God Eater 3 Review

God Eater 3 is the third mainline entry to the God Eater franchise. Like previous entries in the series, you play a recently enlisted God Eater who’s tasked with killing Aragami in a post-apocalyptic world. The story itself isn’t directly tied to previous entries. A lot of time has passed between God Eater 2 Rage Burst and God Eater 3 and new God Eaters have been enlisted to combat the new and highly dangerous Ash Aragami. Reprising the role of an Adaptive God Eater (AGE), the main story revolves around you finding your place in the world with your fellow AGEs and attempt to escape the hostility of being the third generation God Eaters.

For those new to the series, this game can be played relatively blind, whilst some things mentioned in this game require previous understanding with terms like bias factors, P45s, and first/second generation God Eaters and the importance of them. The in-game database does a solid job of explaining them, they aren’t super integral to understanding the game’s story unless you care about its pseudoscience and backstory.

Unlike previous titles, this game’s story is relatively lacking in substance and character arcs are surprisingly small. With the game’s story missions lasting only to 70 main missions, that’s less than half of God Eater 2 Rage Burst. And to say there’s an incredible story or keeps its consistency with GE2RB would be saying a foot bath equates to a actual bath. Not quite the same, it’s just that GE3 is lacking in the depth/content side. The strong sense of character development and general sense of chemistry is lacking compared to GE2RB. That said, this entry builds on the previous game’s mechanics and really plays its main strength: the combat.

If you're eating out, gotta dress the part right.

Whilst not as meaty or methodical as something like Monster Hunter World, comparing the two is similar to comparing Street Fighter to Guilty Gear. Same genre, but very different takes. Unless you’re looking to scratch that Monster Hunter itch, this might not necessarily be the game for you given how anime it is, from the flashiness of moves to how floaty the controls feel. Not necessarily bad things, but if you’re expecting something more methodical and weighted, this isn’t necessarily the game for you. Also, you can dodge moves using invulnerability frames so learning to use the shield is very much part of the combat vocabulary. Additionally, the revamp of the Burst Art mechanic have been revamped to be much more impactful, with the effects really changing how your playstyle functions. An example of this the new weapon Biting Edge, which has a skill that regenerates stamina on changing to staff mode and a has skill that increases your main combo’s potency for aerial and ground attacks. This means maintaining a full assault between the two blades and glaive is feasible.

The flow of the game is fairly simple and doesn’t require too much forethought, with the need to specifically grind and farm for things only coming nearer/towards the endgame with the post-story content really pushing you. At time of writing, the first content update has been released granting you access to Certificate Missions, offering you more challenging content to really test your skills in team and solo missions. They help bolster the game’s content, and provide some new things for players to grind for. But unless you’re aiming for that 1% or building every single weapon possible, they’re not going to extend the length and feels like content for content’s sake (again, unless you’re the endgame runner like me, this is somewhat superfluous content).

If this review reads as lukewarm/tempered, it’s because the game is more God Eater. That said, to be more critical of GE3, it still feels relatively outdated with certain mechanics, feeling responsive but not quite smooth, characters aren’t that developed, being left on the wayside with very little to no development, to the point you’ll sometimes forget they exist. Or the bad luck prevention at endgame for the grind of 3% drops, but that’s just part of any gear based game and the need of good RNG. That said, improvements to the UI and accessibility of information feels iterative in nature, coming from previous games is to a small extent needed.

Scenes like this make me wonder what a more weighted combat game would be like.

As for a challenge, whilst previous Aragami added back into this game have been tweaked here and there to be more accommodating (with the first update tweaking the old and new entries more). The biggest challenge will be from the Ash Born Aragami with their own devour mechanics, with some of the spikes in difficulty acting as walls to truly test your mettle. All of the weapons are and feel balanced, and when you’re playing to their strengths is the most rewarding aspect of the gameplay. The new weapons: Ray Gun, Biting Edge, and Heavy Moon are great additions and each fill their own niche without being distinctively overpowered or underwhelming.

Unlike GE2RB, the NPC teammates in this iteration are more valuable and useful. Whilst not incredible, each one has a distinctive role and strength within a group and make playing alone less difficult. But like any game with aggro mechanics, if you really want to learn to play the best going solo is preferable for predictability. That said, the rate which this game teaches you how to actually use them is lacking, unless you’re willing to explore the vast database. A filter system like the one GE2RB had would be nice, but given how extensive everything else is, I’m willing to give it a pass for the complexity.