It is easy to compare God Eater Burst to any other Monster Hunter game. Both of these action RPGs have you running around with a party of four, battling giant creatures and harvesting their organs for your new hat. While between missions you use all the body parts, scrap metal, and plants you find to construct bigger and better equipment, in hopes of using your new items to take on more ferocious enemies. Now comparisons like this are unavoidable, but calling God Eater Burst nothing but a Monster Hunter clone would not be doing this game justice. The quick pacing of the missions, variable combat, and slow but satisfying storyline sets Gods Eater Burst far enough apart from the Monster Hunter series. It is not a perfect game by any means as some people will become frustrated with the controls and camera and I predict die hard Monster Hunter fans will scoff at the abridged style of the game. With these points in mind, it was difficult to deny the satisfaction of hunting giant monsters with my friends that Gods Eater Burst gave me.
What is appealing about God Eater Burst is the infusion of a story and setting that is actually appealing to the player. After a satisfying character creation you are tossed right into an anime style story (read – LONG) that takes place in the Far East in the not so distant apocalyptic future. It revolves around a core group of “God(s) Eaters” who are all part of an anti-monster organization known as Fenrir. Your job as the new recruit is to lead your party of 4, mission by mission to eradicate the earth of monsters called “Aragami”. I will warn you that the story begins off very slowly but it eventually develops into an engrossing experience filled with voice acting and over 100 missions for you and your friends to co-operatively tackle. If you don’t have any friends, the game fills in the empty positions with competent AI party members.
Aragami come in all different shapes and sizes
The mission structure is completely piece-meal and it works perfectly for being a portable game. You head to the kiosk and pick from the list of missions (sorted by difficulty) then away you go. Like any good creature pursuing game, preparation is essential before you head into battle. Unlike the others in the genre the quest giver actually drops you some serious hints about what the Aragami weakness is. I don’t have time to waste when I am on the go with portable games so these pro-tips were a keystone in my efficiency and success throughout the game.
The missions themselves take between five and ten minutes, depending on the level of difficulty. It was awesome to be able to hop into a mission, find the creature, slay it, and head home all within a matter of minutes. The ease of access into God Eater Burst was much different than any other game of this nature and it drove me to play more. The only detriment I finally came across was the repetition of the mission structure. The game did not once deviate from the routine of head out, kill monster X/Y/Z, come back for loot. I wish there was some diversity in the missions as I did not really have to change any of my tactics from mission to mission. Every time I ran as fast as I could with my giant sword ready to slice whatever came in my way and this did the trick every time.