft blocking out the sky, swarms of insects crawling over buildings, and killer robots the size of skyscrapers lumbering around.

As one would expect, dealing with such massive enemies requires some equally substantial hardware. Instead of building a character from scratch, you have four classes to choose from (Ranger, Wing Diver, Air Raider, and Fencer), each of which has a huge selection of different weapons to choose from. These run the gamut from the mundane to the absurd and can be combined for a variety of builds within each class. While some classes do it better than others, it definitely is a good feeling to get the lead on a rocket or grenade just right and blow a crowd of bugs to kingdom come. Since all the buildings on a given level are destructible, it's equally satisfying to "miss" and level a city block in the process.

For those turned off by skill trees, you're in luck: there is nothing of the sort in EDF. "Levelling", if you can even call it that, is entirely based off the resources you scavenge during a mission. You buff your HP by picking up armor crates and you upgrade your weapons by picking up weapon crates, both of which are dropped by dead enemies.

The game's basic loop is equally simple: Pick your class & weapons, pick a mission, then kill anything that doesn't look like you. There aren't any BS escort missions, rail shooting sections, or random stealth sections. Once all the enemies are dead, it's mission complete.

Although I unfortunately wasn't able to take advantage of it, EDF 2025 has an offline co- op mode. While online play is technically available, it's nice to know there are still some games that have this.

One final plus point: While this game does suffer from some technical issues, it is remarkably stable even during big swarms.

The Bad

The biggest issue by far with EDF 2025 is that it is grindy. As previously mentioned, there are no skill trees. To add to that, there is also no XP or currency/resources to buy upgrades with. When it comes to HP, you have to buff it one point at a time. And you do so by running around and scavenging armor crates (which, by the way, have no magnetism and have to be picked up individually). To make matters worse, resource farming is an all- or- nothing affair: Either you complete the mission or you lose everything you collected.

The grind is at its most egregious when it comes to weapons. Unlike most games, weapons don't "level" based on use. Instead, it's a case of "levelling by gacha"- in other words, weapon scavenging is a complete crapshoot. The weapon crates you collect aren't meant to represent weapons as such. Instead, they're basically tokens to spin a "prize wheel" of sorts and the weapons you get in the post- mission screen are completely random. Theoretically, running missions at higher difficulty levels grants you better "spin tokens", which should grant better weapons. At the very beginning, this works great: After almost every mission, you have a load of new hardware to try out. However, as you progress, this quickly plateaus out. You have no guarantee of unlocking new weapons and it's not uncommon to find yourself "unlocking" the same weapon multiple times after a single mission. Especially once you start trying out the higher difficulty levels and the enemies start getting way spongier, this can make missions incredibly frustrating. The game's devs apparently realized this, as the newest entry (EDF 6) supposedly allows you to buff weapons by unlocking them multiple times.

Speaking of weapons: the "large selection" of weapons I mentioned is somewhat deceptive. Yes, there is a theoretically massive selection of weapons available to you. However, once you get familiar with the game's mechanics, you will quickly realize that what you actually have is a handful of good weapons along with a bunch of crap that's either outright worthless or just a lower- tier version of one of the good weapons. And, because of the aforementioned "levelling by gacha" system, there is a significantly greater- than- zero chance that you'll end up skipping multiple mid- tier iterations of any given weapon, only to then unlock the worse versions later on.

Another major issue with EDF 2025 is, ironically, one of its strengths. The massive levels that contribute to the game's scale are an equally massive pain to navigate. Of the four classes (Ranger, Fencer, Wing Diver, and Air Raider) two of them lack the ability to move through the larger levels with any appreciable speed. This is particularly noticeable with the game's "Tank" class, the Fencer. While it does have a booster pack for maneuvering, it moves at a snail's pace otherwise and can only "hop" short distances. Mainly because of this, EDF is one of the first games to ever have given me a proper hand cramp. On a given level (especially if you're farming resources), you will sometimes find yourself just holding down the left stick and walking for ages. Oh, and there are no checkpoints, so failing a long mission means starting it from the very beginning.

One final issue is more of a technical nature: While the game is very stable, the collision detection is positively awful at times. The most apparent way this manifests is in the form of clipping. In most games, clipping is just a visual glitch. In EDF, however, it's significantly more than that. It's not uncommon to see enemies clip through thinner (albeit still solid) barriers and for their attacks to pass through said solid barriers. This isn't a case of special boss attacks that magically pass through solid objects; it actually happens most often with regular enemies. Given how quickly some can vaporize your health, this can be infuriating.

Final Thoughts

EDF 2025 definitely has a lot to offer. However, because its regular price (despite being almost 12 years old now) sits up there with current AAA titles, I can't really recommend it unless you like super grindy games or you can get it dirt cheap.

I got EDF 2025 for Xbox a few weeks ago and just completed my first playthrough as Ranger (offline solo). I did most of it on Hard, but I jumped down to Normal on some missions because I got tired of dealing with the combined aggravation of spongy enemies and underpowered weapons.

I have started replaying missions on Hardest and Inferno, but I'm hitting the limit for both my patience and the damage output of my weapons. As far as I can tell, I've "farmed out" missions 1-4. Even on Inferno difficulty, all I'm getting out of those early missions are crap- tier weapons- many of which would be downgrades from the weapons I already have. On the occasions that I do have a successful run in later missions (as in beyond mission 20), the results aren't any better: still crap- tier weapons and then maybe occasionally a higher- tier weapon I already have. The last "higher- tier" weapon I got was a Reverse Gun, which based on the description, is completely worthless in solo play.

This brings me to my dilemma: While I can complete some missions on Hardest or Inferno, it seems like I've plateaued regarding my damage output, which consequently is holding me back from farming weapons in the later missions.

Is there something I'm missing here? I've seen some older forum posts suggesting that the higher- tier weapons are only available in later missions, but the info about how levelling works for this game is pretty sparse.

As of now, my main go- to weapons are the Five Card XA, Lysander 2, CRUMBLE grenade launcher, Goliath Z, and the AF-19X B3. I do also have the AF-20 ST, but the reload spead makes it almost unusable in a lot of the levels with big wave attacks.

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I picked up Super Puzzle Fighter II HD Turbo Remix (from here on, just SPF II) recently after it went on sale.

Full disclosure: I'm not a huge puzzle game fan. I have a few that I like, but I'm nowhere close to good. So this is just my layman's review.

While I'm not too tuned in on the series, it seems to be in the same universe as Capcom's Street Fighter series along with some of their other games. The relatively small selection of characters (Ryu and Chun Li among them) are all chibi versions of their Street Fighter counterparts.

Unlike Street Fighter, however, SPF II has nothing to do with throwing punches and kicks. As the name suggests, this is a puzzle game. If you've ever tried the PvP modes in Tetris Effect: Connected, then you have a good idea what's going on here. The objective in its simplest terms is to break tiles in sufficiently large amounts to fill your opponent's screen with tiles until they have no room left (thus scoring a KO).

Graphics/Style

The original SPF II came out as an arcade game in 1996, then was ported to the Dreamcast and later to the Xbox 360/PS3, before being released digitally for the current gen consoles- so a port of a port of a port of an arcade game. While this particular port has some refinements/ updates to look a little smoother, it still looks and sounds like an arcade game. It's a great look for a game like this and I'm glad Capcom didn't go overboard with the remastering here.

Gameplay Loop/ Game Modes

SPF II technically has four game modes: X, X', Y, and Z. X and X' are, for the average person, basically the same. X is the "classic" arcade mode while X' is supposed to be a rebalanced version of X mode for competitive players. I've played both and I can say I haven't noticed and appreciable difference. Y and Z mode are significantly different from what I would consider the "core" modes (X and X'), so won't be going into them.

In both of the X modes, the basic loop is identical. In every match, you have a 12X6 field; the fourth "column" of this field is where 1X1 tile pieces drop in. These can be one of four colors (red, yellow, blue, or green), a "crash tile" (breaks tiles of the same color), or a diamond (breaks all tiles of one color). Tiles of the same color can also fuse together to form "Power Gems", which are not only worth more points, but also are critical for the "fighting" aspect of the game.

To keep it short, every round consists of building up Power Gems/setting up combos, breaking tiles, and countering your opponent's efforts to do the same. Since there are no "move sets" to speak of, what separates your fighters are their "drop patterns". For every fighter, their "Counter Gems" (think of "trash pieces" in similar games) drop in different color patterns. Depending on your play style, each one can offer advantages and disadvantages.

If you're playing the single- player Arcade mode, this game is incredibly short. Depending on difficulty level, a single session can consist of anywhere from 3 to 12 matches, with most rounds lasting well under two minutes. There's no story/tournament/etc. mode, so you can quickly find yourself playing through multiple times. There are some things to unlock, but nothing earth- shattering.

My Thoughts

I enjoy SPF II a lot more than I was expecting to. The basic loop is fairly simple, but it's definitely easy to get hooked on and there's a lot to learn. The arcade/Street Fighter aesthetic looks and sounds great. Unfortunately, it's also one of the things I would criticize this game for.

While it's cool to have your characters "fighting" during a match, it's ultimately just window dressing. While your choice of character can make a difference depending on your play style, your opponent's character is almost irrelevant other than that you need to get familiar with their drop patterns. There is no interaction between the different characters, so unlike in fighting games, you don't really ever get any super tense or super uneven matchups. I have no idea how it could've been implemented, but it's a shame for a game to have such a large and well- established universe of fighting games to draw from, yet only borrow from them superficially.

To add to that, the cast of characters is tiny (both literally and figuratively). All told, there are eight characters right off the bat, plus three unlockable characters. That's it. I get it, this was a port of an arcade game, but it's a bit of a letdown that more characters weren't added when the game was brought to the more modern consoles.

My final point of contention with SPF II's current- gen port lies with one of its greatest strengths: It's a very faithful port of the original arcade game for better and for worse. As a result of this extremely faithful port from the original, a lot of features that would be considered normal quality- of- life features now simply aren't there. This is especially evident in single- player mode. Just to give a short list:

• No custom matches: You can choose a game mode and difficulty level, but that's it.
• Training mode is basically pointless: Sure, you can practice setting up combos and learning your drop pattern, but that's it.
• No restart option: Considering that the few unlockables hinge on you doing flawless speed runs, this is rather annoying, especially since you can see a loss coming pretty quickly.
• No option to skip the end credits: Considering how quickly an arcade mode session can go, it gets annoying to have to sit through the credits every single time you complete a run. The little animations that pop up during them are fun, though.

These are all nitpicks, but especially in a game as short as this, they're very noticeable.

Verdict

If you're a really big fan of the Street Fighter games or are looking for something to kill a little time with, you'll definitely get some fun out of SPF II. However, I'd recommend waiting for a sale because the game's issues and its short length are significant enough that I wouldn't have bought it at full price.

Ich wohne in einer Großstadt und es gibt gefühlt kein Bezirk ohne mindestens zwei oder drei "Bowls & Wraps"- Läden. Manche sind Teil einer Kette, andere nicht, aber die verticken alle den gleichen Müll: Eine Salatbowl mit dem Protein und der Soße deiner Wahl, eine Reis-/Quinoa- Bowl mit dem Gleichen und Wraps irgendeiner Art. Manche sind so frech, diese "Burritos" zu nennen (und sollten sich bei den Mexikanern entschuldigen). Und ich kann die alle nicht ausstehen.

Warum? Sie sind nichts als Fastfood, das sich als "gesund" verkaufen will. Und noch schlimmer: Sie sind alle langweilig und verkaufen den gleichen generischen Slop: Weder asiatisch noch europäisch noch afrikanisch noch lateinamerikanisch noch nordamerikanisch; einfach inoffensives Essen, was keiner Küche zuzuorden ist. Die könnten sich alle von heute auf morgen zum gleichen Menü wechseln (was die bereits sowieso tun), sich auf "Nahrungsstoffausschank Nummer XYZ" umbenennen, und keiner würde den Unterschied merken. Ist es essbar? Ja. Ist es gesunder als Fastfood? Jaaa... solange du nicht zu weit in die Zutatenliste schaust. Aber solche Läden versichern, dass gute Restaurants immer weiter aus dem Blick des Publikums verschoben werden. Meine Stadt ist voll mit guter Küche aller Art, aber diese Slop- Läden (die fast immer bei Uber Eats und Co. sind) nehmen immer Platz, Aufmerksamkeit, und Geld, was besser bei den viel besseren Restaurants ausgegeben werden könnte. Und bevor jemand fragt: Nein, ich esse nie bei solchen Läden.

Hello from Germany! I'm looking to add some older shows to my collection, but I'm a little stumped about where to look. DVDs/Blu Rays are disappearing from stores in general, but it's getting hard to even find anime/manga shops that carry them. On the occasions they do, most of their stock is of newer shows. If I can, I'd rather support brick & mortar stores or at least shop from EU- based retailers to save on the import duties. Anyone have any recommendations?

I have both a German and an American Blu- Ray player, so I can use DVDs from either region and I'm likewise okay with German or English subs (would prefer English though).

I've been into horde shooters for a couple years now. For the most part, I play Saber Interactive's Space Marine 2, but I've also been playing their newest title, Toxic Commando.

One current point of contention among players is that the XP cap for weapons is set extremely low. On an average mission, you could expect to level your weapon by one or two levels at the absolute most, irrespective of how many bonus objectives you complete and how many enemies you kill. When you consider that you can prestige each weapon up to four times, you're looking at some serious grinding.

If I had to guess, XP caps in level/mission- based games (as opposed to open world games) exist to prevent "sweatier" players from blazing their way through content too quickly, especially in games where unlimited amounts of enemies can spawn and "farming" XP is possible.

That being said, such caps are always unpopular. By their very nature, they discourage people from going out of their way to fight more and artificially extend the level grind by ensuring that you can only gain a certain amount of XP from any mission. And when it's set low, that grind is extended even further. That leads to my questions:

Are there any ways that games can prevent excessive XP farming without slapping hard caps on progression? If so, are there any games that have done this well?

Like the title says, I already have Lumines Remastered. I'm not a huge fan of the genre, but I can appreciate it if the graphics are stylish and the music is good.

Somehow there's not a single user review for it on Metacritic and even searching in this sub, there's no mention of it.

While I understand that it's an earlier entry in the series than Remastered, there are a few things I'm interested to know:

1. How is the soundtrack? Would I be looking at a completely different playlist (ideal), or is there any overlap?
2. How are the graphics? I've seen some screenshots, but I'm not sure how the style measures up to Remastered.
3. Are there any appreciable differences (good or bad) compared to Remastered?
4. Are any of the expansions worth buying?

The current post sorting order for the main feed is "best"... I don't know what criteria the algorithm is basing this on, but it's absolutely useless. The home feed alternates between posts that were either just posted within the last minute or posts that are multiple days old.

The purpose of the main feed should be to highlight new posts from subs I'm already a part of and/or show me new posts from subs that might interest me. Especially when it comes to current events, it does me no good to be jumping into posts from 5 days ago given how much can change in that time or try to jump into a conversation that likely already ended.

Yes, I know I can always change the sorting type myself, but it's annoying to have to change it back every single time I return to the main feed. If nothing else, we should be able to change the default sorting type according to our preference.

Background

Every Extend Extra Extreme (E4 for short) is a game that originally came out on Xbox Live Arcade at the start of the Xbox 360 era (about 2008). You could best describe it as a music/rhythm game focused on electronic music.

What's to do?

Instead of stacking bricks or popping bubbles, E4 has you scooting around in what's basically a small bomb while "enemies" fly all over the place. The goal, in its simplest terms, is to blow your "ship" up in such a way that it sets off a cascading chain of explosions. If you time the initial detonation with the beat of the music, you can set off an even more powerful explosion and get a nice score multiplier.

In a given session, you will blow your ship up numerous times while also collecting various pickups. There are only four in total: One boosts your score multiplier, one adds "Quicken" (still not quite sure what it does), one gives you more time to collect pickups before you need to detonate, and one adds time to your session. As you progress through the session, the BPM starts to pick up and creating huge explosion chains becomes easier.

There are technically four game modes, but three of them are basically identical. The first two are "Unlimited" and "Timed". The only difference between the two is that the former has no set time limit and will keep going as long as you get enough time bonuses, whereas the other has a hard time limit that can't be extended. The third mode of this group is called "Wiz Ur Muzik" (yes, it's really called that) and it's supposed to allow you to use your own music to create sessions. However, it relied on the Xbox 360 Media Player, so I'm not certain if it works on the current- gen Xbox consoles (X | S).

Mode #4 is basically just a generic "bullet hell" game set to the same soundtrack as the other modes. I gave it a try, but it wasn't anything special and doesn't really feel like it fits with the rest of the game.

Gameplay

The basic gameplay loop is simple, but it's a lot of fun: Grab some pickups, look for a good spot to detonate on, and watch the fireworks start. Each run is a constant juggling act of snagging bonuses, not "crashing" (spending too much time without a detonation), and keeping in time with the rhythm. It's a lot to keep track of, but it's really satisfying to get a big chain of explosions going. If you like flashing lights and watching your score climb constantly, you're in luck here. Explosions are pretty much nonstop and it's not uncommon for scores to go somewhere in the trillions (I think the top score is somewhere around 320,000,000,000,0000).

One criticism I have of this loop, though, is that after you hit "detonate", there's basically no interaction on your part. Yes, you can "terminate" an explosion in progress to collect pickups, but that's really it. Especially considering what a big role music plays in the game, it feels like the game could've done a lot more with the concept.

Another issue is that there is basically no tutorial. There is a "how to play" section, but it's extremely short and doesn't have any substance to it. There are some helpful tips that pop up after a run ends, but they're not saved anywhere, meaning you have no references to go back to.

Visuals

E4 looks great. The visuals are very simple, but the particle effects during explosions are beautiful and grow more complex as the chains get longer and the run progresses. This can make it hard to tell what's going on at times, but since the explosions basically run themselves once you set the first one off, it's not a huge deal.

Sound

I'm not much of a fan of electronic music, so I can't say if it's actually "good". While I like the soundtrack well enough, it's got a huge problem: The entire "playlist" consists of four tracks. Not four albums or four "areas" with multiple songs in each, but four songs. Even bearing in mind that this is a smaller game, this just isn't acceptable for a game where music plays a central role. Even if the song editor still works, the fact that the entire game's built- in song catalog could be counted on one hand and still have fingers left over is unacceptable.

Final Verdict

E4 is a game that, in theory, could be a ton of fun and offer a lot of replayability. Unfortunately, it feels more like a demo of the game that was supposed to be released, but ultimately never was. The bones are there, but it feels like that's all there is. If you're really into the genre or you can get the game really cheap, grab it. Otherwise, your money is better spent elsewhere.