God Eater 2: Rage Burst Review

Developed By: Shift

Published By: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Release Date: August 30, 2016 [PC]

Platforms: PC [reviewed], PlayStation 4, Playstation Vita

Price: $50

I don’t like Monster Hunter. I was recommended the franchise by friends, but I just couldn’t get into it. The gameplay felt overly repetitive, I couldn’t get my head around how anyone could tolerate the controls, and the world and story just didn’t grip me. I’m opening with this because the God Eater franchise inevitably draws comparisons to Monster Hunter; both are action-adventure romps built around the concept of embarking on missions, killing monsters, then using their remains to upgrade your equipment and fight stronger monsters. Despite not enjoying Monster Hunter itself, I’m not at all opposed to this basic gameplay loop, and though it has its flaws, God Eater 2 has made a much more solid impression on me.

For those unfamiliar with the first game in the series, the premise behind God Eater is fairly simple. Monsters known as Aragami have brought human civilization to the brink of ruin. Some of what’s left of humanity occupies an enormous rolling city, inside which an organization known as Fenrir researches and develops unique weapons, called God Arcs, for the purpose of exterminating Aragami. In God Eater 2, a new pandemic known as ‘Red Rain’ has struck the Far East branch of the city, with a new special forces squad known as Blood Unit being sent to investigate. Blood Unit earns it name because those who are recruited are brought into the fold due to a little-understood ‘Power of Blood’, the significance of which grows as the plot progresses.

Characters unironically say stuff like this pretty often. It’s…something.

The story’s very anime, for lack of a better term. ‘The power of song’ is an actual thing, everyone involved – both old and new – seems to not be taking this whole global apocalypse particularly seriously, and the overwrought sincerity of the characters is matched only by the clean-cut archetypes they each fall into. Still, it’s endearing in its earnestness, and while not particularly innovative, the plot’s involved and detailed, with plenty of time taken to flesh out every aspect. My only real complaint is the pacing. The first half of the storyline – which can take up to thirty or forty hours – moves sluggishly, and doesn’t meaningfully explore character relationships or what makes the Aragami so intimidating. As if the developers realized this at the same time, things pick up considerably after one major plot event, with twists coming left and right and stakes skyrocketing in very short order. All in all, it’s more satisfying than I expected from this genre, and addresses many of my problems with Monster Hunter‘s lack of narrative. That said, it’s still relentlessly predictable, and I foresaw basically every event well before it happened.

The gameplay is far more consistent and solid, albeit a little obtuse. Most of the player’s time is spent exploring the headquarters, preparing for missions, undertaking them, and then using the rewards to grow stronger for the next round of action. Early on, I was deeply confused. It felt like very little was being explained to me, with brief text tutorials that seemed wholly insufficient for grasping the myriad upgrade paths and character customization. While I never entirely shook that feeling successfully, I did gradually start to realize that for the most part, God Eater is pretty happy with the idea of simply making me responsible for figuring it out on my own time. To those experienced in the subgenre, this might be nothing new, but as someone who almost exclusively has a history with Western RPGs and tutorial-heavy walkthroughs, it was a bit of a shock to the system. It’s best to go into the game with a mindset of eagerly seeking out information on every gameplay mechanic, as it often won’t be spelled out for you. Truth be told, I’m ambivalent on this approach. On one hand, it felt a little irritating at times to have to dig into the database to figure out a particular mechanic I wasn’t grasping, but on the other, I was doing fine even without most of these seemingly optional mechanics, and not forcing tutorials on every one of them prevented the early game’s pacing from feeling even more padded.

This guy is the worst. Seriously.

The combat is definitely a highlight. Though it starts out simple, it quickly proves to have a ton of depth, with blood arts that add twists to normal attacks and more and more customization handed to the player as the game progresses. Every monster has unique attacks, weaknesses, and exploitable patterns, which makes it a lot of fun to pick apart enemies you’re used to fighting with increased ease. Most impressive, however, are the bullets. “God Arcs”, the weapons wielded by God Eaters and Blood soldiers alike, are capable of transforming between their melee and ranged forms. The former can include your standard array of hammers, swords, and the more eclectic scythe, while the latter consists of a shotgun, missile launcher, sniper rifle, or assault rifle. Whatever your choice, you’ll be treated to what must be the most granular and involved customization system that I’ve ever seen for the bullets. From the elemental typing to the trajectory, size, shape, and status effects, every aspect of the projectiles can be deeply customized. If you want to create a sphere of frost that orbits your character like a defensive shield, you can. If you want to fling a searing laser at an Aragami that calls down a massive orbital strike of multicolored light, you can do that, too. Early options aren’t terribly impressive, but the longer the game goes, the crazier and more powerful the bullets you can make.

In a way, that defines God Eater 2: Rage Burst as a whole. It asks a lot of its players, both in terms of research and patience. It’s slow to get rolling, has a ton of filler, and while the plot is serviceable, it doesn’t really go anywhere terribly interesting. But between the post-game content, the included God Eater: Resurrection, and the sheer size of the main game itself, you’re looking at potentially well over 200 hours of gameplay, more than enough to scratch the itch of all but the most voracious monster-hunting enthusiasts. While I have some mild reservations about the pacing, I nonetheless had a lot more fun with GE2 than I expected to.