Freedom Wars: First impressions

With the demo of Freedom Wars out, I figured I'd give it a spin to see how it played. The game could be pretty good, but there's some things that based on what I saw, could make me enjoy the game more.

First off, the game plays... well, you could say it plays kinda slow, or you could say it plays technically. Sword swings feel a bit sluggish and seem to stop your momentum cold, though at the same time, you could say that makes melee combat more calculated as opposed to being reflex-based. The other thing about melee combat though, is that the big attacks you do are charge attacks - and you're rooted in place while you charge, which I don't like. As a small consolation, you can combo into your charge attack, and if you just-frame cancel into it, you get an instant level 1 charge out of the attack. The window is a little tight, though.

Another thing that struck me was the amount of trouble they were having with all their control schemes. No matter which one I used, there was something that felt off. I think my big problem was that I want R to be the shot button when I've got my guns on, so that I can use the right stick to aim while I shoot... but I want melee attacks to be on the face buttons, which don't play well with right stick usage. The only control scheme which lets you have it both ways switches the Ibara button depending on if you've got guns or swords up, which is a little disorienting since you use that all the time as well. I think the lack of a second shoulder button is what's hurting the controls, since they really don't have any other choice.

There are a couple of other control problems as well. You can't jump unless you do it as an Ibara follow-up, which feels a little strange to me. The dodge step you can do while running is always to the right, and you can only fire your guns from behind cover if the left analog stick is dead-center neutral... and mind you, you can't actually move once you take cover, so it shouldn't even matter if the left stick is pointing in any direction. Personally, I would have liked the ability to at least crouch walk behind a barricade, and to be able to pop in and out of cover with my guns like Gears of War. I mean, I realize this isn't a Gears game, but at least let the player adjust his position once he's behind cover.

Locking on to targets can be a little unnnatural as well - you can't lock on to something until your aiming crosshairs are already over it. This makes locking on to small enemies a little difficult, and would have preferred a more God Eater approach to locking on, where the game always has a target that it's ready to give you when you hold the L button. As it stands, the only big targets are the Abductors, which still require a bit of camera coaxing to lock on to.

I never really liked rescue missions either, and this game is full of them - that's the entire point of the game. But when you're rescuing a civilian, you have to carry them, and that means your movements become restricted. You can't attack, you can't really move side to side all that well either. All you can do is run kinda slowly, or run in a mostly straight line forward. I could get used to this as long as it's not too bad, but it still seems like the game wants to... well, take away my freedom to progress in the game. I say that, but there's a difference between narrative freedoms (like the jail sentences you get handed for little things) and gameplay freedom (restricting you from taking actions you normally are able to).

The big plus sides of the game I couldn't sample more of though. Ibara actions are obviously going to make or break the game - for everything I've written about awkward controls, they all go away when you start moving with the Ibara and using all its follow-ups. The Ibara feels natural, it allows you to interact with your environment in a way that a lot of games don't let you do... and it lets you do all that in style. Unfortunately, the demo ended before I could really play with the Ibara, and they let me use one type of Ibara when I wanted to see what the other two could do.

So, it's a little hard to say whether or not Freedom Wars will be a masterpiece game or an innovative game that needs better execution, but it's still something that I'd like to play. It's just I'm probably not going to be in a hurry to check it off my list, and knowing what Shift did with God Eater, they might release an update later on that makes traditional movement feel more natural.