🦖🦕 God Eater 3 - SWITCH REVIEW - "Grab your favourite weapon and start chopping" 🦖🦕 #GameDev #IndieGames

If you're one of those people who thought Monster Hunter could do with more of a Devil May Cry aesthetic, over-the-top anime cutscenes, and needlessly large NPC boobs, then do I have a treat for you.

So, the story. The world has been covered by ash clouds that spawn monsters called Aragami, and God Eaters are the soldier types that hunt them.

You play as an Adaptive God Eater (AGE), which is a sort of super-soldier, with more power, and greater resistance to the ash. You are employed or rather owned, by an organisation called Gleipnir, an offshoot of the Fenrir organisation from previous games, now overwhelmed and destroyed. 

Within the first few missions, you become part of the crew of a mobile fortress called the Chrysanthemum and protect it from the Aragami it encounters. There's more, but it's not necessary to understand it to jump in and start slashing.

This is the first game in the God Eater series made for home consoles, with the previous game, 2013's God Eater 2: Rage Burst, being a PSP/Vita exclusive. The extra power means that the frame rate stays consistently high despite massive monsters and frantic bursts of on-screen activity. There's a little bit of blur and screen-tearing, but nothing that kills the experience.

Like Monster Hunter, you have a varied arsenal of weapons to choose from. There are 8 melee weapons (and tons of variants to unlock), including the all-new Biting Edge and Heavy Moon, multi-form weapons that can lead to huge combos, as well as the usual daggers, longswords, war hammers and scythes. You also carry one of four variants of gun for ranged attacks, but where's the fun in that?

The structure of the game is mission-based, where the objective is typically to take down a few lower-level Aragami, a big one, or some combination of both. 

The real fun starts when you encounter Ash Aragami, which are invariably big, loud and in possession of devastating attacks. The short-cut to defeating these things is to break certain body parts, such as arms or heads, stunning them and allowing you to whale on them to your heart's content. 

If you don't do this, you can be sure that they'll pull out some super-powered attack that'll send you flying halfway across the map before you know what's hit you.

The gameplay is a celebration of all things hack-n-slashy. Within the first hour or so you'll find yourself able to pull off good combos and start experimenting with more advanced mechanics. 

If you take time to use a Devour attack, you can put yourself into Burst Mode, which enables you to use one of three Burst Arts (ground, air, and following a successful sidestep), super combos that help you build up your combo and start dealing serious damage. 

You can also unlock Burst Art Effects, which finish off an Art with a final big hit, and allow you to customise your combos to take advantage of an Aragami's strengths and weaknesses. On top of this, as in previous games, you can customise and create new bullets for your guns, from laser rounds to sniper ammo, if you're the type of God Eater that like to hang back.

It's clear that Marvelous First Studio have put a lot of work into the combat; a serious player can go and have a field day tailoring their loadout, while the basics are simple enough that a relative layman like me can smash through some of the lower-level Ash Aragami with something approaching style.

I have to confess, I've tried Monster Hunter on a few occasions, and have never been able to get into it. I know they're deep and complex, but it's always seemed to require too many hours to get to the actual fun bit, and that's certainly not the case here. 

Within my first couple of hours, I'd beaten my first Ash Aragami, and then gone back to replay the mission to get that elusive SSS rating. 

 The optional missions give you an opportunity to get more crafting materials, sometimes rare ones, and the certification missions require you to clear a map as quickly as possible, often on a very tight timescale.

Summary

If you're a fan of easy to pick up, but hard to master games, then there's plenty here to whet your appetite. And if you're just after a quick hack and slash then God Eater 3 caters for that too. 

The story is a bit weak, but since this isn't Heavy Rain then I wouldn't worry too much - just grab your favourite weapon and start chopping.

❄️ RATING: ICE COOL ❄️

Ratings Explained

ICE COOL (Great Game Recommended)

MELTING (Recommended with reservations, one to consider if you are a fan of the genre)

MELTED (Not A Recommended Purchase)