Developed By: Marvelous First Studio
Published By: Bandai Namco
Release Date: July 12th
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4
In God Eater 3, you play as a God Eater. Using your God Arc, you go out into the post-apocalyptic world with others like yourself known as the Ashlands and fight terrifying creatures known as the Aragami. This is my first God Eater so excuse me for being ignorant to the details. You begin as a prisoner where your player created character(who is fully customizable) is treated more as a weapon than as a human being. However, once an ash storm rolls in and you’re essentially abandoned by the people who imprisoned you, your rescued by a group of scavengers and join their caravan. Eventually, the crew is hounded by a special type of creature known as an “Ash Aragami” and that’s where things begin to get a bit more interesting as you learn the cargo being transported is so much more than simple cargo. At the end of the day, the story is simply just a way to keep you progressing and fighting newer forms of monsters as the narrative doles out random words in the best way every anime knows how piled on with a typical anime cast. It’s not horrible but it’s also not really good either although I did find myself rooting for the Pennywort crew.
Picking up God Eater 3 is relatively easy(especially early on in the game) and the controls are simple and easy to learn. Combat is fast paced and feels very smooth on the Switch, even in handheld mode. As a gamer who hates AI companions, I can honestly say that your AI comrades are very, very competent. There were times where it felt like I was playing with a well seasoned human player and I could absolutely rely on them to dodge attacks and appropriately avoid the bigger and more telegraphed ones where I would be the one getting caught and taking damage. On that note, with the exception of the 8 player assault missions, I never found a reason to play with anyone online because the AI companions were that good.
Like most games where you hunt larger than life monsters, you can expect a bit of a grind in order to craft new clothes, weapons and equipment. You’ll find yourself replaying specific levels over and over as you gather materials but one thing that helps relieve the players a bit is the way you harvest materials from monsters. Once defeated, you just need to charge up your God Arc and aim it at the monsters corpse to instantly harvest all the materials the monsters have dropped in one fell chew. Missions also seem to fly by pretty fast. In a hunt in Monster Hunter or Dauntless, I’ll probably spend anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes hunting a specific monster down. In God Eater 3, I don’t think I ever passed the 10 minute mark. I place part of the blame on the small size of the environments and the fact that movement is just so fast. It’s easy to quickly get from one side of the map to another and then quickly bombard a monster without your stamina every hitting 0.
Graphically, the game just feels very… generic. You play an anime character with anime styled weapons and fight uninspired anime monsters. Everything about the game on a graphical level just feels really lazy. Some of the character models are fine, but others like Hilda look absolutely silly. It also doesn’t look like a game that was made for the current generation consoles. If you had told me it was originally released on the PS3, I probably would have believed you but God Eater 3 was released for the PS4 in December of 2018. As far as the sound design goes, I don’t really have much if a complaint. Everything sounds like it should. Monsters sound scary, devouring a monster for materials or a boost sounds and feels satisfying and the voice acting is fine for what it’s worth.
Overall, God Eater 3 is a fun game that feels right at home on the Switch. It obviously looks better docked but I didn’t have any issues as far as performance is concerned in either mode. The combat is fast and fluid and there is a ton of content to keep you going for quite some time. However, it doesn’t really hold a candle to Monster Hunter nor does it really try to provide that same challenge. Most of my missions were over in just a few minutes and I never really found a reason to play online. Unless you’re in love with God Eater 3’s anime aesthetic then it might just be for you. If you just want the casual Monster Hunter experience then Dauntless is always free and that’s on the Switch too.
WeTheNerdyGives God Eater 3 on the Switch 7 out of 10 God Arcs.
