In the European market, we’re not unfamiliar with the lines of savings created to put back in the showcases titles that, after passing a sales barrier, become eligible to be sold at a reduced price under the corresponding label, according to the manufacturing company. This is how we’ve been able to enjoy the Platinum series for Playstation -renamed in 2010 as Essentials-, the Xbox Classic selection for Microsoft consoles or the Nintendo Selects collection. All of them have in common the re-release of video games that, in general, have had a millionaire budget financing their development.

However, here we’ve never known in a direct way initiatives like the one implemented by D3 Publisher -a subsidiary company of Bandai Namco Entertainment– in 1998, with a first run for the original Playstation, exclusively in Japan. We’re talking about the Simple Series, a range of videogames developed with this reduced-price launch in mind. This resulted in products with strict technical limitations, but at the same time, in large doses of creativity -and probably substances of dubious origin- behind the development of each one of them. Over the years, this would reach other systems such as Dreamcast, Nintendo DS, Wii or Playstation Portable, while adapting to the economic requirements of each format. We find then that, for example, the Simple Series 1500 corresponded to the video games released for PSX at a retail price of around 1500 yen.

And so we come to the Simple Series 2000, and specifically, to the titles published on Playstation 2. And it’s from this branch of the project that some really interesting titles emerged, such as Vol. 95: The Zombie vs. Kyuukyuush –Zombie Virus in Europe-, which, as if it were a macabre Crazy Taxi (Hitmaker, 1999), put us in control of an ambulance driver in the middle of an epidemic of the living dead; Vol. 61: The Oneechanbara –Zombie Zone in Europe-, foundational title of the cult series Onechanbara, a hack and slash with no other pretensions than to show girls in rather skimpy costumes slaughtering automatons in a state of putrefaction -no one beats me at synonymy-; or Vol. 31: The Chikyuu Boueigun –Monster Attack in Europe-, a third-person shooter with obvious inspiration in the tokusatsu film genre -with Godzilla and his cast of kaijus as its flagship-, as well as in the American B-movies of the 50’s in which giant insect invasions were the order of the day. Such was the success of volume 31 of Simple Series 2000, that in little more than a year, the Sandlot development team had already published a direct sequel: Vol. 81: The Chikyuu Boueigun 2 –Global Defense Force in Europe-. With more than double the number of missions and the addition of a second soldier class, the formula, which we could consider focused on a very specific niche of video gamers, could only expand and continue to gain fans all over the world.

Although, since its first steps in Japan, the series was known as The Chikyuu Boueigun, it was not until its third installment that in the West it formally took the name with which it’d link with the previous releases, thus giving rise to the Earth Defense Force –EDF series for those closest to it-. From this point on, improved versions, sequels, remakes, spin-offs and alternative timelines followed one after the other until the series became “the best of the worst” in the industry. Precisely, I’d like to focus on the expanded version of Earth Defense Force 2025 (Sandlot, 2013), the fourth iteration in the franchise, called Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair (Sandlot, 2015) released for Playstation 4. Although before delving into said installment, and after giving a bit of historical context:

~Synopsis~

▶ It was the year 2013 when several scientists discovered and managed to decipher a transmission coming from deep outer space. The message received left no room for doubt: “Earth is going to be invaded. Two years later, and as a response to the extraterrestrial threat, different nations decided to join forces, creating the <<Earth Defense Force>> (Earth Defense Force).

▶ In 2017, the dreaded invasion took place. The EDF was deployed across the globe to confront the hostile aliens. It cost us countless human losses, but we managed to rise to victory.

▶ It’s 2025, and after 7 years of artificial peace, the enemies of humanity are once again making an appearance. The attack is more intense than ever. Once again, the EDF must do what it does best: save Mother Earth from any alien attack.

Through this premise, a third-person shooter video game is developed based, plain and simple, on cleaning each scenario of the consecutive hordes of insects of excessive size – ants, spiders and some other little surprise-, as well as alien machinery such as robot tripods in the purest style of The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells, 1898). So simple -or SIMPLE, if you prefer-, with no greater pretension than to simulate a planetary invasion from the point of view of a foot soldier, a real-life John Doe, always far from any realistic drama. We’re then offered the possibility of choosing between four different classes of military: Rangers, or infantrymen equipped with two weapons; Wingdivers, or what is the same, units with equipment that allows them to fly for a limited time; Air Riders, which have the possibility of requesting combat vehicles and air support, both defensive and offensive; and Fencers, who are equipped with a heavy exoskeleton and shield, which makes them more resistant but slower, being by far the most difficult unit to control. All of them, in turn, will have “available” a very varied arsenal of up to eight hundred and twenty-five weapons, which will be unlocked after farming them in each screen, that is, collecting a series of boxes that will randomly drop some enemies after defeating them, just as we can increase the health bar -here called armor-.

Throughout a campaign consisting of a whopping eighty-nine stages, we’ll visit up to a total of sixteen different scenarios -some of them devastated versions of others-, with an extension of one square kilometer, all of them located in an inexplicably reliable representation of Japan. And is that, despite suffering from graphics too basic, and why not, outdated for its generation, it’s praiseworthy the detail put when recreating that urbanism, halfway between Western modernism and nationalist traditionalism, so characteristic of the middle of the Heisei era (1989-2019), with clear reminiscences of the Shōwa period (1926-1989) still latent in the architecture of some residential neighborhoods. For me this was more than enough reason to, on more than one occasion, move away from the front line of the battle in pursuit of exploring the alleys, neighborhoods and parks that make up some of the environments. It was easy to imagine myself strolling through them, thanks above all to the coherence in the measures and distances of what was presented. I especially remember a moment when in the distance I glimpsed the Tokyo Skytree, inaugurated four years before the launch of the title. It looked small, almost pre-rendered, but even so, armed with the stubbornness that characterizes me, I set a course towards it. In about ten minutes I was at the foot of the well-known tower, and yet the streets were completely deserted. Since the playable action takes place only in an area from which it is easy to escape without hostile pursuers, and that in each phase the entire map is loaded regardless of where the invasion is concentrated, it’s quite an experience to go through the Japanese metropolis as if it were a ghost town. You can barely hear, in the distance, the shrill shrieks of giant insects and the thunderous gunfire of the military conglomerate. I tell you with total sincerity that, in this exercise of “videoludic abstraction”, I only lacked a photo mode to feel like a virtual tourist, something similar to what the Assassin’s Creed series manages to transmit, and