About ten years after its first publication on the now forgotten PlayStation Vita, FREEDOM WARS returns to be talked about, through an interesting remastered which aims to bring players back into its crazy dystopian world. In fact, it had been about three years since we had heard of the dangerous Panopticons, since in 2021 they closed the online servers to continue their adventure in the company of their friends. FREEDOM WARS Remastered, released on January 10th on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and PC, now seeks to relive a second golden period, dividing, who knows, perhaps once again the criticism regarding its cryptic nature. Happy reading!
Titolo: FREEDOM WARS Remastered
Piattaforma: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC (Steam)
Version analyzed: PlayStation 5 (EU) Genre: RPG, Hunting Game
Players: 1 (1-8 online) Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Developer: Dimps Corporation Language: Italian (text), English and Japanese (dubbing) Release date: January 10, 2025 Availability: digital delivery DLC: none Notes: none
We reviewed FREEDOM WARS Remastered with a PlayStation 5 code provided to us free of charge by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment.
From birth, your life is marked by a million-year prison sentence: facing deadly missions is the only way to achieve freedom. You can live fighting or die in prison. The choice is yours…
Fight for your freedom
More than 100,000 years have passed and humanity has completely exhausted the Earth’s natural resources. To survive, the few remaining civilizations have built city-states called Panopticons, which operate as pseudo-communist military dictatorships. Everyone is divided into one of the two available “social classes”: sinners or citizens. The former are condemned to a minimum of one million years of slavery just for being born, as even just existing is considered a waste of resources. The sinners do their best to pay off their sentences by completing dangerous missions in the outside world, battling other Panopticons for the meager supplies that can still be salvaged. Each of these missions takes place within one of five different levels available, pitting the player and a team of up to three other allies against hulking robots and sinners from other districts, all while establishing a clear set of objectives that we will have to complete within the time limit.
To face the fearsome enemies, the sinners have access to Thorns, a particular technology that allows them to attach themselves to any element present in the scenario. These allow you to make quick and complex jumps, grab enemies and even drag one of them to the ground with the help of your teammates. We will also be able to block enemies, create healing areas or even protect our allies from damage. It is this combination of the different thorn abilities, the varied standard attacks/combos and the coordination with your team that creates some of the most special moments in the game. Few experiences are as rewarding as tearing limb from limb the mechanical beasts that hunt us while trying not to increase your own sentence through small and simple gestures.
Despite the overall fun experience offered by the title already in 2014, some flaws are still present today in its most recent remastered version. The selection of levels, to cite an example, is unfortunately remarkably sparse, leading the player to quickly experience a feeling of monotony, especially when considering some of the longest battles in the game, which can easily last more than thirty minutes per fight. Unfortunately, the game movement system has not improved either, certainly built to allow a certain verticality, in particular when fighting giants, but for which the arenas were not designed to support that specific style of play. Even the best areas feature invisible walls to limit movement and ability to get close to enemies. The result is a combat system capable of facilitating some incredible gameplay experiences, but limited to the point of feeling slow and wooden. Completely different situation for the mapping of controls and the simplification of the game where, compared to the old version for PS Vita, controlling your avatar is now much simpler and more immediate (even if not perfectly in line with the current generation).
Conceptually, what concerns the role-playing component is unfortunately still limited and repetitive, with different main missions that follow one another in an identical way. The available weapons are divided into six groups: small swords, large swords, spears, personal firearms, multipurpose firearms, and squad support firearms which include weapons such as gatling guns, laser guns, rocket launchers, and flamethrowers. Weapons have varying degrees of rarity, attributes and perks, which players can then change before each mission. They can be found during missions, also as rewards for their completion, or be crafted within your center and upgraded. Consumable items vary from classic healing items to useful offensive systems such as grenades and landmines. Be careful though, the production, modification and upgrading of weapons and consumable items take up real time determined by the game system clock, so even choosing the wrong weapon to upgrade can be a waste of time. Those who contribute to their Panopticon are rewarded with customization options for their character, as well as gaining the ability to “repurchase” their privileges to access new gameplay features.
A sentence… again 10 years later
Technically the new version of FREEDOM WARS features some small and notable improvements, such as a 4K resolution and a frame rate of 60 frames per second on PlayStation and PC, while offering 1080p resolution at a frame rate of 30 frames per second on Nintendo Switch . Other improvements made to FREEDOM WARS Remastered include the new “Deadly Sinner” difficulty mode, high-resolution textures, and expanded control customization. Stylistically, it is unfortunately undeniable that the title still suffers from a slight laziness, with scenarios that almost always present the same models, depriving the progression of any concrete “visual support”. This doesn’t mean that all the artistic direction is flat, however: monsters and characters are still wonderfully detailed today, and it’s sad to see how the same attention and care hasn’t been extended to the rest of the experience. The game world seems at times empty and soulless, favoring narrative identification, but on the other hand ruining the visual one.
However, the subtle humor that permeates the experience as “Sinners” should be praised. In fact, being constantly under scrutiny by our own Panopticon, our every action will be used to inevitably prolong our condemnation. Talking gets us into trouble. Not speaking gets us into trouble. Sleeping when we’re told we’re too tired to work carries a heavy penalty, but so does refusing the offer of rest. Violations of the rules are so common that they are always taken with a smile, also because most of them carry punishments ranging from ten to two hundred years added to the original sentence, which starting with a million years only fuels the comedy of all of this.
Who do we recommend FREEDOM WARS Remastered to?
FREEDOM WARS Remastered is recommended to all those who have already been able to appreciate the original work on PS Vita, and now want to return with many new small improvements. Also recommended for lovers of titles like Monster Hunter, where similar mechanics can offer equal fun.
Fun gameplay if taken as a whole Care for character and enemy models Dystopian and captivating plot…
…Although not properly embellished by the artistic component Technically not yet up to date Conceptually a lazy role-playing component
FREEDOM WARS Remastered
Sentence discount for good behavior
FREEDOM WARS Remastered is a title characterized by an enormous amount of potential, especially for its extraordinarily raw class warfare, with deep and often hard to digest themes, but which ends up getting lost within its own mechanics and stylistic laziness . The idea of giving the gameplay a more intriguing verticality is definitely its Achilles’ heel, but limiting the game avatar through slow and wooden movements ends up being its own defeat. The monotony of the missions makes itself felt all too quickly, even if you try to look away as much as possible from the usual endlessly repeated areas. For this remastered we would have preferred some more innovations, so that the title, old glory passed on PS Vita, could now be a valid title in the new PlayStation lineup. Stylistically brilliant on the characters and enemies, but far too empty in its settings. A title that covers its flaws with an intriguing and dark plot, together with humor capable of making even the most sulky smile. A title to try at least once and for which you can give a small discount considering the price at which the new experience is offered again.
