God Eater 3 “Action Demo” Impressions – Lots of Action, But I Need That Story

The God Eater series has been one of my favorites since I first played it on PlayStation Portable. I enjoy the way the games mix story with killing the monster threat known as Aragami. Over the years, I was afraid that I wouldn’t see the series gain much traction in the west. Thankfully I was wrong and Bandai Namco will be not only continuing the series, but also bringing it stateside a lot quicker than in the past. With God Eater 3, fans will finally get a true new God Eater game that’s built from the ground up for modern consoles.

Before God Eater 3’s official release, Bandai Namco gave fans a chance to play the game early in a new demo. Available modes in the demo would be a few missions and one online mission. Although limited to what the player could do, the demo gives players a good idea of how the battle mechanics have evolved over the years and let’s just say, it’s still God Eater in all the best ways.

At the player’s disposal are a few different weapon load outs that they can use to take down enemies. The demo mostly revolves around missions that spawn a few monsters for the player to beat up and learn the basics. Players will need to understand the different layers of melee attacks if they want to inflict some high damage. This makes using the God Arc the most important part of this demo because outside of taking down Aragami there isn’t much to do. God Arcs are the weapons attached to the character’s arm and in this story, they have been placed on prisoners who must hunt the Aragami either by choice or against their will.

God Arcs are used to devour Aragmi, which unlock Burst Status and allows the player to use Burst Arts. There are three levels to the Burst Status and each gives you a stronger melee attack. This system ends up being crucial to the player to get the hang of, especially when fighting against stronger enemies or else they could definitely take a while or run down the clock.

Players can also switch to their gun that uses OP as ammunition. There are different ammo types that do various things such as heal the party or use elemental damage. You can also use Burst Ammo from devouring Aragami. I didn’t quite get the hang out using the guns in God Eater 3 and it’s something that I will need to explore more when the game officially releases. I didn’t find a good rhythm of using up OP and then recharging it by attacking Aragami.

God Eater 3 doesn’t redefine the systems introduced throughout the God Eater series, but it does make things a little more fluid. Also, the Aragami design has been greatly overhauled to include some new enemies that differ more from one another to make them a little more unique. However, what makes God Eater fun isn’t only found within its monster hunting gameplay modes.

What God Eater brings is a deep story rooted in a cast of characters who must fight for the survival of the human race, which isn’t explained in this action demo. Additionally, there’s a deep weapon and armor crafting system that I have yet to explore in this new game. What God Eater 3 brings in terms of a battle system are some great new additions that give incentives to use your God Arc more in battle, but I’m interested to see why these characters are in imprisoned and how deep the mechanics of this game can truly be.