God Eater 3

When I finished God Eater 2, I found myself really enjoying the game, however I also find myself annoyed with the enemies taking forever to die, some missions begin way to difficult, confusing blueprints/resources for upgrade and build God Arcs and overly drawn campaign. On that same year (I think a few months maybe?), first I saw the Bandai Namco announcement for Code Vein, but slight later, out of the blue, here comes the trailer for God Eater 3, to be released in 2019 in the west.

While the trailer got me (I did rewatched it over and over again), at first I was more looking more for Code Vein, which was delayed, and so, at the start of 2019, I did find myself playing God Eater 3, before Code Vein, and very quickly God Eater 3 became my GOTY (I later will write about Code Vein, but spoilers: I did like a lot the game).

Most of my issues with the previous game where solved right of the bat, while it start as usual, with you fight the average Aragami, such Ogretails, Zygotes, Vrajatails, Kougou and ect... it didn't take long until it throw against me a Borg Camlann, which in the previous game was a really annoying fight, but here? So much better! And it didn't stop there. Later, much to my surprise, I was fighting against a Gawain (another Aragami, which player from the previous game might remember a certain mission in particular...that one on which unlocked during the Rage Burst part), and same thing, though and fun, but no longer annoying long battle.

One of the thing you can easily note while playing this game, is how much, fluid and faster it feels, new additions, such as the new "dash" command which is a very fast move you can perform to reach enemies, the "engage" mechanic, are your character may bound itself with another party member for some buffs. Also, what you can notice really quickly, is that now you already start with a full party and customize them, things which take a while to happen in the previous game, also are unlocked from the start.

Improved UI along with other elements, make much easier to figure out what to bring in each fight, since the right elements against the right Aragami, make things much easier. Again, this is combined with clearer ways upgrade or build new God Arcs, so you can have the right setup for the right fight. Battles feel very fun and fast paced, specially with the amazing soundtrack.

Ok, so far all I talked about is the mechanics, but what about the story? The game is several year later of God Eater 2, but things take a deep turn to the worst, Fenrir organization no longer exist, humanity survives by the thread in places called Ports and Caravans. There is even more deadly types of Aragami out there, what is left of God Eaters, have to live in pretty terrible conditions, specially a new kind of God Eater, the AGE types, they can survive, even only a bit, in the new hazard which plagues the world - the Ash Storm, something so terrible that the older God Eater can't handle.

Your character, along your initial party members, Hugo and Zeck, are AGEs, surviving as they can, while being subject to deep exploration and disdain, pretty much begin throw against Argami, over and over again, while being treated as nothing more that something which easily replaced. Oh, did I forget! You see, your two friends aren't the only AGEs in that Port, oh no, there is a couple children, which the Port have no qualm in throwing them out in missions, just to scavenge stuff. Yeah, things and your Port isn't the only one which does this or worst as you find during the story.

Tired of this, Hugo, with your help and Zeck (and the kids too), decided to come up with a plan to not only leave this Port and somehow build a new Port, a place which Ages would live their own lives free. Story follows this, while you cross paths with both people and allies willing to help you and off course, people willing to exploit or stop you. As is often in God Eater, the story is less about people fighting Aragami, but people trying to survive.

Without spoiling it, the story does work and have a good development overall, however, the stakes initially are so dire, that some resolutions might feel a bit to easy.

The story still follows the pace of you have missions where you hunt certain Aragami and between them there is the story missions. Is important to explain, each mission in God Eater, and there is a lot of them, are rather short, often is you and your party on a map and there is one or two Aragami you need to defeat. The rate of normal hunting mission between each story is better that the previous game, but still feel a bit to big in later parts, specially in the end game. By the way, maps do repeat a lot, but they are really nice.

However, you don't need to grind much, during my play I did only grind once and was just to make a new clothes for my character. By the way, another thing which is way clearer is the rewards, but what you gain from defeating the Aragami (where breaking certain parts give better rewards), what you can collect from the map and the mission reward itself is all much better explained.

Aside from story and generic missions, there is a lot of content, the game itself feature no dlc, instead they are doing lots of free content which are added (and still are being added), in form of character chapters, post game content, special challenges (including a raid style mission), new clothes and customization parts.

So, with all side, between the improved UI, faster paced combat result in really amazing game, the story is good, even if things drag out a bit too much in the end game.

Small Notes:

• Character customization is good, not at the level of Code Vein, but does the trick. The clothes available, either by the free content or what could be crafted are a bit limited, specially the crafted stuff, which is often just variations of the same type of cloth with less or more stuff around.
• There isn't so much npcs to join your party, but they are much better developed. However, unless you bring them in mission they won't gain experience, but there are fewer missions where your party is locked, so less risk of suddenly have to fight with a character you haven't upgraded, and if in this cases this isn't much issue.
• Soundtrack is awesome, it does feature lots of kinds of music, from more grandiose to pop/rock.