The unique gameplay loop popularized by Capcom’s Monster Hunter franchise has inspired many other games to varying degrees of success. 2014 PlayStation Vita game Freedom Wars is one such game, with the original release earning mixed reviews from critics, yet standing out as one of the more notable titles ever released for PlayStation’s ill-fated handheld. Freedom Wars being a PlayStation Vita exclusive limited its audience, and that, combined with the fact that the servers for the original game were shut down years ago, has always made it ripe for a port or remaster. Freedom Wars Remastered makes the game available to a much wider audience, and it does so without forsaking what made the original popular to begin with. However, some may come away feeling as though Freedom Wars Remastered doesn’t do enough to bring the 2014 Vita game to modern home console standards.
Freedom Wars Remastered is almost identical to the original game, but with improved textures, new difficulty settings, and a refreshed crafting system. Still, the game looks dated. While Freedom Wars Remastered supports 4K resolution, the character models and mission stages are bland and lack details. And despite the upgraded textures, there are many instances where the game looks flat-out ugly.
It’s a little disappointing that Freedom Wars Remastered didn’t do more to take better advantage of the newer hardware it’s releasing on, but while it’s very unimpressive graphically, it at least delivers solid performance and the actual gameplay is mostly quite fun. For those unfamiliar with the genre, Freedom Wars Remastered‘s gameplay loop revolves around completing missions to earn materials and weapons that can then be used to tackle more challenging missions. Oftentimes, this means taking on a large boss enemy, with players able to target specific body parts to get specific crafting materials. These battles are long and can be stressful at times, but there’s something undeniably addictive about these kinds of games, and the same holds true for Freedom Wars Remastered.
Freedom Wars Remastered can be hard to put down. The mission environments are repetitive, and the human fights are annoying because they can constantly interrupt your attacks and movements, but the fights against the larger-scale Abductor enemies are a blast. The combat itself is very button mashy, but it’s rewarding when all those attacks finally pay off and an enemy’s body part is knocked loose. I wish there was more enemy variety, but even fighting the same handful of Abductors never got boring. A big part of that is the Thorn weapon, which adds an interesting wrinkle to the combat.
Freedom Wars Remastered‘s Thorns come in a variety of options with their own special gimmicks, but they are primarily used to zip around the environment in a manner not unlike Attack on Titan‘s ODM Gear. Thorns can also be used to drag large enemies to the ground, rendering them defenseless against a barrage of attacks. The missions with big boss fights may take a while, but they are usually a lot of fun. It’s safe to say that anyone that enjoys Monster Hunter‘s battles will have a great time with Freedom Wars Remastered.
Many Freedom Wars Remastered missions are tackled in groups. Freedom Wars Remastered supports online co-op, but for the purposes of this review, I was mostly stuck with AI-controlled companions. Luckily, Freedom Wars Remastered‘s AI helpers are extremely useful. They sometimes need special instructions if players hope to complete certain missions (they do a terrible job at capturing the flag if not explicitly told to do so, for example), but most of the time, they do a great job of whittling away at enemies’ health and reviving their fellow teammates whenever they’re knocked down. At times, the AI companions made some of Freedom Wars Remastered‘s battles almost trivial because of how effective they were, but I certainly prefer that to NPC partners that get in the way, like what happens in some other games.
Freedom Wars Remastered has a variety of NPCs that players can bring on their missions, but players are also assigned their very own AI companion that accompanies them by default in almost every mission in the game. This companion is known as the player’s “Accessory.” Similar to Monster Hunter‘s Palicos, these companions have customizable appearances and loadouts. Freedom Wars Remastered Accessories also serve a story purpose, as they are essentially there to babysit the player and make sure that they aren’t doing anything that they are not allowed to do.
Freedom Wars Remastered is set in a dystopian, almost Orwellian world where so-called “Sinners” have to complete dangerous missions in an attempt to reduce their prison sentences. Freedom Wars Remastered players are slapped with an eye-watering 1 million year prison sentence at the start of the game, and not only that, but many of their privileges are restricted as well. Until players earn their privileges back by donating resources to their community, known as the Panopticon, they can’t do things like rest, fast-travel, or even sprint for more than 5 seconds. Committing these actions results in penalties that see more time added to players’ sentences. In one instance, I accidentally talked to an NPC of the opposite gender without buying that entitlement back first and had 20 years added to my sentence. Choosing to recline without the right entitlement added another 10 years.
While it can be a little annoying at the start of the game when you have to slowly walk everywhere, I found Freedom Wars Remastered‘s prison setting and associated gimmick to be fascinating. The story in general is fairly engaging for the most part, though it’s often dragged down by generic anime characters and dialogue. There are also long stretches of story dumps between missions that don’t do Freedom Wars Remastered any favors, but I was still invested in the overarching mystery and always curious to see where the story was going to go next.
One’s time in Freedom Wars Remastered is mostly spent fighting Abductors and running around talking to NPCs, but there are also stealth missions thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, Freedom Wars Remastered‘s stealth missions are a complete waste of time. They lack any kind of challenge and feel like an after-thought. When these boring stealth missions show up in the middle of a long stretch of talking, it can seriously hurt the game’s pacing and will leave players anxious to get back to the fun, action-packed Abductor missions.
It took me about 20 hours to roll credits on Freedom Wars Remastered‘s main story, but I still had 879,667 years left on my prison sentence.
Freedom Wars Remastered‘s extensive endgame will give players plenty of time to fight countless Abductors and really immerse themselves in the gameplay loop. One could argue that the “real” game begins once Freedom Wars Remastered‘s story is over, and as long as one enjoys these kinds of Monster Hunter-style games, they will get their money’s worth and then some, especially if they dive into the online co-op and PvP offerings. It’s rough around the edges in some areas, but Freedom Wars Remastered is a mostly engaging action-RPG with an addictive gameplay loop that makes it hard to stop playing.
Reviewed on PS5
- Released
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January 10, 2025
- Fun fights against large-scale bosses
- Thorn weapon enhances both combat and movement
- Intriguing dystopian setting
- Extensive endgame and online modes
- Bland, repetitive environments
- Fights against human enemies are obnoxious
- Long stretches of boring talking hurt the pacing
- Pointless stealth missions
Freedom Wars Remastered launches January 10 for PC, PS4, PS5, and Switch. Game Rant was provided with a PS5 code for this review.