Attack On Titan / AOT: Wings of Freedom (2016)
Basic Summary: The first season of Attack on Titan is retold, along with additional manga chapters.
Genre: Hack 'n Slash
Systems: PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, PS Vita
Created by: Omega Force, Koei Tecmo
Directed by: N/A
Written by: N/A
Starring: All Japanese voice actors from the anime (English is sub-only)
Story-Gameplay Ratio: 1:9
Source Material: Ongoing manga by Hajime Isayama, and ongoing anime by Yasuko Kobayashi
(This is the best, least extra content spoiler-y trailer I could find, and even it's not that great. This isn't a game made for trailers. However, it does show off some of the gameplay and the art style, so watch it if you want.)
For the unaware, Attack On Titan: Wings of Freedom (alternatively titled just Attack On Titan or A.O.T.: Wings of Freedom depending on where you are) follows Eren Yeager in an expanded retelling of the hit anime series. When gigantic, man-eating entities called Titans start to breach the walls that make up humanity's last sanctuary, Eren and many others join the military and take up arms to try and fight back against them. However, no matter how many Titans they slay, nearly all of them are doomed to meet the same fate as the citizens they've failed to protect...
Spoiler: show
Until this game came out, I was pretty ambivalent toward Attack on Titan. I followed the manga story online, but I never had the desire to read actual copies or watch the anime, despite literally everyone recommending it to me. Then I saw that this game had come out and sources I trust were giving it positive attention, so I picked it up one day and binge-watched the whole anime in a day to prepare. Turns out it's actually pretty great! It's not among my favorites, but it's an adventure I quite enjoy and will continue to follow, both through the manga and when the second season finally airs next year. The point is that I'm now able to judge this game through the lens of both an objective gamer and an Attack on Titan fan -- so how does it hold up, and is it worth playing even if you don't know or don't like the source material?
The answers are very well and absolutely.
The story is a simple and relatively unimportant matter. It merely retells a slightly-altered-to-accomodate-more-gameplay version of the anime's first season (and the manga's first eight volumes), and then reaches further into unexplored territory in unlockable Epilogue Missions that lead to the true final battle. Whether you enjoy said story or not, or just don't care, it's easily skippable with the push of a button to no detrimental effect. It's a good and generally faithful adaptation, but from that angle, it's nothing special for a licensed title.
The characters aren't worth talking about in detail, because I'm reviewing the game, not the manga or anime. By the time you've beaten the story up to the anime's conclusion and unlocked everything sequentially, you can play as ten characters: Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Arlert, Jean Kirschtein, Connie Springer, Sasha "Potato Girl" Braus, Krista Lenz, Lieutenant Levi, Erwin Smith, and my beloved Hange Zoe. All characters are voiced well by their original actors and actresses, whether reciting the anime's content or covering new situations, and they all feel sufficiently different to play with varying speeds and movesets: Eren is a jack-of-all-trades who unlocks the ability to transform into a Titan, Mikasa is a speed-focused ace fighter with a powerful multi-strike dash, Armin and Hange can order NPC combatants to strike specific targets, etc. You won't be stuck for variety if you get sick of one character while binging Survey Missions.
The graphics are only slightly more important the story; the partly cel-shaded, partly realistic art style is typical for adaptations of anime, but it has a level of additional detail and polish that make it clear how much effort was put in. The character models look distinctly different, the environments are vast and eye-catching (the cities in particular have surprising levels of destructibility), and the Titans that fill every area are just as disgusting-yet-oddball as they are in the source material. And on music, sadly the infamously catchy opening theme is nowhere to be found, but the various basic guitar tracks are serviceable for the action.
All right! With that preamble out of the way, let's talk about what matters the most, what the single greatest reason to buy Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom is... THE GAMEPLAY. This is some of the most fun I've had with a game purely for its gameplay in a long, long time, and it's the sole reason I'd recommend it to everyone even with Attack on Titan's divisive nature.
The basic gameplay has you zipping around with 3D Maneuver Gear and taking down titans by striking their limbs and napes. To start, the movement itself feels incredible. Slinging yourself around the environments at lightning speeds handles perfectly, gets the adrenaline pumping, and just feels so satisfying -- it's easily the best grappling-based movement system in any game I've played, including the legendary Spider-Man 2 game. It's such an amazingly polished and well-handled system, and it needs to be when you're relying on it so much to stay alive and dispatch threats. My only complaint regarding the basic systems is equipment management: just like in the source material, sustained combat leaves you at risk of draining your Maneuver Gear air tank or breaking your blades, and if you don't have any replacements to quickly change out on hand, you have to find a Logistician on the map and get a supply refill. This can take the flow out of a great battle if you're not careful, and does get annoying when larger and sturdier Titans drain your resources faster, but it's nowhere close to a deal breaker and you can upgrade your gear to more reliable versions with enough cash.
Speaking of, Titan combat is just as satisfying as simply moving around. There are many variations, shapes and sizes that demand their own strategy, but the basic approach is the same: you lock onto one and target either a limb (severing a leg interferes with its movement, and severing an arm takes away its retaliation ability) or the nape of the neck (much like zombies' brains, the only target that kills them), and time a strike as you're automatically pulled in by your grapple. Once you're used to the system, it becomes relatively easy to carve through the hordes in less difficult situations, while more difficult ones turn even the most basic engagements into challenging dances of rushing and dodging. When boss fights start being introduced, you'll also have to balance chipping away with their specific strategies while also slaughtering the basic Titans to keep the situation manageable. It does get frustratingly difficult to take larger Titans down if they're grouped together, as one can just grab you out of the air and pull you into a life-or-death struggle while you're trying to kill another or rescue an endangered teammate, but as with the equipment management, it doesn't even come close to compromising the fun.
But that's not all! As already mentioned, Eren gains the ability to turn into a Titan, both at several points throughout the campaign and at any time post-anime that you have a full combat meter. These bursts of power (limitless in story moments, and timed in a meter use) aren't very complex, simply consisting of running around punching, curbstomping, and executing grab-based beatdowns on Titans, but GODDAMN IT'S THE BEST. After spending so much time being at a disadvantage, being able to dash around and kick the shit out of basic and boss Titans is such an astoundingly satisfying feeling -- you're not all-powerful by any means, but if you play right, you might as well be. The first mission where Eren gets to transform is among my favorite gaming moments of this year.
It's fortunate that everything about the gameplay is fucking awesome and doesn't get tedious, because you have a lot of work to do to get to the end. In addition to the story, you can take on Survey Mission sidequests with any character, which usually consist of slaying Titans and protecting teammates in a specific area and fighting a miniboss (or a full-on boss in later missions). Each Survey Mission you complete fills up a completion meter for that area, with a new area full of missions being unlocked at around 80% completion of the prior one. Unlocking all five Epilogue Missions requires getting the six areas to at least 80% (I'd recommend playing the first Epilogue Mission before delving too far into the latter half of the areas, because the first "secret" boss becomes a regular enemy in the final areas and it spoils the fun of seeing it as it's meant to be seen). But doing this is more than worth your time: in addition to the fun and challenging new Titans, the true final boss is an awe-inspiring display of scale and difficulty that rapidly becomes the game's centerpiece. I picked up the game partly because someone excitedly talked about how awesome the final battle was, and I have to agree wholeheartedly -- no other engagement in the game stacks up to it.
Ultimately, Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom is one of the best licensed games I've ever played, purely for its stunning gameplay. You can take or leave the story; it's not for everyone, obviously. But the game itself is so fun and satisfying that it handily compensates for any misgivings you might have about the source material. I'm giving it my wholehearted recommendation.
Rating: Colossal Amounts of Fun