REVIEW – Time to grab your God Arcs once again, as it’s time to take a trip to hunt Aragamis, so if you enjoy killing big monsters, then the slightly above average God Eater 3 might fulfil your needs for a few hours, although this title is somewhat niche, so it’s not necessarily something that could be highly recommended.

This time, you get a tutorial right at the beginning of the game to learn the basics of the gameplay, as the characters in the game’s title are locked behind bars, and in the jail, they learn to properly use the God Arcs and the Bursts. After breaking out, you end up on the top of a caravan named Chrysanthemum (how fitting… you destroy, but your base, for the most part, will be something related to the creation, as it’s a flower’s name).

3 retae dog

You can easily forget about the story, as it features a few teenager jailbirds that get out and become world-saving characters. However, the characters are so stereotypical that you will yawn. You have seen something like this several times, meaning the emphasis was near zero in this aspect (even though there are a lot of cutscenes, where the game shoots itself in the foot, because if the characters were better-developed, or if at least they had some CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, it would be memorable, which it isn’t). Instead, Marvelous concentrated on the action elements of the gameplay. As with the previous titles, you can turn the God Arcs into guns (or even swords, shields, and the like – there is a lot of variation here), and the hack’n’slash gameplay style is also here. However, God Eater 3, which came out in December 2018 in Japan, followed by a February release in the West, doesn’t have as deep of a combat system as Capcom’s Devil May Cry 5 from March (except for that goddamn character named V!). On the other hand, unlike in DMC 5, you can play with up to three people cooperatively to hunt for Aragamis, so the not-so-varied missions can be somewhat overcome with friends, which – obviously – I had no chance of experiencing. Even then, if I had a chance, the missions would still be completed fairly quickly, as most of them (and they even have TIME LIMITS – Marvelous tries to put pressure on you with them, but it backfires in my opinion) can be completed in six to seven minutes…

This point is where I have to say that God Eater 3 is not enjoyable in longer sessions. Only play it in shorter bursts (or should I say Bursts?), and for that, I’d rather recommend the Nintendo Switch port. You get on a bus, play two missions, and you’re already at your destination. Still, the scheme of the missions will be noticeable: first, you kill smaller Aragamis, then a bigger one comes in. You fight it, then it retreats to heal itself, then you kill it. Mission over. It’s boring. At least the God Arcs (which could be developed with blueprints per class) somewhat showed me that I have to emphasize melee combat, and the Burst attacks, which could be done cooperatively, are not easy to perform with AI characters, even though they are required to be used to develop weapons. There are also the ability points that you can use to develop your character to get more skills – be like me and play like a turtle with HP regeneration…

Ontheline

In case you play online, you might have a bit of harder time, as – even though you can play together with up to seven people – you must defeat a stronger Aragami type named Ashborn, which is anything but an easy task to perform in under five minutes. (Here we go with the time limit garbage again.) Playing online will also show you that the Aragamis do not have variety and that the visuals are forgettable. The button layout also felt somewhat stupid –

I’m going to use the PlayStation 4 version as an example -, as the R1 button allows you to toggle the God Eater mode to be either melee or gun. However, this button is also used to do some attacks. Also, make sure to stop properly at the point where you have to be to pick up items, as its button is also used to dash. Good job.

Averagethree

If you want to hunt monsters, I’d rather recommend you to take a look at the Monster Hunter series. No, I do not necessarily mean World (where the series went entirely mainstream – instead, pick up Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate on the Nintendo Switch from last year), although the result there might feel more polished as in God Eater 3, which I cannot rate higher than a six-and-a-half out of ten. It’s not terrible, but it has its flaws, and I do not recommend playing it solo, as it will rapidly become boring that way. It’s average in almost every conceivable way, maybe except for the ambience, which is fairly good. The gameplay’s button layout stupidity, the time limits, the repetitive missions, and the complete lack of attention on the characters all push down the enjoyable combat. So I don’t recommend picking this game up – go and take a look at a few YouTube videos first…

-V-

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Publisher: Bandai Namco

Developer: Marvelous

Genre: monster hunting hack’n’slash

Release date: February 8, 2019 (PS4, Steam), July 12 (Switch)