Freedom Wars Remastered Review – Freed At Last

A New Lease On Life for a Vita Classic

An underrated console hampered by the rise in mobile gaming and a knack for expensive proprietary memory cards and cables, the PlayStation Vita still managed to give us some absolutely underrated gems during its short lifespan. Nearly eleven years ago when the console was mid-life, a game took Japan by storm – breaking first-party sales records and becoming the second-highest opening PS Vita title. Developed by Dimps and remastered by Bandai Namco Entertainment, Freedom Wars Remastered takes a well-rounded JRPG and adds some quality-of-life tweaks, allowing new players a taste of what was once restricted to Sony’s ill-fated handheld.

One hundred thousand years from the game’s original launch date, the year is 102,014 – and the Earth’s surface has become uninhabitable. Humanity has gathered itself inside huge underground cities known as Panopticons, where resources are scarce and simple infractions make you a criminal, turning you into a Sinner. In fact each Panopticon subscribes to the philosophy that a person’s very existence is a waste of resources, so you are born as a ‘Sinner’ and your purpose becomes to fight for your home.

Freedom WArs REview

It’s a lot to take in so early in the game – but Freedom Wars Remastered attempts to get the world-building out of the way early, to allow you to dive into the action as soon as possible. Stepping into the shoes of the main character, you developed amnesia during an incursion, and copped a fresh one-million year sentence as well as being assigned a replacement android assistant/surveillance bot known as an Accessory. The game hits you pretty hard here – taking too many steps in your cell grants you an infraction and adds years to your sentence, as does trying to lie down to rest, or even talking to the wrong people. It’s up to you to take on missions for the Office of Peace and Stability, contribute towards the Greater Good, and reduce your sentence to zero – if it’s ever going to happen!

Before you even get into learning the intricacies of combat, there’s so much to remember and go through to begin with – and it’s all locked behind a counterintuitive menu system. You’ve got a personal menu where you start operations from, your cell menu where you can donate resources to the Greater Good and earn Rights to stop yourself from copping longer sentences, and your Accessory menu which will grant you exit permits and bonus resources from missions. It’s problematic because it becomes difficult to remember where things are; and it becomes even worse when you’re trying to work out which menu allows you to upgrade weapons or abilities. As you progress you’ll unlock Rights such as a fast-travel system which is sorely needed, otherwise if you run for more than 10 seconds you’ll have your sentence extended – and when the game requires you to bounce between locations just to progress, you’ll be ready to throw your controller through the screen.

Freedom WArs REview

Once you’ve worked out how to navigate the dystopia of your Panopticon and the overwhelming amount of menus, it then comes time to dive into missions. These feel very Monster Hunter-ish in that you’re tasked with taking down huge enemies known as Abductors, and collecting resources from the components they drop. The weapon loadout you select is going to be important not only to the play style that suits you, but to understand the enemy you’re coming up against. Swords and blades are great for severing Abductor components and weapons, while assault rifles and rocket launchers are going to allow you to pick off smaller enemies from a distance. Picking up dropped resources is important as well, to allow you to donate and reduce your sentence or to upgrade your equipment and add modules too power up your weapons too. You can kit out your Accessory with a weapon too, allowing for extra support.

My personal favourite was a mix of long-range attacks with an assault rifle, followed up by close-range attacks with a sword – but everyone will be different. All Sinners are granted a grappling vine weapon called a Thorn as well, which has three separate categories – Binding, Healing and Shielding – which adds an extra element to your team support. You can use these Thorns to topple an Abductor temporarily, as well as grappling across the map or flinging yourself onto an Abductor to sever a component.

Freedom WArs REview

As you progress there is also a noticeable difficulty jump which was also present on the original game, and so you will feel like suddenly it is taking a lot longer to take down the Abductor you are facing, or you are being overwhelmed by the enemy at hand. Despite being able to upgrade your Accessory’s weapons and give them orders, missions start to get frustrating when your Accessory is knocked out and you have to run in to revive them – especially when they can be captured by an Abductor and taken from you if you lose the mission. The missions feel very similar, whether it is capture the flag, freeing citizens or simply taking down Abductors – but the benefit of this is that they don’t feel stale unless you’re grinding through the mission. Who you choose as support and the weapons you take in make all the difference.

Customisation and crafting has been improved from the Vita days – originally you would be restricted by a set time to upgrade weapons or develop weapon modules, but this appears to have been done away with. The frustrating part comes from not having the right resources to craft or upgrade certain things, and not having an idea of where to retrieve those resources – and whether or not you just donated a bunch from your last mission. For a dystopian JRPG, there are an overwhelming amount of outfit options and customisation for both you and your Accessory, and as you earn more Entitlement Points, you can unlock more Rights to outfits and customisation.

Freedom WArs REview

The only downside is that even though the graphics have been tweaked to look better on modern consoles, they still feel a tad dated especially when played on a large TV as opposed to the Vita’s small OLED screen. Environmental textures and even outfit textures lack significant detail which doesn’t always fit the animated style of the character models.

Conclusion
Despite initially being a first-party title for a Sony handheld, the decision by Bandai Namco Entertainment to expand Freedom Wars Remastered to other consoles is a masterstroke, as the game is definitely more deserving of audiences with a potential to a sequel in the future. While some of the graphics feel quite dated, and there is an awful lot of wandering that takes place at the start of the game, Freedom Wars Remastered is a game that will have you coming back for more and wanting to fight for the Greater Good.
Positives
Updated and quicker crafting systems
Engaging and fun battles
Huge range of cosmetic customisation and crafting options
The return of a classic Vita title
Negatives
A lot of slow, back and forth wandering story exposition
Updated textures are still not quite right
No option to change text to voice language back to original.
7.5