EARTH DEFENSE FORCE: IRON RAIN brings some interesting new ideas to the EDF franchise, though with an overall more amateur experience attached.

For starters, weapons and gear are now locked behind grinding for currencies -- which I might add, can be purchased as DLC. Speaking of DLC, you'll also pick up DLC weapons which are then added to your armory, but you can only use them after buying the DLC pack itself. Tantalizing, isn't it?

-There's substantially less dialogue during the course of missions, with barely any of the goofy charm in what remains. Roughly half of all dialogue is given through cutscenes that are more akin to loading screens.
-MKB controls have a deadzone that can't be turned off.
-Players with high ping can no longer use vehicles. They rubberband infinitely.
-Enemies are less destructible, and their corpses immovable.
-The game heavily guides you toward grinding for currency, despite having far less missions than the previous two games.
-In my experience, the tutorial and first mission both lacked stagger animations and blood on enemy ants. This fixed itself on mission two.
-Monsters, as well as item locations can be desynced among players, leading to two people going after the same item in separate locations, and one shooting at a building from the view of another.
-The default text language is Japanese, rendering half the text Japanese until you finish the tutorial, reach character customization, then alt + f4 to access language options from the now-available main menu
-You obtain your third PA gear (class) after mission 12, and your fourth after mission 15. There are only 52 missions, so why were two of the four locked behind 1/5th of the game when neither 4.1, nor 5 thought to do this? Limitation for the sake of limitation, which is indicative of the gameplay sickness that sets IRON RAIN apart from its better contemporaries.
-Mouse & keyboard controls are absolutely dreadful. It's one of the worst controlling experiences I've had in a modern video game.
-One of the first things I did was disable in-game voice chat. Imagine my annoyance when my friends alerted me that they could hear me in the lobby. My setting was still 'Off', yet it was on. I then changed it to 'On' and voice chat turned off. I had to do this in reverse a mission later once we were back in the lobby again.

The only positives on offer are that it's prettier now, and it's a novel --though not superior, or even equal -- experience. As an enduring fan of the EDF series, I was excited to see a different take on their simplistic, immaculate formula. I'm left with no more than a bitter taste in my mouth and disdain upon thinking of what could've been.

Update: MKB controls were largely fixed, and feel much better than they did upon launch.

⚖️ Grade = B+. Worth a play, if you enjoy versus 30+ enemies at a time. However, if you're looking for versus 200+ enemies at a time, don't play it

✔️ Coop mission = Offline + Online
✔️ Impressive description about weapons
✔️ Variety of weapons + equipments
✔️ Powerful swords
✔️ Player customization
❌ Squad commands
❌ Content up to 30+ hours
❌ Remove useless gun
❌ Score / Time Attack for replay value


🏅 Community Rating: Mixed
🔎 Long Version Checklist ➜ Reveal
📢 Mocking on Short Hours + Criticize ➜ Write here

* Much better graphic with modern interface menu
* Lower number of mission = 52 vs 110+
* Replace method to earn weapon: No random drops by difficulty range, but become unlock-able after complete mission
* Added cutscene can see player character
* Added score attack for replay value
* Unlockable Mech
* Able to carry 8 Sentry Guns
* Able to summon a tank to pilot
* Homing laser
* Gimmicky guns = Interesting description, but useless
* Lack of difficulty details

* EDF: Iron Rain = Spin-off with new mechanics
* Fancy character customization, but require unlock them
* Two guns are the maximum to carry
* Completion Time / Score result will not keep
* High difficulty doesn't give better reward, but number of kills.
* Bot companion isn't real helpful
* Immovable corpses
* Lack of dialogue

* 2019: Game released & didn't wish-list this
* 2021: I choose this version because more customization
* 2 hours gameplay later: I enjoyed it
* 8 hours gameplay later: I still enjoying it

* Vastly different type of EDF ➜ Sacrifice enemy numbers for better visuals
* Heavy grinding for currency ➜ True
* Annoying microtransactions ➜ Isn't affect the game, and mostly for cosmetic

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Iron Rain suffers from what I like to call Spirits Within-itis. See, years ago when Final Fantasy: Spirits Within came out, everyone was excited for a Final Fantasy movie, then it had nothing to do with Final Fantasy and everyone hated it. If it had removed "Final Fantasy" from its title and was just called Spirits Within, it may not have sold as much tickets, but people wouldn't hate on it for not being Final Fantasy. And that's EDF: Iron Rain. It's not EDF. The giant ants are there, and there's some similarities, but it's not an EDF game.

That being said, I do enjoy this game for what it is. It's an "EDF" game made by a different company. It's more story cutscene driven and takes itself more seriously than the self aware main EDF games.

Biggest differences:
Weapons are bought and unlocked rather than found
There's some character customization
Air Raiders are replaced by Attack On Titan
Weapon stats don't increase like EDF5
52 missions instead of EDF5's base 107
Weapons arent tied to one class and can be used by all classes
HP increase is bought with crystals you gather from dead enemies rather than found in armor boxes
Vehicles just suck
Each class has an overdrive limit break thing with varying effects

If it was just marketed as Iron Rain, rather than part of the EDF series it might be getting a bit less dislike. If you enjoyed EDF: Insect Armageddon, you'll probably enjoy this one. If you preferred EDF4.1, just get EDF5.

tl;dr: EDF4.1/5 is super campy explosion fun time arcade mode, Iron Rain is super serious gruff story time

I bought this game day one, having played EDF 4.1 and EDF 5 extensively, I am a huge fan of the EDF series and was incredibly excited to experience a more western take on one of my favorite series of all time.

+The Graphics are much better, the game looks good in terms of environments and lighting
+Character customization is a huge bonus, being able curate what sort of character I play is a very welcome addition
+The Prowl Rider is a fantastic new class, and I hope to see it added to the next Entry in the series
+Dr. Mengel is the best scientist character out of any of the games, O'hara and the british lady just don't live up to dr doofenshmirtz' slightly more brain-damaged cousin.
+The changes to the classes, and turning them into equippable "loadouts" is also very welcome, and gives a better feeling of freedom to someone who enjoys constantly mixing up playstyles, male Wing diver is a dream come true.

There's a lot of things this game does that deviates it from the two "definitive" other EDF games, a lot of bold choices that must be given credit, But I can't recommend this to someone as their first EDF, maybe give it a shot if you're already used to the series but don't pick it up as your first.

-The game is lacking in one of it's most important aspects, monster zergs, focusing more on enemies that are tougher to kill than the series staple FPS-dropping, screen filling, pants crapping oceans of enemies that will overwhelm you faster than you can say "EDF"
-The voice acting in previous games was always this big talking point when telling people about the series, how it was super corny and bad and it enhanced the game, but I feel as if those descriptions didn't do justice, the voice acting wasn't godawful, the writing was pretty bad but the localization team put their heart and soul into every line and you could feel that passion, it helped deliver the sub-par writing and ascended it into a work of art. In this game, it's not the same, the writing isn't good, nor is it terrible, and the actors feel as if they're phoning in their lines in an attempt to recapture that cheesiness from previous entries.
-The weapons are underwhelming. the early weapons feel awkward and difficult to use, the starting weapons in the other games were bad stat-wise, but they still felt good enough that you didn't feel helpless until you got a better weapon, the best feeling is getting a super powerful weapon like the Lysander, Walking fortress Balam or the Stardust cannon and feeling accomplished because you'd just opened the gates of hell and your enemies were about to feel the heat. in Iron rain, I can't name a single weapon that I've unlocked that I've actually enjoyed using, most of my time has been spent running in circles waiting for reloads or recharges on weapons that don't have enough punch to them, and feel like I'm shining a laser pointer at my enemies.
-No walking fortress Balam or other giant mech suits, come on YUKE'S, best part of the game and it's not there.
-No catchy song for you and your comrades to scream as your entrails are flung thirty city blocks away
-Wolf spiders, you've given me nightmares, you monsters.

Overall, I can commend YUKE'S for their effort and their obvious love for the series, the game falls short on too many fronts for me to recommend to a newcomer, but I hope that they can continue to develop games in the EDF series and improve upon what they've built so far.

I tried to like this game, a lot, but I cant.
This is a micro-transaction ridden piece of ♥♥♥♥.
All the good elements of other EDF games, from the gear progression to the cheesy dialog are all gone; Instead you have a game that wants to take itself seriously but fails MISERABLY at it; Incredibly dull gameplay with some of the crapiest feeling guns in the entire series (even the simple 1000 entries in the series had better feeling guns) and, worst of all, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MICRO-TRANSACTION RIDDLED PROGRESSION.

Here is how a normal EDF game progression goes: During missions you collect armor and weapon drops, after a mission you get to see what weapons you got, the harder the mission and dificulty played the better the gear, with all armor drops adding to your maximum health

Here is how progression goes on Iron Rain: The game automatically unlocks weapons over time, only in order to use them you have to buy them with the in-game currency first, the same goes for increasing your health. You get about 1000 in game currency at average per mission
later upgrades cost 100000+ or cost multiple types of currency... So basically you either grind the INCREDIBLY DULL missions over and over again, or you cave in and buy the currency with real money.

Only partially good thing about this game is the customization... which is incredibly barebones AND also requires you to pay with the in-game currency to unlock parts later on.

A partiliar issue of mine with this game, as someone who played almost every entry in the series, is the maps
as far as I can remember, there are about 5 or 6 maps total in this game, said maps are ridiculously tiny and get repeated constantly; Previous EDF games also re-use maps a lot, with one key diference- the maps in older games are HUGE, and the way missions are structured you're actually unlikely to notice you're re-using the same maps later on; The game often taking steps to modify them in small ways or even big ways, or even just starting at completely oposite ends (which, with how huge the maps are, you are unlikely to get to a familiar location unless you're playing wing diver or the like).
Not in Iron Rain as, again, the maps are tiny, and you often start in the exact same location over and over again.

Dont buy this game like I did; Dont support the scummy monetization they went for with this, again like I did (because I am a massive idiot)
just hope the next EDF game ditches the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ micro-transaction in game currency ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

I can overlook all the other technical issues, but AIM ACCELRATION THAT CAN'T BE TURNED OFF?
It's unplayable!

WHEN WILL DEVS UNDERSTAND THAT AIM ACCELERATION SUCKS?

It NEEDS an option to turn off aim acceleration. Until then, stay away from it.

**EDIT**
the game was patched after two weeks, and after trying the game i'd say go play EDF5 instead.
Iron Rain is just boring.
I played 200 hours of EDF5, i can't bring myself to play more than 5 hours of Iron Rain.

Update, I beat the game. It only gets worse. My nephew wanted to play more EDF games and I reinstalled this because we havent milked it for all it's worth. And I still havent. The level design is increasingly awful. "Haha you know what would be a fun boss fight? It we added 13 giant bosses that all can instantly move across the map and knock you down haha yeah that sounds like a fun idea. What do you mean you cant beat it because it constantly keeps you on the ground in a giant pile of spinning enemies that knock you down from the second you spawn until you die its fun guys haha"

Absolutely AWFUL. I cannot BELIEVE they make EVERYTING IN THE GAME knock you down, make you cover your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ eyes so you cant shoot or make you stumble so you cant do anything. 90% of this game is spent stumbling. All the weapons SUCK. I just unlocked a LATE GAME WEAPON. it has 5 ammo and does 13 damage.... Why would I want that? I have lazer cannons from halfway through the game on hard that do 8k damage in a massive radius for 10 seconds. Why would I want two little pistols that do 13 damge, shoot 5 times and take 8 seconds to reload? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pathetic I hate this game so much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good lord. I wanted to give this game a chance because my nephew loves playing EDF co-op with me. I thought that less enemies would be better for him since he's bad at swarms of enemies. I thought better graphics for less enemies was fine, I thought less enemy variety was okay because we just want to mess around and shoot ants. I even had a good bit of fun for the first few levels and bought the expansion pack.

But this game plays horribly. There's lots of fresh ideas brought into the game, that I'd like to see in the next installment, but the execution of this game is just awful. And the more things I unlock, the more things I was excited to try, the more the mechanics of this game get in the way of anything fun happening and the more frustrated and angry I get at the engine.

I've read some reviews talking about how level design was bad, but this is honestly not even my biggest issue.
It's the handling.
It's simple small things that look like they werent ever tested in gameplay past "okay this gun shoots it's good to go."
Remember chain guns from EDF 5 or 4.1? Remember how if you stop shooting for a split second your gun keeps spinning and you can instantly shoot again? Yeah that doesnt happen anymore. 4 second windup? Wind blew in your eyes and you need to wipe your eyes off? It only took 0.2 seconds? 4 more seconds of windup.
Fully charged your sword? 3 second windup? Ready to shoot it? Too bad, an explosion didnt hurt you but was too close and you lost your footing for 0.2 seconds. Charge for 3 more seconds. Oh, charged your sword up again and nothing went wrong? Well you were sprinting when you let go of the trigger so it just vanished into the void. Spent the ammo, lost the charge, nothing happened because I was sprinting. No animation, its just gone.

So many things in this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game make you stumble. It literally made me want to punch my screen. These robots, if there's 2 of them near you when you stumble, you're LITERALLY not moving until you die because they're stepping on the ground too heavily near you and you'll stumble. Even if you dont take damage. Whats that? you have 3k health? This drone shot you with one of its 20 bullet sprays for 2 damage and you stumbled.

So many of the guns in this game are just unusable. It's like you have to grind out every level just to find usable guns. "OH WOAH THIS ROCKET LAUNCHER DOES 7777 DAMAGE BUT shoots in a random direction."
"WOAH THIS GUN HAS A 0.01% chance to do 10k damage but does 8 damage".

Okay cool, a gun that is kind of hard to use with decent payoff. 7 second charge for 2k damage. Time to hit the boss, oh wait an enemy came in the corner of my lock on screen at the last second and it locked on it instead. Nice. I'm glad the homing rockets will change OFF what it was locking in on for 6 seconds to hit that tiny enemy on the last second that came in view for half a second.

Lets get to the vehicles. Helicopters literally are impossible to handle. They just spin in circles if you tap any side direction. Completely disobey laws of physics, going forward takes too much leaning to get anywhere and then your momentum is nearly impossible to stop.
Speaking of momentum, try driving a 10 ton tank and bumping an AI soldier, you come to a complete stop. They'll fall to the ground, get up and stand there. You're now stuck because moving into soldiers stops you entirely and they just stand inside your tank. I've lost multiple vehicles to this.

On the note of AI soldiers, they quite literally just shoot in random directions. You know how many times I've had my camera blocked by a line of soldiers shooting 180 degrees in the wrong direction of the things that are killing them? They will literally stand on a wall and shoot at nothing. It feels like if you get too close to them they start to mimic your movement as well, which means if they stand in your camera and you try to strafe away, they'll ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ FOLLOW YOUR CAMERA AND BLOCK YOUR VISION.

Another note of blocking your vision, if any trees fall in your way, which happens most levels that I played so far, and you're trying to shoot something behind the tree, you literally start shooting in a different direction. I had a tree fall behind me, and I noticed my person was shooting like 50 degrees to the right for no reason. Another tree fell infront of me, shot above the spot I was aiming at. Some spaghetti code somewhere makes you shoot around trees. I dont know how this game got released in this state.

Absolutely infuriating. Even my nephew didnt like this game.

This game just feels like it wasnt tested at all. So So SO many features feel like someone just checked if they worked and never actually tested them in combat. Again, I love the customization, I loved some of the new ideas in some of the guns, I love the new gun classes (like laser guns, rail guns, slug shotguns), I dont mind spending currency for guns, I dont mind only having 2 gun slots, new class system was acceptable, new consumable system was decent although I hated how expensive vehicles were to use in a mission. The game just plays bad. Very badly. I would love if this game was just remade on the other engine. It would play well, more enemies would fit on the screen, blah blah blah. This engine is just absolutely awful. It does make me excited for the next EDF game because the ideas in this that are new are alot of fun. The game itself just does not play well.

I have played multiple EDF games and I really want to enjoy this but I could not get past the low resolution and the bad mouse & keyboard controls. For a PC game this is just ridiculous.

First time I launched the game, the ingame text changed itself from English to what I think was Japanese. A restart was required to change it at the main menu. It was fine after selecting English again.

Now let me clarify what the issue is with the resolution.
The highest resolution for the game offers is 1920x1080 but the internal resolution ingame is a lower. I'd say it feels closer to 1280x720.
Anti-aliasing didn't help much due to the low resolution and I thought it actually looked worse with it on.
The cutscenes/movies looked a lot better than the actual gameplay for me.
The Field of View (FOV) felt very narrow for a PC game but it is playable. It is not customizable so please be aware of this if you get nauseous from low FOV.

The keyboard controls isn't necessarily bad but it felt like some inputs were dropped.
The mouse on the other hand feels like no one has ever played a PC game. It feels more like an analog stick with a deadzone and poor sensitivity controls.

I tried playing multiplayer alone as host and joining with random people but I had lag spikes every 3-5 seconds that made the camera swing me all over the place.
In singleplayer, I did not suffer from any lag spikes.

WHAT TO EXPECT: Action third-person shooter. Story-driven campaign with well-rendered cutscenes. Colourful visuals. Consistent voice-acting. Extensive arsenal of unlockable weapons and support items. Customise appearance with dozens of unlockable cosmetics. Fight and defeat 38x enemies. Use vehicles and war mechs. Terrible allied AI. Basic enemy AI. Singleplayer. Online co-op for four. Split screen co-op. Mercenary versus mode.
ACHIEVEMENTS: VARIED. KILLS. PLAYING MISSIONS. SOME GRINDY.
STATUS: COMPLETE.
WHEN TO BUY: FOR CULT FANS OF THE FRANCHISE.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2468993551
More info below....

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain (EDF:IR) continues the saga of humanity's titanic struggle against an invading army of giant ants and robots from outer space. It is a story-driven, third-person, action shooter with smart cutscenes delivering a narrative that advances the plot through consistent voice-acting. It boasts updated visuals and over fifty missions in the main campaign. More available in DLC.

Players take on the role of a EDF solider deployed to defend what remains of Earth against these alien aggressors. Before a mission starts a PA-Gear (armoured suit) is chosen from six classes. Each with a special ability that determines how the player will fight on the battlefield. From an extensive arsenal of weapons two are chosen from fourteen classes. Support equipment can be sequestered from an large inventory. There are devices for healing, resurrection, energy regeneration, protection and reloading speed. Destructive assets such as vehicles, sentry guns, grenades, mines and fire-support can also be added. Though carry capacity is limited.

During their assignments players shoot to kill a raft of aliens with the aim of meeting one or more simplistic objectives. Usually by destroying all alien presence in the vicinity. On completion players receive a rating and scores across four categories. A number of weapons and cosmetics are unlocked, and funds awarded to purchase upgrades. Of which there are alot. During the battle enemies drop gems when killed. Green ones provide a dose of healing. While red, blue and yellow ones are required for unlocking certain equipment.

Four modes are supported. Singleplayer campaign. Online coop campaign with up to four player. Split-screen coop campaign and a Mercenary versus mode. The campaign has five difficulties that scale accordingly. More or less.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2469468065
+ Beautifully rendered visuals and animations.
+ 50+ missions in the main game. 14x additional in DLC.
+ 6x diverse PA-Gears (armour types). Well-balanced in terms of carry capacity, defence and mobility.
+ An extensive arsenal of weapons across 14 categories.
+ Around 38x fairly varied enemies. Ants, spiders, scorpions, robots, rebel humans, large spacecraft and huge monsters.
+ 8x categories of support equipment inc. explosives, fire-support, buffing and resurrecting devices.
+ Hugh range character customisation. Inc. gender, face, hair style, weight, voice and outfit.

- Slow progression. From earning money to unlocking weapons, items and cosmetics.
- Loading screens between missions and setup screens.
- 30sec end-period to physically collect any dropped energy gems. Useless and unnecessary.
- Allied NPC AI is bad. Doesn't shoots at enemies. Contributes nothing.
- Terrible cadaver modelling. Dubious ragdoll physics with dead aliens.
- Inadequate stats. Does not show how many more items are required to be unlocked and purchased.
- Undynamic missions. Virtually the same gameplay across difficulties. Apart from higher numbers.
- Graphical glitches when riding in vehicles.
- Wasted effort if a bad loadout was selected.

* Vaguely interesting to lacklustre battles against invading space creatures.
* Enjoyable gunplay with some weapons. Others proved a waste of time.
* A campaign of 52x missions. Across 5 difficulties.
* Reuses half-dozen maps with day / night and other slight variations.
* Armours have a unique overdrive ability to get out of trouble.
* An energetic soundtrack that adds to the ambience.
* Singleplayer, online coop or split-screen coop supported. Mercenary vs mode.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2468990689
EDF:IR kept to the tried and trusted format of previous spin-offs. One that most fans would agree is the lesser of the two. For all the upgrades and changes, the quality barely budged. At least being a modern incarnation the visuals were neat, better looking than other games in the series.

Gameplay remained lightweight. Combat at times a pale imitation of the enjoyable, chaotic, over the top nature of games from the main franchise [so I've been told - many a time!] This could be attributable to several factors. The constant closing down by AI enemies barely allowed the time to act. PA-Gear abilities that required constant breaks between using them, to conserve energy for re-use.

Missions felt samey. There were just not enough enemies to kill. Something that gave such satisfaction while playing EDF:IA. Missions were over too quickly on easier difficulties. The AI guilty of being a walkover. Also seemingly designed for certain weapon and armour combos in mind. Getting these wrong ended up detracting from the experience. At least on the hardest difficulties. Why the game does not possess saveable loadouts for each mission or a mechanism to suggest possible candidates remains a mystery. At least the use of support equipment provided some very welcome tactical nuance.

Weapons so often the salvation of many an action shooter proved a mixed bag. Some where great. Others red-herrings to waste hard-earned gems and funds. Add to this a protracted need to earn money to collect every unlockable for 100% completion and the feeling of artificially prolonged play was inescapable. Despite the larger number of missions, these would need to be replayed across several difficulties. If not all of them.

For a game designed with replayability in mind it lacked diverse mission objectives and dynamicity in mission design. The AI was one dimensional making allies worthless and enemies regimented cannon fodder. Unfortunately online coop is dead. Spent every day of a fruitless search for online games. Only managed to enter two games and got kicked from one before it started. Initiating my own lobbies at different times of the day proved as fruitless, as no one entered. Why passcode protect the only online game being played, with two people!!

EDF:IR seems to be in the camp of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it.' The thing is alot of this format is broken! The graphics, story, mission count and unlockable content were okay. Combat felt lacklustre at times. At least the gunplay retained interest, keeping me playing but only when better weapons finally became available. The grind for cash to unlock so many items was a real pain. Just another artificial incentive to prolong play.

This game is on a knife edge. I wanted to like it more than I did but the enjoyment factor is barely there. Having enjoyed the combat and gunplay more in EDF:IA, this version just did not excite me as much in comparison. A real shame because it actually looked a step-up. Can only see this game's appeal to be limited. On easier modes it may be a good fit for those who enjoy casual third-person action shooters. Otherwise it is strictly for hardcore fans of this [by now] cult franchise.

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Bought this game luckily on a sale as I love the edf mainline franchise like 4.1 and 5.

I knew going in that this game would play differently and was looking if I liked it just to know the spinoff series same as with insect armageddon.

Sadly even tho I like the option of customisation inside the game, the way the game plays and throws enemies at you just feels lacking.

The guns feel too lackluster compared to edf 4.1 and 5 and it feels like the weapons do little to no damage and then suddenly an enemy dies.

The AI are also a mess and do not help in any way, mostly blasting in a random direction instead of at enemies.

I love the enemy designs and how stuff looks, but it just feels like a small arena shooter where random enemies pop-up suddenly and get thrown at you at medium to close range and one has to shoot them.

There is no real feeling of urgency or the feeling of a greater world war, just a small skirmish, rince and repeat.

If one gets this game on sale, fun might be had perhaps with friends, but I feel it is lacking and if looking for an edf game to start with get edf 5 or 4.1 instead, just avoid this one.

I also detest that they added micro transactions to ease getting new guns and unlocks/armor in the game, this is in my opinion a badly spun off franchise that is just lacking in every way.

Addendum : after playing together with a friend fun can and will be had, but the mainline games are just better. If one truly wants it as collecting anything edf related, get it on a sale and make sure one has friends to play it together with.