Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom

The Attack on Titan manga and anime have gotten quite a reception around the world. Not exactly surprising, considering it's all about people fighting for their lives against giant Titans. Other popular manga and anime have tried their luck on the video game market, so the question is: can Hajime Isayama-sama's universe differentiate itself from the rest of them?

The game's story follows the first season of the anime, and a even a taste of what's coming in the second season. You'll get to see what's happening inside the walls, and even some scenarios that are happening elsewhere. If you haven't read the manga or watch the anime, here's a short synopsis for you. The story of Attack on Titan mostly revolves around the adventures of Eren Yeager, his foster sister, Mikasa Ackerman, and their childhood friend Armin Arlert. They live in a city separated by three giant walls that's supposed to protect them from giant humanoid creatures called Titans that feed on humans. One day the outer wall is breached, and one of the Titans kills Eren's mother. He wows to eradicate the Titans and joins the military.

Five years later we see how Eren keeps going up the ranks as he gains the ability to transform into a Titan. This ability will become handy, as the Titans seems to be changing. That's all we're going to say, as we want to avoid spoilers. If you've read or seen Naruto, Dragon Ball or similar manga/anime you'll know what you're in for.

The same goes in terms of gameplay. Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom is a 3D arena fighting game in the same vein as the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series and Dragon Ball Xenoverse. What really differentiates it is the Omni-Directional Mobility gear (Two gas propelled grappling hooks that can be shot into surfaces, to drag you toward the target). Not only does this make you feel like Spider-Man when traversing the environments, but it's also the main focus of combat. As you're fighting giant creatures you have to use this to reach their different body parts. The Titans' hardened skin is not easily penetrated, so you have to use the extra boost from this tool to inflict damage. Sounds easy enough? It's a bit more complicated. A Titan regenerates fairly quickly, and has only one real weak spot, its nape. You can cut of as many body parts as you want, the Titan won't go down till you've done enough damage to its nape. Not an easy task, as the Titans keeps moving and turning. That's why dismemberment is a big part of the game. Cut of their arms to limit their attack options, and their feet to immobilise them.

Then it helps that there's a fairly good auto-aim system. Here you get to choose between five different body parts: the feet, arms and nape. Shoot your grappling hooks into the body part you want to damage, and the gas will boost you towards it. It's not that easy though. Titans will keep on moving after being shot, so you have to manoeuvre around to hit the designated target. Hitting the wrong one will barely do any damage, and moving around too much will slow you down, which also does less damage. Avoiding buildings, other Titans and other body parts makes the combat feel intense and enthralling. You'll be controlling different characters, each with their own stylish animations and attacks. Attacks feel impactful, much due to bloody (gore can be turned off), fast paced action going taking place on your screen.

If things get difficult it's possible to recruit other soldiers spread around the battlefield or completing side-missions. Up to four companions can fight with you at a time, and will follow your instructions. Obviously, this is a fighting game, so your options are fairly limited. They can focus on protecting you, fan out to damage multiple enemies, or attack the same body part as you do. We found these most useful when fighting large groups of enemies or strong bosses. In these situations they functioned as diversions or inflicting extra damage to an enemy that had to be taken down quickly. If you don't have any companions with you it's possible to gain extra power and companions by filling up a kind of super bar. Activating this will call in stronger companions and do extra damage. Seeing the screen fill up with damage indicators and a stylish filter is satisfying, especially if it gets you out of a pinch. Unfortunately it loses its impact after a while.

With only one attack button the combat gets very repetitive. Sure, your attacks will vary depending on which of the two speeds you have when attacking the target, but that's pretty much it. With Titans being very similar in terms of strengths and weaknesses as well, the combat starts to feel s bit like a chore. Every mission involves combat, so you'll rarely get to relax with something else. Between missions you'll be walking around in a small hub area, where you get to buy or customise your gear. Your swords, the Omni-Directional Mobility gear's gas canisters and the grappling hooks can all be upgraded in different ways. The only upgrades we found useful was lengthening our swords, and making the hooks stronger and able to connect from further away. This way we could engage combat from further away, and not detach from from the Titan when moving around. You'll gain materials for upgrades when completing mission or dismembering different limbs on certain Titans, so getting the upgrades you want is pretty much all grinding by doing the same missions multiple times. By all means, it's fun trying to get a higher grade (depends on how many missions you complete, how many Titans you kills, and how much time you use), but this is rarely worth it when it's so repetitive.

The visuals are fairly impressive though. They're not quite on Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm's level, but still good. Cutscenes looks just as good as the anime, and the in-game visuals are some times a joy to look at as well. When it's running at a stable 60 frames per second and we're cutting down Titans left and right. That makes it all the more disappointing when we witness the multiple technical issues. The frame rate drops to 20-25 when there are more than four Titans on screen, or buildings are being destroyed. As if that wasn't enough there's also a lot of clipping. This is especially annoying when a Titan's body parts disappears inside its body or structures, making it impossible to damage. Omega Force seem to be aware of this, as most environments are very open. But with a lot of missions taking place in the city, this becomes a very irritating issue. The same goes for the camera. It does a incredible nice job in open environments. Each kill is captured in a beautiful cinematic way. Insert a structure into this, and it's a complete mess. We've been struggling to move the camera when captured under a collapsing Titan, missing a jump because the camera lost sight of us when swinging into a corner and other aggravating scenarios. Such a shame when it's such a fantastic sight to behold when it works.

Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom does a great job of introducing newcomers to the franchise. You'll get lots of bonus content (character bios, soundtrack, sound clips and more), visuals that are pretty much spot on, and the stylish combat is easy to learn. Using the Omni-Directional Mobility gear really makes the combat stand out from most other similar games. Getting to control your favourite characters in these fights would have been fantastic, if not for some particularly troubling issues. Monotonous combat, a troublesome camera and a multitude of technical issues really hurt the experience. If Omega Force had created more varied combat animation, tweaked the camera and polished the technical aspects this would have been a fantastic game. As it stands now this is certainly worth a buy for fans of the series, but not really worth a consideration from others.