Freedom Wars was a game that for up until a week before its release, was very much off my radar entirely. "Oh wonderful, another hunting game". Not being a huge fan of grinding or long battles against giant monsters, the hunting genre of games such as Monster Hunter and Soul Sacrifice never really appealed to me. So how could Sony's own Japan Studio, Shift and Dimps win me over this time? Fortunately, they really did.
Freedom Wars is set in a dystopian future, where the human contained fortresses called Panopticons wage war with each other for the last remaining resources on Earth. A panopticon's worth is measured by its GPP, which is increased by each Sinner's continued contribution. Sinner's fight for the resources in the field, while Citizens look to better the Panopticon though engineering things such as better Abductors or weapons. The primary resource for a Panopticon are the citizens, and each employ a number of different Abductors, monstrous creatures to steal them away from other Panopticons.
You start the game as a Sinner in the midst of battle. After taking a strong blow from an abductor, you lose your memories. This is considered a grave crime, and you are introduced to one of the most interesting aspects of the game, your one million year sentence. The game revolves around you reducing this sentence by fighting abductors, and contributing resources to the Panopticon. Doing so allows you to progress up the Sinner ranks, known as CODE's. You character is always accompanied by an Accessory, basically an Android which monitors you at all times.
So, that's basically the established lore of the universe of Freedom Wars, but how does the game progress from there?
First, the gameplay in Freedom wars is smooth, fluid, fast and fun. The game revolves around operations where you basically fight abductors, fight other sinners, save citizens, get money... I mean entitlement points and a reduction on your sentence. You can equip your character with 2 weapons at a time, and your companion(accessory) with one weapon. You can head into battle with 3 AI teammates and their accessories too, leading to 8 allied forces on the map at once, which gives an excellent feeling of excitement and urgency to each operation you do. The game keeps a fast pace, and the framerate holds steady enough, occasionally dipping as more enemies spawn.
The AI aren't particularly intelligent, and will fall in battle often, but are competent enough that they won't hinder your own gameplay in an operation.
The customisation is excellent in this game. You can choose at anytime to change your character drastically, so gender, voice, hair, clothes, etc. aren't locked down once you begin, something that I really appreciated. There isn't much cooler than jumping from Yu Narukami (Persona 4) to Sinon (Sword Art Online) in a matter of seconds between operations. Your accessory can also be customised at anytime. However in the English release, the very cool feature of voice customisation in the Asian release is gone, which is disappointing. You can unlock more clothes variants as you progress through the CODE levels.
The story in Freedom Wars is serviceable, though was quite entertaining at times. The characters, while flat and undeveloped, don't hinder the story, and again have their moments of interest. Avoiding spoilers, basically you are at war with other Panopticons, while supernatural forces are also at play involving you.
The overall tone in the game really helps in immersing the player into this police state of the panopticon. Everything is presented in a technical fashion, such as changing character appearance: "Request physical remodelling". This truly helps the player feel they are prisoners in the game world.
Graphically the game won't win any awards for being a stunningly beautiful one, but the anime art style and overall world design is excellent. While there aren't many locations and many parts of the Panopticon are simply reskins, they all feel different enough, and I felt there was enough diversity in that regard for this game.
Finally the online portion of the game. There are two modes to play, Co-op or Vs.(which was included in the day 1 patch). These modes are great fun, although Vs. is very unbalanced in the favour of whoever has the better weapons. Co-op involves undertaking missions from the story with Online allies, or conducting Invasions on other panopticons to lower their GPP in the leaderboards. All in all these modes are a lot of fun, though connection issues are sometimes present.
In the end, Freedom wars is an excellent game. It's fast paced, and a lot of fun. For $30 it is extremely worth it. So I hope to meet you on the battlefield sinners, for the greater good!
Sammy: "Two high-profile PS Vita exclusives, Freedom Wars and Soul Sacrifice, will have their servers deactivated on 24th December, 2021. Both titles, published by Sony in response to its loss of Monster Hunter exclusivity, were built around co-operative play, and maintained relatively dedicated communities to this day."
Oreshika is also getting it servers shut down too. Big shame for these games. Honestly some of Vita's gems.
I'm surprised these were even still up! Loved the Vita though, had some great times with that handheld.
These games deserve sequels or remakes. It was Soul Sacrifice that even got me into Monster Hunter.
Honestly surprised they never got ported to the ps4 or even PC. Since Sony won't give the vita another shot, wht not make a Vita collection? Could have Soul Sacrifice, Freedom Wars, KZ Mercs, Uncharted Golden Abyss, Murasaki Baby, etc. As a way to conmemorate the Vita.
This why you never should have achievements/trophies locked to online only features.
VGChartz's Adam Cartwright: "Competing with other players online is ingrained into the gaming ecosystem these days, with every hardware manufacturer (even the previously resistant Nintendo) offering ways to connect to others over the internet to engage in multiplayer. Ever since SEGA blazed a trail with their gone-too-soon Dreamcast and titles such as Chu Chu Rocket and Phantasy Star Online, the console landscape changed towards embracing the internet – solidified further by Microsoft’s Xbox initiative in 2001.
On handhelds, inroads into online gaming were slower, but with the advent of Sony’s PSP in 2005 that changed again and suddenly portable experiences were offered that could also connect with other players across the world. This was refined further with their next-generation handheld the PlayStation Vita, which offered improvements like easily accessible friends lists, system-based party chat, alongside some of the best portable online games that were available at the time of its release."
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Killzone Mercenary has spectacular gameplay and great mp. Underrated game.
Helldivers was pretty awesome to have on Vita.
NFS MW worked well on Vita.
Killzone Mercenary is not only a phenomenal KZ, it has the best integrated system shared between the campaign and the online community. I wish more shooters were this incredible.
Do you remember Freedom Wars? A collaboration between Sony Interactive Entertainment's own Japan Studio, God Eater's former team Shift and Dragon Ball Xenoverse developer Dimps, it was released as one of the PS Vita's highest-profile Japanese games in 2014.
Turns out that there is at least someone at Sony who still remembers.
Great game made by very talented teams. A sequel is probably hopeless though...
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I booted it again last week and I had forgotten how fun the game was. I wish they ported it to PS4 or something along with soul sacrifice
I just checked my download list because I vaguely remember it being a PS+ title. I've got it "purchased", but I've yet to try it. Will have to download it and give it a go at some point.
I played this game for about 2 hours. Then it froze during a menu. Never touched it again.
Giuseppe Nelva, why are you writing for Twinfinite? Dualshockers to that site is a major downgrade...
Nice review!
I can't believe that the idea of being a prisoner with one million year sentence could be this fun.
Hopefully the game sold enough copies for a sequel. There are a lot of potential that sony can do in the sequel. Example we can build our own Abductor like we build a Metal Gear in Peace Walker. Or MP mode where we can put our own Abductor against other people Abductor. They also can add more variation for the thorn / ibara, maybe like poison element or something.
So yeah, vita users need to support this game!
Good review mate. I'm at Code 6 so far and I'm enjoying the game a lot. Also co-op is really good. All in all I really hope this game does well because it deserves it.
Good review, Loving the game. Been on the code 8 grind for a few weeks now but man I can't put it down.