Do you have the power… in your blood?

[Version reviewed: PS4]

God Eater 2 Rage Burst is an action RPG that pits you against the end of the world. Humanity has been attacked by monsters called Aragami (Demon Gods, God Demons) that appeared from nowhere but have brought humanity to its knees. The only ones who can fight it are special members of the human race that can synchronise with living weapons known as God Arcs, making them the aforementioned God Eaters. As part of a special unit known as the “Blood Unit”, it is your job to venture out, salvage items, kill Aragami and make the world a safer place dealing with stronger beasts and, sometimes, having to navigate dangerous people to do so.  Is God Eater 2 a gripping game or does it simply leave you with a feeling of Bursting Rage?

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The Story carries on three years after God Eater Resurrection, with you the Protagonist (Male, female, tall, short, character customisation is not as robust as many games but enough to give you an individual feel.) being inducted into the special unit. After a quick tutorial and learning about your teammates, you are thrown into battle with the very impressively terrifying Aragami. As you fulfil your missions, which are generally kill quests for certain amounts and types of Aragami,  you progress through the story which is very well written. Each character has a motivation and reason for being with the Blood Unit, and you can choose to get closer to them or not, with each character having many side missions where you learn more about them that really expands upon the great narrative the story builds for you. With twists and turns, the narrative is gripping even if it can be too much at times, sometimes the character don’t seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation perpetrated but in a way, that mirrors real life. The game can stand alone but if you have played the previous entry to the series, there are times where you recognise events and people from the events of three years ago, giving a very interesting view of the events that occur when said people arrive. While the twists can be predicted, it still makes for a very exciting time which should have you the edge of your seat for length of the game.

Combat wise, the game gives you a lot to do and many tools to do it with. As with the previous game, you can customise many things, from your character to the weapons you use to the bullets you fire. You control how you fight in the game, if you get tired of one method you can use another. Do you want to slice and cut with speed and precision, dancing around the aragami before they can hit you? You can use the knife blade, do you want to crush your enemies in a literal sense? Well, we have a hammer for that. Do you want to stay in the distance, supporting your allies and coming in for a quick devour? There are many gun attachments that make that possible. What is devour you might ask? I’ll get to that in a moment. Your God Arc can switch from ranged to melee at the push of a button and with the various types of weapons available it is hard to get tired of the fast paced and frenetic combat. You head out with your teammates, at maximum four of you and you try to complete the missions as quickly and as awesomely as possible. These teammates can be AI or people online if you play in the multiplayer section of the game.

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While AI can’t completely replicate a human player, it does a fine job of supporting you when you are trying to complete a mission. Now, I mentioned devouring before, when you have a spare moment, or when you are behind an Aragami that is looking elsewhere. You can have a melee God Arc charge up and take a bite out of your enemies, giving you a boost in speed, damage as well as other nice perks depending on the monster you just munched and don’t forget the power in your blood that can give you the edge in a fight with some of the more powerful enemies out there. As the game progresses, you fight harder and stronger enemies, more agile and more vicious and it just gets hard and harder, forcing you to adapt and customise to keep up with the difficulty. Sadly, it seems as though the game leans you towards a particular style of optimised play which is more rewarding than others which can take a lot of the fun out as you find yourself doing that to attain higher ranks but at its core, the combat is enjoyable as long as it suits you. The best way to keep up is customisation which can be joyful hours of tinkering to find the best balance for you, the bullets alone can keep you occupied as you add here and take away there to put the most hurt on those Aragami. Don’t even get me started on the style choices; we’ll be here for a long while.

 

The music is enjoyable, a good beat and immersive songs get your heart pumping, the incredible opening really gets you in the mood for what you are doing, putting the vision of what you are doing firmly ahead of you. As an anime-game, it really does provide you with good music and sounds to keep you going in the post-apocalyptic world, and while the voice acting (English only.) can sometimes come off as a bit wooden, each person plays their part in the story believably. I personally would have preferred a Japanese alternative but that is not to say that the English voices are terrible. There have been far worse but there have also been better. As good as the music can be, it does start to get repetitive later in the game, as while you can customise and select your favourite songs to battle to, there isn’t the greatest variety and much of the music sounds familiar although, thankfully, not bad so there will be something for everyone to enjoy.

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Review Summary

All in all, even though the game has its good points it suffers from repetition. You have to rely on the interesting story and varied customisation options in combat to keep you going in for mission after mission of similar maps and goals to slay Aragami for hours on end. Should those options not entice you, you’ll be finding yourself rushing through to finish the game which is not ideal as it has some great side quests, the side character arcs being extremely entertaining and adding such depth to the story. Give God Eater 2 Rage Burst a try, save the world and I’m sure you’ll have a story to tell the next new recruit that comes your way.