EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 WINGDIVER THE SHOOTER

EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 WINGDIVER THE SHOOTER
N/A
Metacritic
67
Steam
53.88
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$1.99
Release date
25 April 2018
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
67 (170 votes)

The story from behind the scenes of EDF 4.1 unravels here. The EDF series is back with new feelings of despair and bug-slaying satisfaction as you fight your way through never-ending swarms of giant insects in a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up!

Show detailed description

EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 WINGDIVER THE SHOOTER system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows 7 64bit, Windows 8.1 64bit Windows 10 64bit
  • Processor: 3 GHz 2 Core
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7870 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (2GB Model or higher)
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 1.8 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX 11 sound device
  • Additional Notes: XInput Controller
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
574200
Platforms
Windows PC
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ggwrw
ggwrw

Great game, really enjoyed my time with it. They really captured the feel of a rail shooter, like I would love to have this on an arcade cabinet. A little short in terms of number of levels, but each level has enough flair put into it that I don't mind. Plenty of replayability through climbing the difficulties/grinding for armor and weapons. There's also the Free DLC Training Missions which I found more challenging than the main game, but do add a good chunk of content if you're wanting a little more. I 100%'d the achievements in around 13 hours, probably 10-ish if I skipped the training missions.

That said, $20 feels excessive. I'd say wait for it to go on sale for $10 or less unless you're reaaaally into rail/scrolling shooters/bullet hells

Mark10293
Mark10293

I bought this one a whim because I had two dollars to spare and I quickly ended up mildly regretting it. It's a very generic arcade shooter in the Earth Defense Force franchise, which I thought was interesting until I actually tried the games for myself.

The Last Casual
The Last Casual

This game is pretty silly but I felt I got my money's worth out of the sale price. The obvious glaring issues is difficulty is all over the place and pretty unbalanced, game starts hard because you have to grind for decent weapons. If you beat the first level on hard you get this "sniper c" weapon that will make every level on normal a cakewalk. There's a lot of cheap hits even with the boost dodge mechanic and sometimes you have to choose between overheating (practically immobile and unable to fire which is a death sentence in most situations) or taking a hit or two. Game mitigates this by letting you stack hp between levels. All and all very lame and artificial difficulty in that regard, but I already played 2 hrs to clear everything on normal and half the game on hard so I feel I already got my money's worth.

gameplay
gameplay

Get this game onsale if you're interested, in my opinion it's not worth 20 bucks. You get 6 missions, 7 difficulties, and 50+(ish) weapons. Theres also a free DLC that adds a few challenges you can complete for starter weapons. That's really it.

I had an overall enjoyable experience with the game, so I will give it a thumbs up.
Took me like 15 hours to complete everything.

The game will take some getting used to though, you are moving through a 3D area that bends and twists and shoots your forward or back, meanwhile you're trying to make adjustments to the forced movements while trying dodge the projectiles. I can see why some would nope out of that kind of situation. For me, farming more armor and better weapons helped making that problem more manageable.

Let me tell you though, the final difficulty called Hell was so much fun. It is like they randomized every enemy in the game and their attacks and just threw that x10 at you. It's very tough at first but it is doable with the right weapons and armor rating. It's less grindy than the usual EDF game, with 1 armor picked equaling 1 armor gained and every mission only gives like 3-4 possible weapon drops which helps when farming for a specific weapon.

So all in all, if you're interested in this game wait for a sale. The game is mixed for a reason, and I personally enjoyed my time with it. But it's clear the games got its flaws.

NonsensicalRants
NonsensicalRants

I was expected an expansion of EDF 4.1. Just a few missions to play as wing diver.

Was NOT expecting an entire new game. In fact, I've never played this style of game before and now I've discovered my passion for it. If you want all the ridiculous dialogue, hyperpatriotism and tight controls you're familiar with from EDF? It's here. BUT! it has problems.

1) Occasionally the speed of different elements of the game all break. Firing speed increases, enemy spawn speed decreases, player movement decreases, all at once.
2) Occasionally levels start respawning you in a loop, replaying the same section over and over as you beat it. Really frustrating when you're aiming for some achievements and have to start the campaign over again.
3) Where is the rest of the game? This is only 60 percent of it. Where is the level where we fight Hectors, whield bearers and top it off with a boss fight against a quadruped fortress? Where's the level where we fight deroys, transport ships and end it with an Argo boss fight? Where is the level where we fight a bunch of dragons and have the greater wild dragon boss fight? Where is the BRAIN level?!

You guys have four more levels to make before you have a complete game here. I hope you guys weren't screwed by the development cycle and had to cut it down to six because of time constraints, because that would be a tragedy. With all the assets and animations already prepared.

For the price? I'm not sure I can recommend this game. If you see it on sale for under ten dollars grab it. It's a lot of fun, but only half finished and is five years old. I can't overstate that it is a LOT of fun though, I did get all of the achievements after all.

Miciso
Miciso

u die u lose ALL CRATES
atleast 3 4.1 and 5 give u some crates as a pity system.
this game just says : u die? u suck
all u get to do is retry from checkpoint. lose all crates. but u can still finish the mission....

• dj rmelancia
• dj rmelancia

EDF is a very dumb game about people fighting giant insects. It's a game you don't care about story, music, character design or even graphics. But it's really fun if you are in the mood of playing something just to see mass destruction while using one of the 200+ weapons the game let you use.

This one here is a spinoff shmup you play as one of the 4 characters from the main game... it's short but maybe it last long enough (and honestly it's cheap look at the price here), but I really didn't expected this game would be better than I though it was.

Like really it's fun and short but you gonna replay it 10x times to get more weapons or challenge higher difficulties. The fact you can play a shmup without a ""loli"" screaming in your ear is a bless by itself.

☆zeronebula
☆zeronebula

man this game would be so cool but unfortunately: it's not.
definitely definitely definitely don't buy this game at anything below 90% off.
(i got it for $1.99 and i'm still refunding :-/ . . .)

unfortunately: if you were to see this game running on my PC you would think that i had plugged a motherboard into a dinner plate. my PC can run call of duty: warzone at 75+ fps. i was legit getting one frame every four seconds in this dolphin vomit of a videgame (no satire). ungodly optimized.

in the brief moments that it was actually playable too i discovered that the player hitbox exceeds the size of the character model. dats just bad stuff man. bizarrely intriguing, but if you're looking for a ""good"" experience, you won't find it here.

oh yeah, not to mention: input lag up the wazoo.

rexyuyan
rexyuyan

Critical problems : 1) Single play only. 2) 6 stages only... The difficulty of this game is insane, only "easy" mode is easy, normal is very hard, I couldn't have brave playing hard mode, if about 1/2 USD, that's ok for fun, otherwise, save your money.

UzumasaRei
UzumasaRei

EDF is fun, but this one is not
Difficulty is not reasonable:
1) weapon / armor / health crate are super rare, like 1 or 2 crates after killing 100 bugs.
2) weapon upgrade feels like impossible in Easy mode.
3) Your hit box is large, like 1.5 - 2x of your size.

space
space

the earth defense force experience as a shoot em up
its pretty fun and its pretty hard
i'm no good with the genre but i'll get good for the pride of edf
don't want to think about the mothership boss fight

all i want is edf5
d3 please sandlot please

edf members all over the world want to protect the earth too!

Cooler Mann
Cooler Mann

I'm a huuuge EDF fan and was happy to see that this game finally arrived on steam.
And while it looked more or less like mediocre Shoot'em'Up, I thought it might have enough of the EDF charme and quantity.

Well, the charme is there since the dialoge got even cheesier and like the main series of EDF games it's built around grinding to beat the harder difficulties.
However, "Wingdiver the shooter" doesn't rellay offer that much content to sink your teeth into with only 6 short missions you can finish in under a hour. This may apply to most arcade styled Shoot'em'Ups out there, but those are usually better crafted with more enemies, music tracks, thought-out weapons, enemy- and bulletpatterns.
EDF feels more "random" in this regard and is mainly about huge quantities of content which this game simply doesn't offers.

cyxceven
cyxceven

If you aren't already a SHMUP fan and an EDF fan, then look elsewhere.
If you love both, then welcome to one of the greatest EDF spin-offs there is.
Compared to most shmups on Steam that I've played, this one favors weapon switching much more.
Boosting also greatly helps for the invulnerability frames.
Go with something ranged that doesn't eat much energy, and a close-range weapon that goes all-out.

Fencers will get their Iron Rain soon™.

Air Raiders deserve an RTS spinoff as well.

Jordan!
Jordan!

I love shmups and I love Earth Defense Force -- so this was an instant purchase. The high poitns are 6 levels, 6 modes, and 60 weapons to unlock. It has a great progression system I wasn't expecting as well. I've completedo n Easy and mostly on Medium up to this point and I really, really like it. YES, it's not EDF 5 but stands firmly on it's own two feet. Highly recommend.

First Look/Review:
https://youtu.be/qO23A6rLOQA

SubDrag
SubDrag

As an intro, I've played most of the earlier EDFs, but my favorite is the XBox EDF 2017. And I can say, this EDF sidequest game is great! It doesn't have the endlessly long stages of normal EDF, every one is short and sweet, and the ability to start at beginning, middle, or end for farming and progressing is good. It doesn't suffer from other plane shooters, in that those are an exercise in dodging, and 2 hits and you're done. Here you can dodge as much as you want or not, depending on how much farming of weapons and armor you want to do. Easy and Normal the bullets are slower, but once you hit Hard and beyond you'll need to use some more skill. The weapon variety is great, I really like some of the weapons such as the LAZR and Geist, and you can mix them up a lot for different gameplay. It's nifty that in the middle of each stage, is a massive slugfest to refill health and get a weapon. Bosses are fantasticly fun. The story is amusing, and basically the same as every other EDF, but doesn't really matter.

The only things that I think you could complain about, are that there are only 6 stages, when you really want 50+ like the other games, and I don't think it supports co-operative mode like the other games (which is a bit of a shame). But they are only charging 13.99 at launch (19.99 after first week), so that makes it palatable for a lot of fun!

The takeaway - you'll love this if you love EDF, and if you never played EDF, you'll probably still like this as a plane shooter anyways, as long as you accept that it's on the shorter side, and the duration is playing for weapons and skill levels. I hope they make more levels or more of these games in between the regular EDFs.

cowbell
cowbell

A shmup version of EDF 4.1 that doesn't look like a budget shooter. As you advance through the difficulties, which will require some grinding, just not as much as 4.1, thank God, you get weapons that look like everyday shmup upgrades and EDF style weapons. You may get low difficulty weapon drops, but you still get a new weapon almost every mission, to keep up with the stronger enemies. They introduced a dash mechanic which makes you ignore attacks for a brief time, which is a new mechanic in EDF5 when it comes out.
The VA is still as bad as ever, but you can turn it off or to Japanese. Other features include letting you skip parts of missions you already did and even practice against bosses to try out your weapons. What works for one boss, may be ineffective on others. There are six difficulties this time and the last one is a real bullet hell that changes everything up.

ゴゴゴゴ
ゴゴゴゴ

Steam really needs a "neutral" rating for games like these. The integration of the EDF formula is actually pretty well done. You still grind for armor and weapon drops, you have a life bar, you switch weapons, and other than now being able to fly forever, the Wing Diver kind of plays like the same class from the 3D games. The weapons are accurate to the series and there's actually a little bit of thought behind which pair you'll take into battle.

However, there's only 6 levels and each of them feel incredibly short, even by STG standards. The hitbox on both your character and projectiles is laughably big and the Plasma Launcher and Sniper rifle weapons often completely obscure enemies and their projectiles, rendering them almost totally useless during boss encounters and the shooting gallery sections. The enemy bullet patterns aren't particularly fun or interesting, and they only begin to touch "bullet hell" status on the last level or on the Hard difficulty. The whole STG aspect of this game feels poorly thought out and not particularly fun, new, or engaging.

Even at $20, this is kind of a hard game to recommend to fans of the EDF franchise. If you're unfamiliar and just looking at this as a shooter, definitely skip this for any number of better games already available at lower prices on Steam. At best, this is a funny curiousity that will probably not recieve a sequel and is a lot of wasted opportunity for a really interesting blend of loot-based combat and the STG genre.

At least you'd be sending a $20 message to D3 that you want more EDF on PC.

Silver Fox
Silver Fox

This is a spinoff of the Earth Defense Force series where instead of being the usual third person shooter it's a shoot em 'up featuring the wing diver class - does it work? I think it does, the genre change works pretty well and all the weapons feel like they did in the original game. There's also a ton of bugs on the screen, and there are even sections in the middle of the stage dedicated to destroying as many bugs as possible in one area.

The overall feel of the game isn't the only thing carried over from the main series - armour pickups and weapon drops return as well, which means you can grind stages for better weapons and extra health. I think this is good and bad because it lets inexperienced players get health but it can also make the game way too easy once you get a lot of it. During the end of my playthroughs I had way too much health can could just stand still during bosses and still win which is an issue and hurts replayability. I think the game could have benefitted from having the armour and weapon limit system from other games as an option - maybe having two seperate scoreboards if the limit is on or not?

The presentation overall is solid, it looks like 4.1, the music is surprisingly good for an EDF game and the dub feels different but it's still cheesy and fun. There aren't really any graphics options at all though which means playing this on my older laptop was painful in some areas. Overall I did have fun with the game, I recommend it if it's on sale and if you wanna support the EDF series.

888
888

I really enjoyed this bigtime! Shmup + EDF.... I thought it was more edf levels but this was a pleasant surprise.

NEONA
NEONA

This game only has 6 stages and will take you about half an hour to finish. It is certainly fun for those few minutes, but for 20 bucks i just cant recommend it, even if you try to get all the weapons in all the difficulties, its just not enough to justify 20 bucks.

kane
kane

By far the best EDF game since EDF 2017, and I haven't even played an hour! EDF! EDF! EDF!

Highly recommended, massively fun shmup action, with the same premise as all the other EDF games; see big bug, shoot big bug with big gun. What more do you need??

Arsemel
Arsemel

It's danmaku shooter with EDF's nonsensical "B-movie" action, if you're into that kind of stuff you'll probably like this.
Length is the average of the genre, with 6 missions, 5 levels of difficulty also, it has a nice variety of weapons to unlock.
I would recommend to buy it on a sale or alongside "EDF 4.1 Shadow of New Despair" as a bundle.

iAmTurok
iAmTurok

Feels very cheap. Even if you're the biggest EDF fan, this is a waste of your time. If you like shmups, there are much better titles on Steam that deserve your time.
At least it controls well, as it should be in a schmup.

oren
oren

A good shooting game with 3d graphics. It's a bit easy if you are patient since it's an HP-system and every run, your armor
(HP) becomes higher for the next run.

Warlok
Warlok

Fun, proceeding on premises that mirror the mission structures of EDF 4.1. Unfortunately, the game ends long beofre you get to even the 1/3 or 1/2 point of that structure... worse even when you consider you have maybe 10 or so missions total. Extremely disappointing.

Not a terrible aspect to the game given its price, but disappointing nonetheless.

Fubukin
Fubukin

The Bad:

-PS1 to PS2 era graphics, barely functional.
-annoying full model flickering.
-slow start.
-gotta RNG grind those weapons.
-hopelessly overpriced.

The Good:

-It's EDF!
-You can switch it to Japanese audio.
-higher difficulties have just the right amount of bullet hell.

Should you get it?

You like shooters, you like EDF, you don't mind archaic graphics, and the game is on deep sale? What's keeping you!

LobsterVendetta
LobsterVendetta

EDF 4.1: Wingdiver the Shooter is an excellent shmup for those not normally into the genre, as it's far more lenient than most arcade styled shmups. This is largely due to forgoing 'one-hit health' and instead sticking to the mainline EDF health system; an ever increasing health-pool that gets larger the more 'Armor' boxes the player collects from killing enemies.

Similar to collecting 'Armor', new weapons can be acquired by collecting 'Weapon' boxes.
Those who have played EDF 4.1 will find the Wing Diver's arsenal to be familiar, though with effects altered to fit the gameplay style. (Note: You won't need to rely on double Idunn's in this game) Weapon energy management is present here as well, meaning certain weapons can quickly drain your 'Energy Meter' and cause you to overheat for a few seconds, rendering you unable to fight.

There is one main flaw worth mentioning however, the game's length.
Capping off at just 6 unique levels, it's an extremely short game. Its replayability comes from clearing the higher difficulty stages and acquiring a stronger arsenal, similar to the mainline EDF games, and unlocking a remixed version of the original 6 levels which change the enemy waves. However these may not be enough reasons justify the $20 price it asks for.

It is worth mentioning that free DLC was released for this game, a 'Training Mode' which adds several unique short missions for the player to complete like fighting bosses with a fixed weapon loadout, ring checkpoint courses, rescuing civilians and fellow EDF soldiers, and more. Playing though these unlocks some weapons as well and the missions are noticeably tougher than the main game. It adds a great deal of replayability to this game.

Solid but short game, would recommend especially for EDF and casual shmup fans.

Blinkdog
Blinkdog

fun game and a true bullet hell shump but this is in no way worth $20. it only has 6 levels and suffers from rng unlocks. you can beat easy without to much issue but you'll need to unlock weapons via rng to get higher scores or to beat hard+. i have some issues seeing bullets on some levels and some weapons flash will end up hiding bullets completely for about a second. i also question the hit boxes in this game. 7/10 fun but really short.

limelight1210
limelight1210

If youre familiar with the EDF games this is no different- cheesy B-movie feel, collect armor and weapons, work up to higher difficulties to get better weapons, etc, etc. And if you enjoy shmups too, youll feel right at home.

At first, I was like, "eh, its okay". But like other EDF games they grow on you and this one did for me. So much so that Im going to go back to EDF 4.1 and grind some more.

Like others have mentioned- theres only 6 stages, which does sour the experience...a little. On the plus side, you get familiar with the stages faster so youll know whats coming for you and be better prepared. Still, I wouldve preferred a few more stages.

The ONLY things i still dont care for in all of the EDF games- getting the same weapons over and over without any sort of reward. It would be really cool if you could get something a little extra for getting the same stuff. Maybe like a 1% reduction in damage if you collect 10 of them or something. Just *something*, ANYTHING would be appreciated. Theres also a TON of chatter going on during the stages (like all the other EDF games), and while you can turn it off, subtitle boxes still appear at the bottom of the screen. Kind of annoying at first, but I got over it.

All in all, if you love the EDF series and shmups, give it a go!

An Irate Capybara
An Irate Capybara

I recommend this if you know what you're getting into and you get it on sale. There are only six missions, but those missions have the same EDF difficulties of easy, normal, hard, hardest, and inferno. Beating them all plus the "extra" difficulty for the missions took me about twelve hours. Compared to EDF 4.1, the grind, such that it is, is delightful. It doesn't take long to have a difficulty go from daunting to doable to mastering it.

KrudlerTheHorse
KrudlerTheHorse

I refunded.

This looks cool as all heck, but the experience I had (insanely unfair hit-boxes) basically communicated to me that this game is all about grinding for permanent upgrades. Never in a million years will I play a game where player skill is almost completely removed from the game play experience.

If you like skill-based games, this will make you RAGE

68ST0X20
68ST0X20

Buyer advice:
* Get it on a sale. Not worth the full price.
* It has unadvertised free DLC that adds a training/challenge mode to the game.

Has a few issues:
* Too short
* The random drop element that's a big appeal in EDF is not so much fun here. It can still be fun to get a weapon that's overpowered and be able to breeze through a few missions that should be too hard; but in the early game it's not so much fun wondering if/when a decent weapon will drop.
* Some bits of the game are exploitable by you being able to remain invincible at least 50% of the time by using the thrust move; while firing with the basic Ixion weapon that has 0 energy cost. Doing this is slow but the game does not have a timer on the boss fights so you can cheese boss fights.
* Doesn't really carry over the humour or "drama" of EDF. Only a few of the enemies from EDF made it into this game; and the Air Raider and Fencer classes don't appear, even in cut scenes.

Some nice things:
* the basic idea of the game (a bullet-hell shooter with the weapons and energy-management mechanics of a Wing Diver; and the enemies from EDF) works well.
* It's not a great shooter, but there is fun to be had in dodging fire while trying to maximise your own damage.

Artoboi
Artoboi

In Earth Defense Force 4.1 Wingdiver The Shooter you play as a jet fighter, except instead of a jet she's a woman with large breasts. You get to shoot a metric ton of gigantic ants and other creatures, listen to bad and by bad I mean very, very good voice acting and listen to a fantastic soundtrack while all the crazy action takes places on the screen. So yeah, it's a great game. 5/5

P.S. Is this why people like shoot-em-ups?
P.P.S. Do note that the game can be completed in 1 hour.

ZAJL
ZAJL

it took me roughly 8 hours to 100% complete EDF4.1 WDTS, this feels like i wasted my time, mainly because there is only 6 mission. and to beat the game you need to play them at least 36 times. it was mind numbingly boing and really easy even on the Inferno difficulty. with the main difference being more projectiles and more enemy health (which you wont feel until the shit storm which is hell difficulty) the enemy projectiles are very numerous and quick, and with the not well defined player hitbox, make dodging very difficult.
of course the game has a temporary invincibility "dodge" but it very quick uses up energy which if you run out of you move at about quarter speed (which is a very bad thing in a bullet hell game) and all of your weapon use a certain percentage of your energy to shoot, making the dodge kinda useless.
when it comes to weapons the game has a good variety (60 total with most being direct upgrades and not unique) which are given to you by chance from weapon crates which you get from killing enemies and have to collect. and this is where i told a small lie
i haven't 100% the whole game, just all of the levels on every difficulty
i am now in hour 3 of tracking down weapons for the weapon list and the lack of real data on weapon ranges for levels and difficulties i still find stupid in EDF
but lets talk about hell difficulty i eluded to earlier. Hell difficulty (called in game as extra levels) is the game again but with enemies with more health that shoot random projectiles, seriously in hell mode an enemy will shoot anything but what they should shoot and in such volume you cant see the enemies. other than that it is the same shit just round 7 instead of 6
the last thing i want to mention is a technical hiccup that plagued me in inferno, sometimes the game would have massive frame drops that kill you as the player because the game around you is still moving at normal speed. I know this isn't an issue on my end because i out spec the game dramatically play the other EDF games just fine.
overall while the game is serviceable i don't recommend it, other than the problems mentioned, there is a shocking lack of being able to place this game in the events of the series (doesn't know the game of the king spider, doesn't know the name of the kaiju (i cant spell it either) doesn't know about the hornet enemy, and no mention of the earth eaters) perfectly represents this bullet hell being between some amazing 3rd person hoard shooters.

Air Raider *EDF EDF*
Air Raider *EDF EDF*

You don't even get to see the Wing Divers panties when she dies like in the EDF series.

Also it lacks any cool weapons, has very few levels and all together the game kinda sucks.

Pokiehl
Pokiehl

Your hitbox is larger than your character. In a bullet hell or any SHMUP, this is unforgivable.

It's basically a rails shooter, from a top down perspective, using the mechanics of the EDF wing diver. Thankfully you can get SOME armor when dying, but you don't get any weapons. So far I've gotten all the basic weapons, and they're all worse than the two you start with.

I plan to keep playing and see if it gets better, but I can only play for a few minutes at a time before becoming frustrated.

Wiawyr
Wiawyr

This game uses the name, some sound effects, some wing diver weapons, and some models from EDF. That's the only good thing it has going for it. The rest is unadulterated garbage. The controls feel awful. The movement is awful. The attacking is awful. The evading is awful. Most weapons are unusable at higher levels because you need the energy to constantly be boosting rather than attacking. The voicelines, a hallmark of EDF and an incredibly charming part of the series, are beyond awful - I can't imagine they did more than finding a random homeless person on the street and offering him five dollars to do the VA work. There's no singing, there are long unskippable boring "cut scenes", and the intro story was done entirely with still images. There's also no multiplayer.

Avoid this, even if someone held you at gunpoint and tried to force you to play it. The Skinner box mechanism wants you to think you're having fun like you were playing other EDF titles, but it's just wading through a river of garbage to get to a deeper river of garbage.

Gigeran
Gigeran

Had some issues starting this game up, was due to not having a controller plugged in, so make sure you plug in a controller before starting the game up.

Once I got it running I gave it a quick fling and found it was fun, but quite hard and gave that nice edf 4.1 vibe. It is grindy, but fun flying around shooting bugs and dodging incoming fire.

I bought this game priced off at roughly 2 euro's and for that price it is a steal and a fun thing to play once in a while to quickly dive into and shoot some bugs, full price it might be a bit too short to warrant the full price.

Also make sure if you get this game that you install via the store the training missions free dlc to get some extra bang for your buck.

Nicolaus99
Nicolaus99

Gods, this is terrible. Pity any poor soul who paid the full $20 for this game. It's a rail shooter, you move and you shoot. This game does both badly. You are painfully slow to move and must constanly dash/dodge, burning weapon heat to buy a few invincibility frames. Your starting 2 weapons are vastly superior to any "upgrades" you will pick up in your first 6 mission campaign.

Started playing on Normal and got obliterated. Swallowed my pride, restarted on Easy and realized this was the Dev's intention. It has the same grind loop of the original EDF games; replay missions on lower difficulty to grind tiny armor upgrades so you don't die when an enemy sneezes on you. And they WILL be sneezing on you because you spend the entire game right on top of every enemy, which feels wierd because a life time of gaming has trained you to avoid physical contact with enemies. Here it is bullet damage only but the bullet spawn is always right in your face. Also, I'd swear that Normal dif invisibly enlarges your hit box beyond your character, wtf?

I'm a huge EDF fan and I hated every minute of this experience. Hard pass. Don't buy this, no matter how low they drop the sale price. If this game had been free, I'd still feel terribly disappointed.

Orwell
Orwell

only buy this at 90% off
if player get hit without touching bullet just quit full screen mode.
Frame rate of this game is problematic.

IndiGhost
IndiGhost

I love this game, the music and dramatic voice lines are epic. I'd recommend Starting on easy and grinding stage 1 for guns. That should make this game easier. Totally fun game for a few bucks. EDF! EDF!

WhitePhantom
WhitePhantom

Very short yet fun shooter set in the world of Earth Defense Force. It's a bit grindy, so start out on Easy mode and work your way up.

David
David

Definitely a lot of fun for me as an EDF 4.1 player. Same sort of configuration of things, permanently increase your health by picking up armour in levels, get new weapons the same way. A fun little romp on its own, well worth it at the 90% discount price I paid for it. The bonus free DLC is also neat, adding 60 more missions. I reckon I'll get about 20 hours out of it, trying to beat the harder difficulties.

I don't think I could recommend this to a non-EDF player though, and even then, definitely not at the full asking price they're looking for on Steam. I may say that it's worth its dollar per hour value, but it will be very repetitive, which knocks that value down. However, with those comments aside, this is a nice and niche little shoot 'em up.

sufehmi
sufehmi

NOTE : This is a 2D platform shooting game ! this is completely different than the usual EDF game. You have no freedom to roam around, your path is already set.

I hate 2D platform shooting games, so I don't like this - but others might love it.

bcart167
bcart167

The game controls like garbage. EDF has always had mediocre design but killing the giant ants was always fun and satisfying. This time around the only thing they kept was the mediocre design and made the levels both too hard and fun not enough to continue playing. The levels are also instantly forgettable. I've played only 15 minutes and that's all anyone should ever really bother with this.

49152
49152

Terrible shooter. It doesn't really want you to play it, it wants you just to watch. It grabs control too often for the lame voice acting and characterisation to take over. Things like this really need a "no story" mode for those who enjoy gameplay.

Just don't, man. If you cleave to EDF (which I wasn't previously aware of as a property) then this is unlikely to improve your life. If you like shooters it's just frustrating and stupid and definitely won't.

Avoid.

xColdxFusionx
xColdxFusionx

...This game is not good by any stretch of the imagination.

Your hitbox is WAY bigger than it has any right to be (even bigger than your model!), making a lot of patterns overly precise to avoid without abusing the Boost mechanic. The Overheated state locks your controls for seemingly ages, absolutely killing the breakneck pace - often at the worst times. Weapon variety is somewhat lacking, at least early on, and the game's very stingy with upgrade crates, even moreso than in the mainline games it spun off from.

Even with all these problems, though, I still found myself having a lot of fun. Once I started to understand how the game was designed, it's a fun fast-paced shooter built around risk and reward in the form of energy management and properly timing Boosts to duck and weave out of hellish rains of acid and webbing. It's not polished by any stretch of the imagination, even by EDF standards, but it'll scratch your bug-blasting itch in a very unique way. And sometimes, that's all you need.

If you think that sounds fun, give Wingdiver a go. Preferably when it's on sale; it tends to get some pretty deep discounts, from what I've seen. If not? Well, I can't blame you. Honestly, If I could give this a neutral review, I would.

Nessie
Nessie

Love EDF 4.1, but this really misuses the systems it set up to try and integrate them into a shmup.
- Weapons appear to drop purely by difficulty, not by story progression. Either that or level 0 weapons show up in the final level far too often. In this same level, you get level 12 weapons which are necessary to take on the next difficulty.
- Armor progression is mandatory unless you're abnormally good at shmups. Wave and target arcs will be shot at you constantly through levels, and you *must* survive to the end of the run to claim weapons. Even at Normal difficulty, you will die in 10-20 hits without prep in Easy. And even then it's about 30 hits at 200 max hp (double the starting).
- The above makes healing horrible. It's a flat 10 or 20 hp, no exceptions. This will heal only one to three hits in Normal, nevermind anything harder.

Overall, extremely unforgiving on even basic difficulty with major impediments to the progression that makes EDF 4.1 enjoyable.

Explo⁧⁧☄
Explo⁧⁧☄

The worst EDF game I've ever played.

Among the community it is refered to as the "Forbidden Title".
The hitboxes are horrid and the voice acting is even worse.
However it is an EDF game.
You can avoid all of the hitbox issues with the use of the dodge-boost mechanic.
The scenarios the game puts you in are genuently fun,
presenting you as a newbie wingdiver equipped with prototype gear.
I would recommend it if you liked the other EDF games, just for the novelty.

Shadow Ops
Shadow Ops

EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 WINGDIVER THE SHOOTER
pros:
fast game with modern day graphics with easy controls that moves from location A to B to C and so on,
good amount of action and special effects,
cons:
some difficult battles.

good game.
Personal Suggested Purchase Price: $0.99 Or Less During Sale

PolarBear
PolarBear

At its low price during sales, this is a no brainer buy. The difficulty scaling from easy to normal is a HUGE jump however.

A good break from normal EDF gameplay

Pixel Sandwich
Pixel Sandwich

pretty arcad(y), fun, lovable and short experience, leaving you wanting more but the price especially in the sells really sets what it is.