Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom is based upon the manga and anime series for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One and PC. It covers the events of season one of the anime as well as bits of season two. It is recommended to have already watched the anime as the game does a high level retelling which lacks a lot of the explanations and assumes the player already knows the background details. Despite that, the game does flesh out events that happened in the background of the manga and anime that we never got to see. It's quite fun to actually play out how the Survey Corps captured the two titans, and what they were doing when the battle in the Trost District was happening.
The game is cel-shaded and looks fantastic. While it doesn't use the music from the anime, what we have is still some adrenaline pumping beats that suits the fast paced action. The game is developed by Koei Tecmo, the same developers behind the Dynasty Warriors series and you can see elements of it in the game. The combat is a bit more varied thanks to the omni-directional maneuvering gear that the series is known for. While it looks flashy and complicated using the anchors fired from the gear attached to the characters' hips, it's as simple as pressing one button and the game does the rest. It doesn't diminish how fun it is to swing around the place.
As you approach a titan you lock on using the shoulder button and then can reel yourself in at high speed to unleash an attack. Titans can only be defeated by cutting the napes below their necks but you can also cut off their limbs to make this easier. While the controls and mechanics are easy, as it is all in real time, the camera can swing wildly and you lose track of where you are due to the motion blur and various text popping up onscreen when you kill a titan. You will need to get your angle correct too since attacking them head on naturally means you can't cut their nape. It's easy to swap targets and swing to the right angle. Trees, buildings and other titans can get in the way of your line too. That's about the gist of the combat system and it's fun for the first few hours before it starts to become repetitive.
The story is told via pre-rendered and in-game cutscenes. As mentioned, it is a high level summary of the anime and skips many of the non-combat scenarios. Despite that, the cutscenes can still be lengthy. The game only has Japanese voiceovers and since it uses the same voice actors as the anime, you really do feel like you're playing the anime.
The premise is that titans suddenly appears, not much is known about them except they come in various sizes and only targets humans to eat them. Humanity managed to build three walls to keep them out and managed to have peace for a hundred years before the wall is suddenly broken down and the titans come rushing in. Eren, along with his childhood friends Mikasa and Armin, joins the army and train in order to eliminate the titans. There are various playable characters and each one is slightly different. While they all have the same swinging and slashing mechanic, they each have their own ability. Mikasa can slash consecutively, while Eren can turn into a titan and Levi is a powerhouse. This gives a little bit of extra variety but ultimately doesn't change anything too much.
The general structure of the game is that you watch a bunch of cutscenes and then start off at your base. At your base, you can upgrade equipment, change equipment and interact with characters. You then play through stages, mainly eliminate as many titans as possible and then get a ranking at the end. You obtain materials and money after each stage which is used to repeat the process and get stronger. Each character also has their own levels, gaining skills upon leveling up.
The game's story mode isn't too long, containing four chapters. The first three chapters covers season one and takes around 5-8 hours to complete depending if you aim for the objective straight away or take your time to defeat all the titans in each map. Then in order to access the last chapter which covers a part of season two, it forces you to play through the "Survey Missions". These missions basically put you back onto the maps to slay a bunch of titans and you have to do five to ten of these before one fifth of the chapter is unlocked. This is a horrible decision and this is the point where repetitive starts to set in.
The "Survey Missions" are also where the game pits you against the same bosses again and again and again. This is the point where the game shows it lack of enemy variety most visibly and it gets super repetitive and annoying when you have to fight against the same set of gimmicks. This is not helped with a huge number of mooks getting in your way.
Overall, Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom is a fun and fast paced action game. The swinging mechanic is awesome and once you get used to the controls, swinging from titan to titan as you subjugate them in quick succession feels fantastic. While the decision to have filler content before you can complete the last few stages of the game makes repetition start to set in, this is a game well worth playing if you are a fan of the anime.
-----------------------------------------------
For other game reviews, have a look at this page.
