Earth Defense Force 6 was provided by D3Publisher for review. Thank you!
The first time I played Earth Defense Force was a couple of years ago, and I fell in love. It reminded me of Dynasty Warriors, but with guns and giant aliens, and I was all for it. It wasn't the prettiest game, but the sheer amount of missions to undertake and weapons to use hooked me. The trend continues in Earth Defense Force 6, and while it doesn't have the greatest visuals or UI elements, the game is ridiculously fun and hard not to recommend despite these shortcomings.
Visually, Earth Defense Force is very lacking. The assets are re-used over and over, the textures are reminiscent of the PS3-era quality, and it all has a monochrome and bland feeling to it. It feels like it was created just to get the job done instead of making a visually appealing experience. It's easy to ignore while you are in-game due to the frantic shooting, explosions, and alien gore bouncing around the map, but it's still jarring to look at and run around in.
However, I will say that the story does semi-justify re-using assets from earlier and previous titles in the series. This entry takes place right after the last game, a reboot of the series. Three years after the war ended, the aliens returned and brought tons of new and old enemies to defeat. There are little bits of cheesy sci-fi moments sprinkled through, including the use of time travel, and it all weaves into the "so bad it's good" mentality. This, combined with the somewhat cringy voice lines, makes this feel like a ridiculous B-movie plot, but honestly, I think that just adds to the charm, and I didn't mind it. It isn't the greatest, but it's enjoyable in its own right, and I like seeing the story continue.
Then we have the UI and man; it is rough. The monochrome color palette kills the enjoyment of using the menu system. It makes finding and choosing missions a bit harder since scrolling through and finding them just isn't appealing, but it's significantly worse when going to customize your loadout. The monochrome palette continues here, but it feels worse when trying to look through weapons to equip. They are organized alright, and I can tell which gun is which type, but going through to choose them is so hard. It just lists the weapon description, its stats, and how it looks when you are holding it. It has all the information you need, but going through each weapon to choose sometimes feels like a chore.
While this is a knock against it, the gameplay is just so much fun. Earth Defense Force 6 sees you as part of the EDF (Earth Defense Force) fighting against alien invaders. You will partake in almost 150 missions and run around in a semi-open area to shoot down gigantic invaders in a third-person camera angle. As you kill, the enemies will drop weapons, armor, and health, with the weapons giving you more guns to choose from (or upgrade them) and armor, which will give you more permanent health.
The gameplay is similar to the Warriors series from KOEI TECMO. You are an overpowered individual taking on scores of gigantic enemies, who explode into piles of gore, and have to make it through the level without dying. It is addictingly fun and you feel so much joy watching the different aliens blow up, or shooting off some of their limbs. I also like how quickly you get new weapons from these drops and the variety that comes with them. There are so many weapons that sometimes it feels overwhelming, which is a very good thing in this regard. You will have to cycle through and bring in new weapons depending on the mission, but the mix-and-match is something I enjoy.
There are four classes that you can play as: Ranger, Wing Diver, Air Raider, and Fencer. The Ranger is your all-around soldier and the character I ended up using the most, but the other classes are very unique and have varying playstyles. The Wing Diver has a jetpack for flight, the Air Raider can call in support and vehicles, and the Fencer wears an exosuit that allows for using very large weapons. This also fits exceptionally well with the multiplayer and encourages everyone to use a different class to beat the missions. I wasn't able to test multiplayer with this release, but I have played it in the past with the last entry, and it was so much fun.
The game does require an Epic Games account to play due to needing it for Epic Online Services. It should still work fine on the Steam Deck, but you will need an account.
Each class has different weapons to choose from, so when you pick up weapon crates in the game, you could get weapons for any of the classes. This also pertains to "Armor" and increases max health for one of the four classes. I didn't really like this at first, but I ended up loving it once I started looking into other classes and trying them out.
There is just so much content to play around with that it's hard to knock it for its negatives. Earth Defense Force 6 wasn't made to be cutting edge, it was made to provide an addicting experience that is solid for multiplayer gameplay, and they succeeded in spades. However, it is a bit weird to play on the Steam Deck due to 1 glaring issue.
Earth Defense Force 6 is an exceptionally fun game, and it's a blast to play on the Steam Deck, but it does have a very weird issue that stops it from being the smoothest game on the Deck. The game reacts weirdly to framerates, and because of that, it is hard to find a fully stable framerate to play on the Deck. The biggest issue is trying to limit the framerate below 60. While in the game and fighting, having a framerate limit is perfectly fine, but when changing your equipment, your game will crash. I tested this with multiple different Proton layers and locking TDP and GPU Clock Speed, but it would all work until a limit on framerate was imposed.
I wanted a framerate limit since, no matter the settings, there are drops in certain missions. Even though the visuals aren't the most pristine, the over-the-top action can get to be too much and drop the game here and there. Setting a GPU Clock Speed Frequency does help, but there were still enough drops for me to want a limit in place. This is going to make my recommended settings sound a bit weird, but bear with me.
So, for the recommended settings, I actually recommend playing at 30 FPS when in the game for the most stable experience, but you should disable the FPS limit as soon as you get out of the mission. I tested a multitude of different combinations of TDP limits, GPU Clock Speed Frequencies, and launch options, and no matter what, there were still some drops below 40. Since the game consistently gets more and more frantic, with more enemies and bigger weapons/explosions, it will only get harder to run. I do recommend setting it to 30 FPS in SteamOS, and having the "Disable FPS Limit" toggle on at the menus, then disable it once you get in a mission.
Earth Defense Force 6 also tends to use too much power, making it constantly drain at 22W. Limiting the framerate from 60 to 30 did nothing to battery drain, and imposing a TDP limit didn't change the framerate much. The in-game settings, which are minimal for it, don't impact framerate or battery drain much.
It's an extra step, and I can understand how annoying it is, but not being able to change your loadout due to a framerate limit is obnoxious and I would rather just change 1 toggle to make it work over trying to play the entire game at 60 FPS and still experience drops.
The game allows you to change audio levels, camera rotation speed and lerp, invert camera controls, set dead zones for joysticks, toggle vibration and camera effects, subtitle language, and microphone type.
It does support 16:10 resolutions, as well as cloud saves and controllers. There are no HDR settings for the game.
Earth Defense Force 6 is an odd game. It doesn't have great visual quality, nor does it feel all that revolutionary in what it's trying to accomplish, but it more than makes up for what it's missing with addicting gameplay loop and tons of content. The amount of missions and weapons to play around with is wonderful, multiplayer is just a blast, and even though the story and dialogue are a bit ridiculous, it adds to the charm.
It is a little odd to play on the Steam Deck due to the fluctuating framerate and how it can crash the game if you try to change your loadout below 60 FPS, but it is still playable and still so much fun. I can't get enough of it, and if the framerate issue is fixed, it will be so worthwhile to play on the go.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Earth Defense Force 6 is a game that makes up for its monochrome visuals with incredible gameplay, and it is playable on the Steam Deck.
