I am gooooooood (eater)!

Seeing as I've just picked up God Eater 2, I figured I'd do a review on the first games. I actually picked up the original God Eater before Burst came out, and the changes between each were pretty... dramatic.

The first God Eater was Namco Bandai's attempt at a hunter game, but it's a game that was known for its difficulty. Thing is, I felt that most of the difficulty came from the fact that it was slow-paced.

Slow-paced, in the fact that you had to think a few seconds in advance before you did anything. Getting hit in the game hurts a lot, but what's more is that it also takes control away from you for a relatively long period of time. Since comboing also takes some time, the game was all about predicting a stretch of time where you could attack safely, then... attacking.

The biggest frustration though, was the fact that when you got hit, sometimes you'd come out of hit stun just as another attack was coming at you (and again, they hurt a lot). Sometimes, when another character revived you, you'd wake up instantly into an attack. So, there was a good chance that one attack would lead to you getting hit enough times to take you out (or close), and it would take several seconds to watch it out.

Seeing this, I didn't think I'd get Burst, but I saw it at Suruga-ya for like... what, eight bucks? So I thought, sure. Why not?

... As it turns out, God Eater Burst is a vastly improved version of the original God Eater. Biggest difference: it plays faster. The Predator attack can be used on reflex (instead of having to be set up). You can recover out of hit stun. When someone revives you, you can choose not to get up immediately if it's pretty hot where you are. These were the biggest changes, and they made the gameplay more reflex-based.

So, I had fun playing Burst for the most part. I mean, it's no Devil May Cry or anything, but it was still a good game (and yes, I compare all action games to DMC, for good reason). It probably would have been even better if I could have played multiplayer with others, but bringing the NPCs along was still nice.

The other part about the gameplay though, is that there is a random drop grinding part to this game. You see, there's a lot of drops from enemies in this game, but you use those enemy drops to upgrade your equipment. Sometimes getting them takes a while, even when you know how to get them... which means you can get to a certain point in the game, but then have to stop and run a bunch of missions so you can upgrade your equipment. The worst was when I ran one mission 23 times for one drop, which was at best a 5% drop.

Aside from that, there were a lot of graphical updates in Burst, so part of me wonders if Bandai Namco released the original knowing they'd be making the updated Burst version. I bought used though, so no money went directly to them.

But as I said, I had fun with the game, even though there were times when I had to run the same missions over and over again for the upgrades.

As always, my setup. I went Short Blade/Sniper/Buckler.

Wild Sword: Laoyang (Hold +++, Combomaster)
Mass Driver (Divine Defense, Stamina Regeneration +, Hidden Attack, Silent)
Immunity Buckler (Status Attack +, Widened Guard Area, Resolve)
Anomaly (Burst: Status Attack +, Burst: Status Resist)
Retaliation Squad (Extermination, Charisma)
Special Moves (Stamina +, Double Jump)

Favorite NPCs were Alisa (with the link burst), Annette (with even more paralysis), and Canon (with the lulz).

... And by the way, the Vita's built-in speakers suck something fierce. I recommend a pair of headphones.