With Freedom Wars, SCE Japan Studio has tried to combine a story about living in a hyper Orwellian society which sentences you to hard labour for 1,000,000 years for the crime of being born, with the resource collecting, big creature killing of games like Monster Hunter or God Eater. Does the game deserve freedom, or should it be flung into Room 101?

Freedom Wars is set within a far future Earth where humanity is on the brink of collapse. The Earth has been ruined and due to the lack of resources left, and humans have been forced together into giant underground prisons called Panopticons. These are where they are constantly watched and are in fear of attack from other rival Panopticons or from ‘On High’, a super advanced civilization in the sky which often launches devastating attacks called Retributions. You play as a member of one of these mega-prisons/communes who loses their memory during an operation to gather resources and, consequently, gets sent back down the complex hierarchy of their Panopticon because losing one’s memory is an ‘incredible waste’ of the Panopticon’s resources and must be punished.

So, as a result of losing your memory, your player character must start from the very beginning of their 1,000,000 year sentence, completing missions, gathering resources and defending their ruined society from enemy Panopticons who share the same fate. It all sounds very grim and horrific but the game does a great job in establishing just how soul crushing this world would be. At the very beginning of the game, you will be penalised with more years added to your sentence for simply using the run button on the overworld or trying to make idle chat with an NPC. All the JRPG skills you have acquired from previous games are drilled out of you in the very beginning, as you have years added to your sentence for simply lying down in your cell. Freedom Wars does a fantastic job of showing the oppressive nature of the world through these multiple penalties within the first 20 or so minutes of the game. Luckily, you are quickly able to buy permission to run or talk to female NPCS after completing the first mission, so these draconian rules help establish the world, but do not become a major nuisance.

I’m sure it is friendly. It just wants directions I bet.

You will also have to deal with, while you are getting to grips with this hyper oppressive surveillance state, just how Japanese the game is. The game’s ‘Big Brother’ is a cartoon bear that can talk, wearing a cute jailer outfit, who constantly reprimands you for being a drain on society in a merry voice. Your fellow sinners are dressed in fluorescent outfits with copious belts or sleeves missing, wearing giant novelty headphones, with you being given the ability to look as equally as ridiculous thanks to the game’s extensive character creator. Freedom Wars’ style and narrative is very unique and it works really well in creating a memorable world, even if it may seem very jarring at first.

As for the gameplay, it is very similar to games like Monster Hunter, with it being split between a hub area, where you can buy items and upgrades, talk with NPCs to get side missions and explore your underground home, and the missions themselves, where you are confined to one location to complete a set task. You need to complete missions to not only lower your sentence and contribute to the waning resources of your Panopticon, but to gain Entitlement Points, which allow you access to more weapons, greater freedoms and more stuff to do and customise. The main enemy you will fight in Freedom Wars are Abductors, giant mechanised weapons that come in a variety of types and body shapes, whose main goal is to capture citizens and kill sinners trying to protect their own civilians. While there is a fair variety of Abductors on show, ranging from bipedal humanoids to spider tanks with giant missile launchers, they start to become repetitive by the end game and lack the character of the variety of monsters you’ll find in games like God Eater.

The missions suffer from the same problem as the Abductors, with starting operations ranging from saving citizens and defending friendly Abductors, to seizing and holding capture points and many more. The same ‘go here, kill this Abductor’ mission gets repeated far too often and thanks to the game’s lack of real map variety, the later missions can become a real grind. Luckily, this repetition is eased by the sheer amount of customisation a player has when it comes to their playstyle.  You first of all have to choose what Thorn you choose to use in battle. Thorns are a mix between a whip and a grappling hook, allowing sinners to grapple from ceiling, to wall, to Abductor, whilst also using them to pull down enemy Abductors or use special abilities based on which Thorn type they pick. Binding Thorns allow players to set traps and even stun Abductors, Defence Thorn can create bulletproof thickets to protect fellow sinners, while Healing Thorns can create healing thickets to heal up any players in the area. Not only does whipping around an area make you feel like you are in Attack on Titan, but your Thorn choice can really change the tide of battle, as a healing thicket or a lucky stun can help you make that final push against a tough encounter.

It seems quite comfortable inside an Abductor. Liquid suspension, tight space, free minibar.

On top of that, add the massive amount of weapons you can equip like chainswords, giant triple barrelled miniguns, rocket launchers and beam cannons. You can also equip special Augmentations that can buff certain attributes along with your separate combat items which can be special weapons or support items. As well as equipping yourself, you must consider your Accessory, a computer controlled partner who can also be equipped with their own weapons, combat items and appearance and you have a humongous amount of customisation when heading into battle.

The controls also share this obsession with customisation, with there being about 5 different control options, with ones tailored for people who play a lot of Monster Hunter or people who play lots of third person shooters, and so on. You will no doubt find a control scheme that is right for you, and short of giving you rebindable buttons, it works fine. While you may have the controls right, the game’s camera can be a beast to manage at times, especially when you are whipping towards Abductors, are stuck in a corner, or are riding the back of a moving Abductor. The main problem is the camera doesn’t know where to look, spinning out of control and pointing you in the least convenient position in action. Even with the sensitivity cranked right up, the camera still lumbers around and can be your worst enemy in a tense operation.

The AI could also do with some tuning up, with your allies seemingly having one track minds when engaging a group of enemies. Your Accessory fares better, with players being able to set specific commands for their partner and they prioritise reviving you and helping you out first, but your other companions aren’t so helpful. They seem to have unique behaviours and cannot be specifically ordered to ‘defend this point’ or ‘attack this position’, which can make fighting a group of Abductors very stressful indeed.

Unfortunately, the cost for all this customisation is a hell of a lot of grinding for resources, weapons and citizens. The best way to collect weaponry in this game is by using the Facility system, which allows you to manage a set of custom built factories, which can build specific items like weapons, augmentations, munitions and so on. First of all, you have to gather resources from killing Abductors or finding them in the field to build the weapons. Then you have to choose the appropriate materials for the job and also select a citizen to help boost production. After that, you then have to wait real world time for the weapon to be created and the factory to become open again, so you can go back to building more equipment. To top it off, when modifying weapons to have special attributes like increased fire rates or specific elemental damage, you have to find a suitable weapon with the right stats and modules to combine with your main weapons, on top of finding resources to guarantee you get specific stat growth or module inheritance, as it is otherwise down to RNG to decide which module you get.

Once you cut off the thing firing that beam, you’re going to have a wicked laser minigun.

This is without mentioning the fact you have to have collected enough Entitlement Points by doing missions and donating resources to your Panopticon to even unlock the ability to build factories and upgrade them to the level that they can start making good weaponry or munitions in the first place. And this is just one area of the game’s layer of customisation, by the way. You have to build up Entitlement Points to buy the ability to name your Accessory, or run for 10 seconds on the overworld, or keep items of a certain rarity, or give your comrades’ access to certain weapons, and so on and so forth. While this reinforces the idea of the game’s oppressive society, it will become tiresome fast for those who don’t like to grind obsessively, and even then, the endgame is a constant grind for resources and items. You have to always be aware of what mission yields what item and have to make sure you cut off every limb of a specific Abductor in order to make the next weapon or upgrade which can help you beat the next mission. If you love grinding, you’ll be in absolute heaven, but if you are not so fussed and don’t have a group of friends to play with, you will free yourself from your Vita pretty damn quick.

Luckily, the game’s co-op suite is great for those who don’t want to grind alone. You can tackle all of the missions from the single player in co-op with up to 3 players, complete with their own Accessories. Any mission you complete on co-op will beat that mission in your single player game, so there is no fear about completing a ton of missions in co-op and then losing all your progress. This is the most optimal way to play, as getting 3 friends together to form a dedicated Freedom Wars team and grinding out missions together beats playing with the one track mind AI. Unfortunately, the in-game chat is not the best and the netcode can be really spotty with people with an unstable connection, so getting on Skype and co-ordinating there is the best option. The game is garnering a hardcore fan following so if you can get a group of friends together to play, it is an absolute blast.

There is also PvP available, but due to the game’s subpar netcode and there being some easy exploits like glitching into walls where you can fire out of but can’t be hit, it is nothing more than a slight distraction from the real meat of the game. There’s also a global leaderboard of every Panopticon, since you pick one based on a region when you start the game, and you can go on special missions to attack or defend your Panopticon from other players to help increase your ranking. Again, it is a nice side attraction and you can get some good loot for it, but it happens randomly and, by this point, some Panopticons are so far out in front that it’s best to not bother.