“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. Um… if you will indulge me, sir, I have a short presentation prepared. I… uh… Well, I was going to stick this all in a PowerPoint, but, to be frank, this whole thing… Well, it is becoming more and more pending that we put our fortifications together, so… Ugh… I’ll just get right to it.
“Sir, the Earth is being invaded. We need to mobilize the Earth Defense Force now, or we’ll all be speaking alien by Octoberfest.
“Here is the plan as I see it. First of all, we do not have the budget or time to launch a full squadron. So my proposal is we take one ship, and outfit it with everything. You know those shields we have been working on? Well, we give that ship a stock of three shields so it can survive anything. Yes, I realize that three shields will cost an arm and a leg, but that should be enough to keep our main fighter going. And, hey, if the boys in R&D have this right, our pilot should be able to acquire more shields by siphoning energy off enemy combatants. That should save him! Right?! Even if he messes up a little, a shield that kinda sorta regenerates should keep him flying in style. You know what I mean? This guy is set for defense.
“But I know what you’re asking: what about offense? Well, we worked up some designs for that, too. So the good news is that we have eight different options for shooting down these damn, dirty aliens. Whole lotta variety here, too! Vulcan is straightforward… Get it, sir?… but atomic really packs a punch. And Laser and S. Laser? Well, nobody is telling me what that ‘S’ stands for, but it may as well stand for ‘super’, because it is super effective! And did I mention that any one of these weapons can also be shot through two different little… uh… We don’t have names for these things… Pods? Buddies? Options? No, that last one sounds stupid. Whatever! We got little helper bots that are shooting extra grenades or exploders all over the place.
“Oh yeah. ‘Or’. That’s the downside: our pilot can only choose one weapon at a time. And, unfortunately, not like we have any idea what is going to be coming in any given stage of this assault, so we better hope our pilot is damn near psychic to anticipate whether an opponent is going to have a localized black hole that screws up homing missiles or something. But I’m sure we’ll send our best man! And I’m sure he’ll know what to pick! Pilot’s intuition, right? That’s a thing! We’ll be fine!
“Alright, you need some straight up battle plans? I got us covered. The ship launches into… uh… the sky. It doesn’t have to be anywhere! By the time we get going, there are going to be aliens everywhere. Just shoot a bunch of them out of the blue, and we’re good to go further. Next, head out over a major city. Yes, I understand that shrapnel and scrap from flaming alien debris likely will crush an entire population. But! You don’t have to worry about that, because every other city that is not destroyed is going to think it is so cool. Really rally the masses, you know? Then… now I know this is going to be a hard sell, and we will get to the exact reasons for it later… But we need to swing by an abandoned shipyard in a forgotten cave. Those wily aliens are working on something there, and… Well, like I said, we will totally get to that…
“Oh! But then we need to go to space! After, like, three places on Earth are safe, our ace will sail into the void. Yes, that ship is prepared for operating at low altitudes just as easily as flying between the stars. Of course we would account for that! And then we’ll cruise right through meteor showers into the enemy armada’s mothership. One load-bearing enemy commander later, and then it’s just a simple escape before all those freaks on the dark side of the moon are blown to pieces. Earth will be saved! And by only one ship! Think of the savings!
“And it looks like the aliens are a fleet of pushovers. They have some weird ships that kinda look like our ships, but they don’t have our shields, so they are nothing. Our only possible hangup may be the leaders of this alien invasion force. We have spotted some kind of ship that… Uh… It’s… splittable? Is that a word? It can almost entirely separate into two different pieces. We don’t know how that is an advantage in any way, or how it flies once turns into an enormous boomerang, but that is definitely a thing. Oh, and they have what looks like a Gundam.
Like, straight up, I think these aliens are pirating our animes. And once we’re in space, there is some asteroid tossing jerk. Maybe all meteors have always come from this dude? And it looks like the leader of everything is practically motionless, so that’s a walk in the park. I mean, unless it breaks out of its stone setup and starts pursuing our boy in a thrilling chase. But that would be ridiculous. This isn’t a movie.”
“And what about at the shipyard? You said there was something important.”
“Oh! Yes! We have reports that the aliens have been covertly constructing a doomsday weapon there.”
“What kind of doomsday weapon?”
“A giant, robot shrimp.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“A giant, robot shrimp, sir. I have the intelligence picture right here.”
“And you believe this… robot shrimp is a threat to the planet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That requires the Earth Defense Force and its advanced technology?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Request is denied. Get back to work at the latrines.”
FGC #709 Super Earth Defense Force
- System: Super Earth Defense Force was a Super Nintendo game, but there was also a regular Earth Defense Force available in arcades. Give or take the details of the plot, they are very similar experiences. Your various forces then wound up on Playstation 4, Switch, and mobile devices over the years.
- Number of players: Somebody tossed a two-player mode in there for some godforsaken reason.
What’s in a name: This one has nothing to do with the Earth Defense Force franchise. The naming is just a coincidence. Look, we only have one Earth, a lot of different people can defend it for different reasons.- Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: It’s a 16-bit shoot ‘em up with some decent weapon customization available to spice up different playthroughs. Other than that? There is not much about this one that is particularly unique or exciting. Nowadays, if this entire game appeared as a random minigame between levels of Bayonetta, I would not bat an eye. At least the “shields” mean you are not as fragile as in some shoot ‘em ups.
- Say something nice: You can, at any time, choose your ship’s speed. Gradius could stand to learn from this innovation. We would have a few extra Vic Vipers lying around if that ship could appropriately slow down for precision wall dodging.
- Favorite Weapon: Whether it is Contra or Super Earth Defense Force, I am going for the homing missiles. I don’t like to aim! The only downside is that there is one boss in all of this that finds a way to make your homing artillery useless with a bogus target. But that just makes the fight take longer. So much longer. Painfully longer.
- An End: After defeating what appears to be the final boss, your craft flies backwards out of the mothership. But! Then the boss comes roaring back, and you have to fight, dodge projectiles, and navigate hazards at top speed all while flying in reverse. It is frustratingly difficult, and the fact that your pilot is probably hearing a truck-backing-up beep the whole time does not help.
- Unanswered Questions: I got a secret bonus on every stage. I do not know what triggers the secret bonus. It is, apparently, a secret to everybody.
- Did you know? There was a Satellaview version of Super Earth Defense Force. This is likely why the game is reminisced by Japanese audiences at all, as it is a pretty forgettable shoot ‘em up. Add in this “lost media” factor, and suddenly it is at least a curiosity.
- Would I play again: Nah. It is nice that this is available on the Nintendo Online service so you can play it with absolutely zero barrier to entry (and shoot ‘em up neutering rewind), but I am likely going to forget I even tried it inside of two weeks. There is some cool background scaling in one level? And… Yeah, I got nothing more from this. Earth may have to defend itself next time.
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Golden Axe II! We’re gonna have so many Chicken Legs! Please look forward to it!
There is also a crab available