Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain Reviews

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is ranked in the 44th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
70 / 100
Apr 26, 2019

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain lets you blast away at hordes of alien enemies, making you feel powerful. The framerate drops when too many enemies appear, but it doesn't ruin the game. The story isn't very compelling, but manning your PA gear in combat makes up for that.

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ZTGD
Top Critic
8.5 / 10.0
Apr 25, 2019

Outside of maybe the difficulty of playing on normal (there are different difficulties) this is hands down the most accessible EDF has been to a wide audience

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Apr 25, 2019

I wouldn't recommend Iron Rain over Earth Defense Force 5, since it fails to deliver the distilled, charming experience I adore from the Sandlot series.

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6 / 10.0
Apr 24, 2019

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain sacrifices the franchise standards of city scale battlefields and hundreds of enemies for the sake of flashier graphics, but in doing so loses some of the unique charm the series offers. The grind required to unlock exciting weapons undermines the fun potential, unless you're looking to spend a lot of time with the game.

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3.3 / 5.0
Apr 21, 2019

When it comes to Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain, a lot of things are set in, well, iron. It isn’t a good game, not by a long shot, though it also isn’t trying to be one either.

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7.4 / 10.0
Apr 19, 2019

Similar to almost every installments in EDF series, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain delivers an enjoyable, engaging and fun gameplay and combat with good variety of weapons, gadgets and enemies. But again, like almost every EDF games, story is pointless, there are technical problems and some repetative missions. In the end, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain Can be regarded as one of the most entertaining games of 2019 so far

Review in Persian | Read full review

Apr 18, 2019

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is the perfect addition to the series.

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8 / 10.0
Apr 17, 2019

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain continues the EDF tradition and lets you have fun blasting away thousands of alien monsters. Everyone might have their nitpicks, like repetition stemming from failing missions, but Yuke’s did just enough to advance the series. I hope that they have another chance with the franchise in the future.

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2.5 / 5.0
Apr 17, 2019

As fun as it can be on occasion, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is too flawed for me to fully enjoy. The heaps of technical issues and unbalanced and repetitive missions, combined with a fairly dysfunctional online mode, make Iron Rain an unfortunately bland mess.

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CGMagazine
Top Critic
7 / 10.0
Apr 16, 2019

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain offers players with a nice change of pace from the hyper-connected and competitive nature of contemporary gaming, with a game that actually feels like a game.

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Apr 16, 2019

Is this an EDF game that EDF fans will enjoy? Honestly, I ended up feeling fairly disappointed. Which is a shame because I think there are a lot of neat ideas here. Weapons feel rather underpowered across the board, and enemies just have far too much health for their own good. Couple this with incredibly annoying AI, and it’s just a very frustrating experience. Suffice to say, it’s pretty lackluster compared to the mainline EDF titles. The game took me 10 hours to beat, though I put about a total of 30 into it with harder difficulties. At a $60 price tag, I can’t really recommend it. A sale might make this a more tempting offer. Overall, if you’re looking for a good EDF game, I’d give this a pass and look into the mainline titles instead.

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8.5 / 10.0
Apr 15, 2019

Despite aggravating AI, Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain's wealth of content, challenging difficulty, and empowering action make it the best EDF game to date. This is a tried-and-true EDF game for newcomers and veterans alike.

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7 / 10
Apr 15, 2019

Earth Defense Force : Iron Rain is another vision of the franchise made by an other studio. The new approach is quite good, more serious and more accessible.

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6 / 10
Apr 15, 2019

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain makes a few much-needed tweaks to the old formula, but it's still just another bug hunt.

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6.5 / 10.0
Apr 15, 2019
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain - Easy Allies Review video thumbnail
Ollie Barder
Top Critic
8 / 10.0
Apr 14, 2019

Iron Rain is a solid shooter and reminiscent of what made the mainline games so much fun. However, I think some of the backend changes don’t really work and the visual and aural impact of the weapons feel diminished.

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IGN
Top Critic
7.2 / 10.0
Apr 14, 2019

As flawed and as fun as ever, Iron Rain doesn't dull the core pleasure of EDF, but doesn't manage much more either.

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7 / 10.0
Apr 14, 2019

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is a marked improvement over its predecessors in spite being a spin-off by a different developer. Fans of the series will definitely appreciate the additions made to the game while still retaining what made the series so enjoyable. If further installments are able to improve on what Yuke's has done with the series while also fixing some of its issues to bring it up to speed of other modern shooters, it could expand the game's market well beyond its cult following.

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7 / 10.0
Apr 13, 2019

It is still very much good old fashioned EDF fun and its refined fun at that. However, being punished for using your hard earned and awesome gadgets by deducting money from your mission rewards is purely anti-fun and the complete disconnect of the on-screen action in multiplayer is unacceptable and disappointing.

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9 / 10.0
Apr 13, 2019

With a new coat of paint and a shift in mechanics, Earth Defence Force: Iron Rain sets itself above previous EDF games. There have been some major changes within this title, such as the customisations, abilities, unit types, pick-ups, and loadouts, but once you get used to them, it feels like this way is much better than the old way. The visuals have not only had a coat of paint, but they’ve had an undercoat and at least three layers placed on top to make them look great during gameplay. The addition of subtitles made me happier than you can imagine as more people can now enjoy the story, even if it does get a little generic if you’ve played all the previous games.

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