God Eater 3's apocalyptic monster brawls are PC-bound
A light snack
Teen Anime-styled monster hunting game God Eater 3 is getting a western PC release, Bandai Namco confirmed today. Soon, you too will be able to gel your hair up to 11, shoulder an improbably large hybrid sword/gun/demon-devouring maw, and go bop some improbably large and angry creatures on the snoot, solo or with friends. Within, a gameplay trailer, featuring some monster snoots being bopped.
The God Eater games are cut much from the same cloth as Monster Hunter. A party of heroes with very large weapons carve up giant creatures, and turn their bits into more weapons and armor to hunt even bigger beasties. What sets God Eater apart is its faster, more arcadey approach to combat. Even playing solo, you'll have a swarm of chatty NPC friends hacking away at your target as well, and combat tends to be more mobile and responsive than Monster Hunter, with aerial combos being a key part of your repertoire.
Thematically, God Eater sets itself apart with its supernatural apocalypse setting, as the last remnants of humanity (including some techno-magically enhanced brooding teens, of course) fight for survival against the Aragami, a race of demonic creatures, the titular 'gods'. The 'eater' part comes from your shape-shifting weapons, God Arcs, which can be used to bite chunks out of living or deceased monsters, providing you with buffs.
I do have some mild concerns after watching the new trailer. While it does look pleasantly familiar, the design of the game on show looks largely unchanged from God Eater's initial handheld debut back in 2010. It's interesting to see them sticking to their oversized anime guns here, and keeping God Eater all about straightforward arena combat against big stompy beasties, but the game has more competition on PC nowadays.
The monsters do get to turn the tables a bit in this latest iteration. By using Devour attacks of their own, they can take a bite out of players in order to power themselves up; it's a god eat god world out there. Being the first God Eater game in a while, there are a few new weapon types in both the close combat and ranged categories, including the impressive-looking beam cannon, for when only a giant anime laser can solve your problems.
As an aside, remasters of God Eaters 1 & 2 are part of the early unlock selection in the current Humble Monthly, along with Mafia 3 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, if you want to get up to speed on the series. There's no release date yet for God Eater 3, but I'd be surprised if it came out much later than this summer.