Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom Review
If you’re reading this review, then you’re probably already familiar with the pop-culture phenomenon Attack On Titan. Starting as a manga in 2009, the franchise took off with its critically acclaimed anime adaptation in Spring 2013, which led to countless spin-offs and other media adaptations as the years went on. One such example is Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom (known as A.O.T.: Wings of Freedom in Europe due to trademark issues), which sees players experience the story from when Eren first graduates from training for the Survey Corps. This review was originally published for another publication at the time of release in 2016, so some details may be outdated now (particularly the pricing criticisms toward the end).
At a Glance
Title: Attack On Titan (A.O.T.: Wings of Freedom in Europe)
Developer: Omega Force (Dynasty Warriors)
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Genre: Action / Hack and Slash
Platform(s): PlayStation 3/4/Vita, Xbox One, PC
Version Reviewed: PlayStation 4
First Released: Worldwide 2016
Review
Wings of Freedom follows the story of the original series while dropping you into the various epic battles that take place throughout. Attack On Titan follows Eren Yeager and his friends Mikasa and Armin in a world where humanity lives within the confines of three giant walls. For one hundred years, these walls have protected everyone from the monstrous “titans” that roam outside, but when a hole is blasted through one of them by a colossal titan, the lives of Eren and humanity are changed forever.
Flash forward five years and Eren has enlisted in the Survey Corps military branch, who venture outside the walls to learn more about Titans and protect humanity from the threat they pose, utilising the series’ iconic Three-Dimensional Maneuvering Gear to fly around and attack the Titans’ weak-point. The game drops us into the story just as Eren is about to graduate from training, which is the perfect place for a quick tutorial.
The tutorial gives us the basics of using the Maneuvering Gear to fly through a forest setting, as well as teaching us how to defeat Titans. The gear does take a bit of getting used to, especially to become good enough to fly around at any decent speed, but once I got the hang of it, I found myself managing to stay in the air and only very rarely hitting the ground. Fighting Titans is a simple affair of targeting their neck and swinging around until you have a clear enough shot to slice it open. Battle does become more difficult with larger titans, whose arms and legs you can slice off to slow them down, as well as those who will try and protect their neck, so a certain amount of damage must be done before the finishing blow can be struck.
Gameplay consists of story missions that all tend to run in a similar fashion of requiring you to fly around and kill Titans while protecting your team-mates. Some missions will end with a fight against a larger, stronger titan that takes a number of attacks to kill. Some missions will see you playing as Eren in his Titan form, which usually consists of you literally punching other Titans to death. Variety is given in the form of being able to play as a number of different characters who all have their own unique skills (more are gained as you level up too); although they largely play the same, it does make for a nice change.
I’d love to write another paragraph here about what else the game offers but sadly this is mostly it. As you progress in the game you do unlock the ability to take on new missions away from the story that help unlock new equipment and gallery information on our cast. I was playing on the easy difficulty and could blast through the missions in about 5-10 minutes each, which was quite nice because it offered the ability for easy pick-up and play whenever I had spare time. It’s also worth noting that the game cuts a lot of story content that isn’t directly tied to the lead-up to a battle. If you’re already an Attack on Titan fan and have seen the anime, then this isn’t a problem as it’s bridged together smoothly enough, but if you’re not already familiar with the ins and outs of the franchise, then you should probably check out the source material first.
Once the credits roll and you’ve finished the main story on offer (which follows the story through to the end of Season 1), you can unlock some extra story missions by completing the unrelated missions I mentioned earlier. There is also a quest system post-game, but this boils down to very generic offerings such as kill [X] amount of Titans, or completing this many side missions etc. It certainly adds replayability, but at the same time, it becomes boring pretty quickly.
On the whole, Wings of Freedom feels good to play in terms of controls. Flying about on the Maneuver Gear feels seamless and doesn’t require a great deal of thought or input from the user beyond controlling your direction and hitting square. Fighting Titans is also really fluid and beyond me crashing into the odd tree or building I’m satisfied with the execution of the game. Developers Omega Force deserve a great deal of praise for making the system work so well! They’ve taken a lot of inspiration from the Warriors series in terms of how the game works in the majority of areas, such as the missions, but that lends itself well to the world of Attack on Titan and has worked for the best here. You can even upgrade/purchase new weapons and Maneuver Gear, including Levi-style dusters which are great fun to kill Titans with. It’s a solid system overall.
Graphically we have a bit more of a mixed bag, at least for the PS4 version. Character models look really nice and very true to the look of the anime, but the general surroundings and maps as a whole look like that of a polished PS3 game. It’s not something that turned me off the game, but between that and the trees, houses and bushes that simply pop into the distance as you fly around it’s easy to see that the game hasn’t taken advantage of the PS4’s power as much as it probably could have done. Also as is befitting of the 18 rating here in the UK, there is a lot of blood and guts flying around but thankfully if you’re sensitive to that kind of thing then the gore can be lessened in the options. I kept it on as it’s not as bad as other 18-rated games I’ve seen, but it’s nice to have the option in there anyway.
My biggest complaint with Attack on Titan, however, is the price tag. On the PlayStation Store, the PS4 version is going for £55 (£50 for PS3 and £40 for Vita). The Vita price is far more reasonable, but considering how limited the variation of gameplay is, I can’t recommend paying more than £30-£35 for it. To pay more than that, you have to be a really big fan of the series and know what you’re getting into. Physical copies can be found for as low as £38 for PS4, but I’d personally recommend just waiting out the next big PSN sale and seeing where the price goes. It will undoubtedly drop at some point, especially on the PS3 where a £50 game is quite unheard of these days.
Overall, I find myself quite conflicted as while I am a big fan of the gameplay and how well the game handles, but looking at it objectively I know there isn’t much to the missions, which makes it likely they'll get old fast for many players. However, I would definitely recommend Attack on Titan fans pick it up (perhaps on discount) because the gameplay is very satisfying. On the other hand, if you don’t like the Warriors-style beat-everything-up gameplay then it probably isn’t for you. Hopefully, a sequel could add more to the missions but as it stands we certainly don’t have a bad game – just perhaps a little lacking in places.
Disclosure: A copy of “A.O.T: Wings of Freedom” was supplied by Koei Tecmo, the publisher, for the purposes of this review.
This review was originally published on TanukiBridge, reposted here with permission.