With the massive success of Attack on Titan in the last few
years it was obvious that we were going to start getting more and more games
based on the series, the first title “Humanity in Chains” by Spike Chunsoft for
Nintendo 3DS was a reasonable effort but not well received and found to be a
bit easy and quite boring. Now it’s the turn of Omega Force and Koei Tecmo to see what
they can do with the license, these are the guys behind a lot of anime titles and
the likes of Hyrule Warriors, the Dynasty Warriors series, and our recently
reviewed title Arslan: The Warriors of Legend, if a game has warriors in the
title there’s a chance these folks made it, except for 2005’s The Warriors,
that was Rockstar. For the uninitiated we’ll try and sum up the series for you
a sec, 100 years ago before the plot of the manga, anime and games, giant
humanoids dubbed Titans appeared and began eating everyone, the remaining
humans retreated back behind 3 giant circular walls and proceeded to live there
peacefully, until a century passes and without warning a 200 ft-tall Titan
appears at the outer wall one day and proceeds to kick a large hole in it, this
then allows all the smaller Titans to breeze in and start munching everyone
inside, including our protagonist Erin’s mother, this sets him on a path for
revenge and he enlists in the military to take the Titans down with the help of
his friends. A.O.T. Wings of freedom, as it’s known in Europe, follows
the first season of the anime closely but with a few slight tweaks along the
way, though areas that are different here are nowhere near as glaring as the
colossal holes in the live-action movies but the less said about those the
better, these cuts are understandable as the story flows nicely and leaves out
a few of the more unnecessary points. Gone is a lot of the character building and exposition, with
just enough remaining intact to keep the plot coherent and for you to actually
care for what is happening and to who, though there are a couple of noticeable
jumps in plot that create more questions than answers but only if you’re really
paying attention and more so if you’re a big fan of the series.
Wings of Freedom completely encapsulates the world of the
anime and manga, building up the characters enough that you actually care when
they die, and they will, the feeling of being under genuine threat from these
gigantic beings, and often being completely surrounded at times with a quick
escape being the only way you’ll survive, luckily these odds are evened somewhat
by your characters being equipped with omni-directional mobility (ODM) gear. Harnessed to each soldier you’ll find this kit featuring gas-powered
grappling hooks and replaceable blades for three-dimensional movement and
combat against the Titans, giving the ability to fire and attach the hooks to
your surroundings, propelling yourself around and towards your target, then
attacking said target with your blades, ideally the kill-point at the base of a
Titan’s neck or one of its limbs to temporarily disable it in order to finish
it off.
On paper and screen it all looks very complicated but Omega
Force have managed to make it very easy, few button presses are needed to
actually get going and traversing the world of A.O.T feels really nice with stunning
animation whilst using the ODM Gear, it feels as fast as you would hope and as
long as you think about it logically you can find yourself flying around the
game’s locations with a sense of having actually completing the 104th cadet training
yourself, anyone who has played Spiderman 2 will understand, wide-open spaces
means nothing to grapple onto and thus you’ll find yourself on the ground and
vulnerable. The transition from flight to fight is seamless once you get
used to it, with a press of a button locking you onto the nearest Titan and
then all grappling is on chosen area on your opponent from that point until
they’re dead, or until you find yourself needing to beat a hasty retreat to
recharge your equipment or health, as easy as the combat can be, half the
battle is making sure you don’t let your blades dull and monitoring the amount
of gas left in your tanks, without either of which your attacks will do minimal
damage and your death will be swift.
Anyone who has seen the anime will know how beautiful it is
to watch, and Wings of Freedom doesn’t disappoint in that area either, the
characters models are incredibly well detailed, everyone is instantly
recognisable, the Titans are genuinely disturbing, ranging from the smaller 5
metre easy kills to the larger 15 metre threats, each with demented looks on
the faces, awkward ways of walking and all equally as deadly. Not only are the humans and their foes nicely presented but the
locations are all beautiful too, the tightly-packed cities with their narrow
streets and rooftops surrounded by the imposing Wall Maria, the forests scattered
with trees and foliage, often obscuring approaching Titans until they’re right
on top of you, even the outer fields and plains, lush and green but with very
little to grapple to, meaning that the fastest way to travel will be on
horseback until you reach the local Titan presence. Attack mode takes you through the plot of the 1st
season of the anime, switching between characters automatically as the story
goes on, levelling up, increasing stats, upgrading your equipment and weapons,
and unlocking new cast members to take control of in the other mode available,
Expedition, this can be played with or without other players online, and features
various scouting, attack and destroy or escorting missions, all starting off
easy and gradually becoming more difficult but giving better rewards as you
progress. That being said, the variation in quests is minimal, with
everything mostly boiling down to, go to this location, kill Titans, someone
needs your help, kill Titans, and this area is under attack, kill all the
Titans, this would be a big problem if the killing of said Titans wasn’t so
much fun, swooping around from place to place until you find your target,
locking onto them and ridding them of their limbs until going in for the final
strike is so satisfying, it’s exactly what we all wanted in a game based on
this series. The controls work so well that it feels almost
effortless as you swing around amongst the buildings and trees, which becomes
even easier as you upgrade your equipment, with longer lasting gas tanks and
sharper blades, nothing about the way it all handles is wrong, if you make a
mistake it is your fault, keep getting killed by the Titans? It’s not the game,
it’s you.
The soundtrack mimics that of the anime very well and really
helps ramp up the excitement during tense moments, the Japanese cast all voice
their respective characters, and you’ll even notice the occasional murmur or creepy
chuckle coming from the Titans themselves, couple this with the distant screams
of people in peril, the swishing of blades slicing flesh, and the whooshing of
your team-mates flying around you, everything helps to create a world that is
very much alive and under threat. Our only real grumbles with this game are so minor but we
thought we’d mention them because the game isn’t completely perfect and we
wouldn’t want to give a false impression of it being completely faultless, you’re
so small compared to most of the enemies that sometimes you can find getting
stuck between buildings or objects and Titans, this can be frustrating and
often deadly, and when playing online we felt there should be a tally for each
player’s kills rather than an overall for everyone to help promote a little
harmless competition. Phil also believes there should be a harder difficulty
setting but he’s a maniac who only ever enjoys a game if you there’s a chance
you can die even before you’ve passed the title screen. Let’s sum up, we like this game, we like it a
lot, maybe we’re biased because we both love the Attack on Titan series but as
from our previous reviews, if we think a game is bad, we’ll tell you, A.O.T
Wings of Freedom is genuine fun, it’s easy to pick up and hard to put down, and
much like it’s source material, is wholly original and legitimately
entertaining with what it does.
A.O.T.: Wings of Freedom is out now on PS4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows