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Attack on Titan : Wings of Freedom

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    Attack on Titan : Wings of Freedom

    Very surprised there's no thread on this. The first game came out two years ago, and the sequel in Japan came out last month:


    Anyway, this seems like the last big release on PS3, which is the version I'm playing. You lot probs want it on Xbone or PS4. There wasa time when a weird Japanese game like this would have set this forum on fire. But now you're all probably playing Candy Crush or something.

    I have zero experience with the manga or anime, but the game feels a lot like Valkyria Chronicles. A bunch of young kids in the military are fighting a valiant war to protect their homes. One of the main characters has magical transformation powers, an you control a squad of individually named people with their own unique personalities and specialised gameplay traits (even so far as unlocking special skills as you level up).

    However, unlike Valkyria Chronicles, the gameplay is all action. It's also quite novel. Imagine a cross between a Spiderman game, Vanquish, and Shadow of the Colossus.

    You zoom around these levels attack the weak points on giants. All very intense. Maybe too intense. The game throws a metric **** ton of information at you constantly, with giant levels filled with 20+ giant enemies, allies in danger, boss areas, item refuels, humans in danger, a little body radar for the enemy, icons showing you which body parts contain item resources, coloured smoke signals, horses running around...

    The combat is also very fast, since you get bonuses for quick finishes. You need to lock on to an enemy with R1, then select a weak spot via the right stick, leap with Square, zoom with X, then attack with Triangle, all while flying around with the left stick and avoiding other enemies.

    I got through three story missions and a couple of side-missions, and I had to stop for today.

    Between missions you can chat with characters, buy new weapons, or use resources to upgrade them. So there's a sort of crafting system, where you need to replay missions to grind for resources.

    Liking it so far, but disappointed there's no English dub. Characters give you specific instructions and important advice during the intense fights, and it's a massive pain trying to juggle three giant enemies while flying around on wires and still trying to read subtitles telling me where I need to go next or who I need to save, all while time is ticking down. Would have been much easier to listen to the instructions in English.

    Liking it so far. Very surprised no one on here has been playing it.

    #2
    I really enjoyed this. I've got the sequel sat on my backlog.

    It's true what you say about this harking back to weird old Japanese combat games. There's nothing else like it and while the game can be a bit bare bones, it's very simple, video gamey fun. Makes no pretence about being something it isn't, you strap in and zoom about cutting giants into pieces.

    The late game loot grinding was where I fell off but I got loads of hours out of it before then.

    Very simple and very fun. Looks nice too.

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      #3
      It's Chopes! Haven't seen your posts in ages.

      I've put more hours into it, and two things:

      1) The draw distance on PS3 is a bit poor, with the giants popping into view suddenly. Noticeable in the open field areas, and kinda disappointing. Akiba's Trip on PS3 had the same problem. Whereas conversely Dead Rising on X360, a much older game, had a reall far draw distance despite showing dozens and dozens of zombies on-screen. A bit more optimisation for PS3 would have been nice.

      Were you on PS4?

      2) It has, without doubt, the best AI controlled team mates I have seen in a game. They're smart, can act on their own, and they can really help you out.

      In fact the character Erin, the little blonde guy, his entire play style is based around recruiting 4 high-ranking people, and then targetting giants and letting them do all the hard work, since his attack skill is so low, but he has high leadership.

      I've been consistently impressed at how reliable the AI team mates are.

      Did this get much press coverage when released? I was buried in book writing so never paid attention. It feels like a game deserving more attention.

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        #4
        Yeah, I played the PS4 version which I think is the 'main' version and the others were just shoved out.

        I'd forgotten about the AI. You're right, if things get dicey you can give them a command and they're good at saving you. I *think* the game does a good job of teleporting the AI about when you're not looking at them so they're ready for any commands you give them. That and they keep up with you when you're blasting about the city. That's why it feels do good, no realism, just gameplay.

        Also really liked the weird use of language for killing the titans. Not sure if they aren't allowed to use the word kill or not but the massive text that pops up saying Complete Subjugation is a good touch.

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          #5
          Is it in Japanese with English subtitles?

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            #6
            Originally posted by Marius View Post
            Is it in Japanese with English subtitles?
            Yes. That's the only option. I would have preferred a dub option, since there's a lot of dialogue in the midst of combat. I discovered there's a combat dialogue history tree, in the pause menu, but it's not ideal. I find myself pausing the action when it gets really intense, just to read the instructions my team mates were giving. Particularly needed during the capture a Titan mission I did recently.

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              #7
              Is this my type of game, Sketcz?

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                #8
                Originally posted by prinnysquad View Post
                Is this my type of game, Sketcz?
                Not sure, what is your type of game?

                Clocked it now. Meh. Started great, but you very quickly realise it's a one-trick pony. There isn't any variation in the game flow.

                You start a level, on one of several similar looking maps, or even the same maps, and then you move from titan to titan, locking on, hooking in, dashing and slashing. Repeat a hundred times. There's even a trophy for a 100 kills I think.

                That's it.

                There's traps and cannons, but these are so slow, and so scarce, as to not make much difference. Some characters can issue direct commands, which is nice, but it doesn't do much other than speed up the take downs slightly. I unlocked all the characters and disliked all of them, because all of them except Levi require multiple lock-on/hook-in attempts to fell one titan, which got tedious. Levi can do a triple-attack in one go, thereby taking any titan down in a single hook-in.

                Of all the gear you can upgrade, none of it is interesting. It's all just aiming for bigger number, and only the sword's attack number is any good, because the aim of the game is to repeatedly take down titans quickly. But upgrades get so expensive I ended finishing missions, finding I still lacked resources and funds, so basically had to wait around to upgrade swords.

                Meh.

                The whole game feels like they made a tech demo, to show the publisher how the game would work, and the publisher was like: "Yeah, just repeat that a thousand times and ship it."

                It's very shallow, despite going to great lengths to imply mechanical depth.

                There's 5 more epilogue missions to complete, and I did one of them, but to unlock the rest requires doing boring survey missions. So I'm done. I saw the credits.

                If you can buy the physical version for a tenner, worth a punt. But the PS3 is digital only and not worth £30. There's just nothing new there once you've played the first couple of missions. Also, I've concluded I hate the story. Nothing is explained, and everything is angsty and stupid. I used to like anime in the 1980s/early 1990s, but this is lame.

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                  #9
                  Well, EDF with its short missions and epic battles, I guess. I quite like stuff like Bladestorm, too.

                  Bit deflated to read your subsequent musings :-(

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                    #10
                    Did you even do all the 2025 missions before swanning off to World of Tanks?

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                      #11
                      I’ve played them all on various difficulties iirc. The achievement structure on that game is absurd.

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                        #12
                        I got 43, you got 8.
                        What's absurd is that you played it about a week.

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                          #13
                          Anything else, Boss?

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by prinnysquad View Post
                            Well, EDF with its short missions and epic battles, I guess. I quite like stuff like Bladestorm, too.

                            Bit deflated to read your subsequent musings :-(
                            I absolutely LOVE the EDF series. I wouldn't say there's not much feeling between the two - maybe superficially? With EDF you can never tell what's going to happen when getting swarmed, but AoT is fairly methodical. EDF also repeated itself, but each mission, and subsequent replays of those same missions, felt more differentiated.

                            I definitely like AoT to start with. It is fun - lots of fun, big and wild, and with a style of play you won't find anywhere else. The ability to scale a giant at such speeds is fantastic. Maybe Shadow of the Colossus comes close, but that was much slower. Here it's all about speed. Chopemon echoed the same thoughts above. But you reach a point where you're thinking: so, is this all it's going to be then? Are they not going to introduce anything new? There's basically only 3 sizes of titan, and they come in stupid and crazy varieties. There's also a single boss titan in the main campaign, which has a special power, and there was a second boss titan in an epilogue mission.

                            I think part of the problem is they're constrained by following the anime so closely. I wanted to see like 15 varieties of wildly different titan. I wanted wacky weapons that radically change your style of play. I wanted missions which didn't all boil down to: slay the next titan. Even the escort missions aren't even you escorting anyone, you're just directed to the next titan which is bothering the person travelling. Of the 20 campaign missions, only one did something new - you had to guide two titans to a trap to get captured, not kill them. This was interesting. But it was just one mission.

                            If you can get the physical copy cheap-ish, then you'll def have several hours of fun. But don't feel bad if you can't be bothered to finish it.

                            [MENTION=3985]chopemon[/MENTION] has the sequel, so maybe he can comment on whether it's improved over the first game.

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                              #15
                              Thanks for the details John.

                              From your description I’m not sure if it’s my type of thing. I’ll maybe have a crack if it’s ultra cheap, but sadly it doesn’t sound like what I was looking for. It sounds like a samey grind.

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