I’ll preface this with the statement that I have absolutely no idea what God Eater is. I was never even aware of the series until roughly a day ago, and found out about it purely by chance via an advert (thank you algorithms). For once, the algorithms came through.
The game is as follows; you are an AGE, an Adaptive God Eater, whose job (more like slave labor) is to venture out into the ravaged world and kill and devour creatures known as Aragami, terrible creatures who seek to wipe out the last of humanity.
Armed with your shapeshifting weapons, the God Arcs, you’ll hack, slash, shoot, and style your way to victory, slaughtering these Aragami and literally eating them to gain their spoils and make new, powerful gear and weapons to become an engine of destruction as you try to save the world from turning to ash.
If any of this sounds familiar, that’s essentially because it’s as if Monster Hunter and Bayonetta had a baby.
It’s easy to compare any game where you kill giant creatures to Monster Hunter, but like Dauntless, God Eater 3 offers its own charm.
After a brief, but deep character customization, you’re thrust into a jail cell alongside partners Zeke and Hugo, who will sometimes accompany you on missions where a few more hands are helpful in dishing out the pain.
Battle is frantic, frenetic, and visually stunning. It’s also complex; upon entering the demo, I was overwhelmed by the sheer layer of customization and jargon the game had ready for me. It felt a lot like reading the instruction manual for a new piece of hardware, which, in essence, is more or less the idea.
The God Arcs are complex, and so is figuring yourself out as you go along but the demo does a bang-up job of guiding you through the process.
Missions are offered to you in quick, easy chunks as you learn the controls and gameplay. There are twelve total weapon types, eight melee and four ranged, each with their own layers of combat and strengths/weaknesses.
A training room can be accessed from the loadout where you’re free to use your weapons and moves in any way you see fit, ideal for testing out a build before heading out on your next mission.
Much of the game’s polish and fluidity is owed to Marvelous, creators of Daemon X Machina, who took over the position of developer from Shift.
God Eater 3 supports 4-player local multiplayer as well as up to 8-member online, where you and your badass crew (or more realistically, band of randoms) can take on tough quests for great rewards.
To be perfectly honest, the major selling point of this game was the fact it had a demo, something that seems to be in less and less supply for games lately. The chance to try things out with this title was a draw, the gameplay itself proving the anchor, and an instant preorder.
The demo is currently on the eshop and free to download. Even if you play it for only an hour, it is, in this writer’s opinion, an hour very well spent.
God Eater 3 for Nintendo Switch comes out July 12, 2019, and preorders get access to special costumes from Tales of Vesperia. Until that time, stay and play savvy, gamers.
