Repetition and lack of variety curse Gods Eater Burst's potential
+ Gameplay is frantic, challenging and engaging
+ Great customization options and weapon variety
+ Plenty of side missions to keep you busy
Negative
- Heavy repetition on the same mission design and locations
You won't be blamed for comparing Gods Eater Burst with the long-running Monster Hunter franchise. In fact, at first eye Gods Eater seems superior since it introduces mechanisms absent from Monster Hunter such as a lock-on, some sort of story and AI partners. But aside from the post-apocalyptic setting, the two have a lot in common. Those things aside, Gods Eater Burst is challenging, fun monster-hunting game that keeps combat fun despite its huge amount of inexcusable and unneeded repetition.
In a post-apocalyptic, Earth-like setting, creatures called Aragami have brought the world to its current destroyed state, with an organization Fenrir that takes care to eliminate the threat. The story centers a group mixed between veteran and rookie Gods Eater, which includes you, a player created player which is a New-type Gods Eater and a rookie. Initially, it's only the missions, the enemy Aragami, the setting and everything but the story and characters that are interesting. The story starts slowly and the main characters aren't all that likeable including your character which obviously falls victim to the fact that he/she will not express any particular emotion or backstory. Although, after the first few hours, interesting concepts and mysteries come into play that may intrigue and ignore the repetition the game has in store. There are a lot of optional missions to undertake that in structure don't vary much from story missions. Between some missions in the same difficulty, there is a big gap in terms of challenge making the game seem unbalanced in difficulty. The game is undeniably long that can take you beyond 30 hours of gameplay, but there are so much story missions and not enough variety that you'll end up wishing that the game was actually shorter, an extremely rare case.
Picturing Monster Hunter to explain the gameplay is not fair because Gods Eater Burst has a few new ideas of its own. The mission-driven structure sends you in boss-like battles, which is due to the Aragami's size and the long time it will take to defeat every big Aragami so having more than three tough Aragami in the same mission to deal with is seriously messed up in only 30 minutes. Luckily, whether you are playing with up to three friends or offline, the game always up to a maximum of 4 players in each mission. This is especially effective and crucial when playing with the dependable AI. Teammates have different jobs (melee and long-ranged attacks) in battle that helps add some variety. The game unfortunately lacks variety when it comes to mission types and locations. Through the countless missions you undertake in multiple different difficulties, there are very few locations and not enough Aragami variety. The missions' are generally different from one another, resorting to putting two different and powerful Aragami or the more than one of the same Aragami in the same stage unlike the mission before it. The bottom line is that you'll battle each big Aragami enough times to figure out how to approach them, though before taking each mission, normally the mission description details their weaknesses. Another minor problem is that you never level up; you need to hunt of monsters for loot to upgrade weapons which is essentially the same concept as Monster Hunter.
Though it lacks variety in the needed mission variety, the actual fighting is fun and exciting. For starters, gameplay has a lock-on, which although can be quite troublesome when facing multiple enemies and in small quarters, is helpful enough to appreciate. The game offers a deep customization and crafting on weapons which consists of a huge sword and a huge gun. When pressing the R button, the player switches from sword to gun. With the sword, you'll engage in close-quarter combat with the Aragami. With the gun, you'll switch to a more tactical approach and exchanges an automatic lock-on to a manual one. On the top left side of the screen, there are three long bars: the red one that is your HP, the middle one (OP) which is the amount of bullets you have left and the bottom one that is your stamina. There is a huge variety of bullet types with different elements (that you can even create) that if wisely used can be an asset again some enemies. So there is more strategy than what meets the eyes even if the frontal combat is straightforward.
Different Aragami have different weaknesses. Aside from elemental weakness, each Aragami has body part that receives more damage than the other. Effectively knowing where to strike is efficient. The Aragami have a sort of protective shield that if slashed enough times breaks which "unbound cells" which results in enraging the Aragami. Though the enemy doesn't have a HP bar, it becomes evident when the enemy is weakened with the primary reason being the enemy fleeing and retreating to another part of the battlefield, forcing you to follow and resume battle. This kind of action where the Aragami runs away halts pacing and it's not fun to chase a creature that can use its large size to go to the other side of the area with ease. An extra part is the use of the god arc that when holding the triangle button you can devour your enemy with a big monstrous mouth that comes out of your weapon. This is not entirely needed when fighting the enemy, but once the enemy has been defeated, devouring your enemy gives you material for customizing weapons. By defeating even the small Aragami that just happen to be nesting around, you can obtain material to craft and upgrade equipment, including guns, blade, shield and even new costumes. Despite creating your character in the beginning, you can change his/her hairstyle and costume as you like. The customization is simple, requiring only obtaining the required material to craft the weapon and that's it; you have a new or upgraded weapon.
As the difficulty starts to rise, the enemies get harder to beat but that isn't the main problem. Since the approach never changes in many ways, the same strategy applies to the same kind of Aragami. But when facing more than one big Aragami, the 30 minute time limit becomes the real enemy, as it is restricting what you can do. While the dependable AI fights well, it fails to lure the enemy away in useful ways. A small majority of Aragami manage to group together subsequently wasting away your time because you have to deal and avoid them both. In later difficulties, fighting one big Aragami can easily consume over half of the limit, as you slash endlessly unless the enemy falls.
Even if you'll see the game's few locations over and over, Gods Eater Burst is a great looking game. The environments look great and the Aragami's design is pretty much awesome. The Aragami vary from gorilla-like, to a huge tank and even a giant scorpion. But the game sure could use more variety in those two sections. You'll see a lot of these enemies enough to get sick of them, but even worse is how very, very few locations there are for such a long game. The big weapons and guns look pretty cool, and there is a ton of them. The soundtrack is just great because it suffers from repetition too. The problem is the voice acting. Some characters, like Alisa and Sakuya's voices don't really fit the situation which can derail important cutscenes. From a technical standpoint, the loadings are fast and unlike a certain similar game, there are no loadings in a battlefield when moving from one side to another. A noticeable thing; the characters say "god eater" instead "gods eater" as the subtitles and game title indicate. Translation error? I do not know.
Even later in the game, you'll be fighting the same enemies with the same strategy. Repetition and lack of different mission types really limit what the game can do. As a result, Gods Eater Burst is not the god-sent destroyer of Monster Hunter but it does enough to appeal those who have been turned off by Monster Hunter in the past. Battling gigantic creatures is enjoyable and rewarding with a lot of customization to your giant blade, at the cost of a long stream of repetition. If you can endure its repetition and occasional monotony, you'll find a game with a lot of untapped potential that has room for growth.
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Graphics = 7.8
Too few environments and overall everything could use that finish touch in detail. The Aragami, while awesome looking, grow repetitive. A ton of variety in weapons.
Sound = 7.9
The English voice acting is average at best, but the soundtrack is pretty good.
Presentation = 7.4
Fast loadings and no loadings in stages. Great looking cutscenes. Camera is normally good but is troublesome in small quarters, when dealing with larger enemies, and when using the lock-on when multiple enemies are present.
Gameplay = 7.5
Fighting boss-like enemies is thrilling and the combat is exciting. However, no matter how much weapons there are, limited enemy types and repetitive mission structure increase repetition. The use of lock-on is appreciated.
Story = 7.5
The story gets interesting after a slow start and it may be the reason why you're still playing. The extra missions are fun, but much later in the game feel like extra fillers to fill the void.
Difficulty = Medium
Preparation required before higher difficulty battles. Fighting multiple Aragami in a stage can easily drain the 30 minutes time limit if not managed properly. Enemies deal a substantial amount of damage so it requires knowing the enemy pattern to come on top in an easier way.
Recommendation level = Above Average
If you are not turned off by repetition, consider this your next purchase.
OVERALL = 74 / 100
Repetition and lack of variety curse Gods Eater Burst's potential