Hands-on: PS Vita’s Freedom Wars

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Hands-on: PS Vita’s Freedom Wars

PS Vita exclusive Freedom Wars comes courtesy of Japan Studio, Dimps, and Shift, and places you into the unfortunate shoes of a prisoner facing a one million year sentence. It’s not all bad news, though! By battling fearsome Abductors and rescuing citizens, your captors will generously reduce the length of your imprisonment — a few years at a time.

Hands-on: PS Vita’s Freedom Wars

Featuring four-player local co-op (via an ad-hoc wireless connection, with vacant slots filled by computer-controlled companions), Freedom Wars rewards coordinated cooperative play. One player can use a grappling hook to pull an enemy to the ground, while another dashes in to rescue an innocent trapped within the beast’s chest. While transporting a civilian to safety, you’ll rely on the protection of your teammates to keep you and your cargo alive. Alternatively, eight player (4v4) competitive play is an option when playing via the magic of the internet.

I recently went hands-on with Freedom Wars, along with my pals Ken, Kumi and Jake, the results of which you can see at the top of this post. Freedom Wars launches exclusively on PS Vita later this year.

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166 Comments

3 Author Replies

  • super stoked that there is a physical release!! thank you so much! I will be preordering for sure, any thought as to having a collector’s edition or preorder in game items?

  • @43 The point is there are those who share the same issue. Your the one who came out with the smart mouth comment. I just expressed how I felt about the game.

  • This will be a day-one purchase from me.

  • @Nick

    I *wish* I was going to PAX. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite fit into the schedule this time. Boooo! D;

  • @djsaiyan

    I know you can import a 64gb card. Superufo has them for $82. Cheaper than play-asia.

    What I meant was I want them to announce the 64gb card for america with a price drop on all memory cards. I bought my 32gb card for 100 before the first price drop and I’m not gonna pay double what a standard 64 gb sd card costs. I’ll at most go $60 and even that’s too high.

    I’ve heard people also say well just delete games off your card you don’t play. Well no duh but it also deletes the saves too.

    But I digress, I’m pumped for Freedom Wars!!!!!

  • I’ve been sold on this for ages, already pre-ordered, just waiting on the release!!

  • Awesome :)

    My most anticipated game of 2014!

  • Any chance this game will receive the same level of post-launch support that Soul Sacrifice did? That’s what really kept me coming back.

  • Huh….I’m envious… why SCEE side doesn’t show that much love in comments :(

    Mr. Nick we really would like to clone you!

    Anyway, I can’t wait to play it.

    I hope that game will be system seller with at least 1.5kk sold copies worldwide. Wish you (and us) luck!

    It would be cool if we could use our accessories also in other games in the future :P It would be great! Game set in medival, or sci-fi…. click option “convert” and voila your accessory is now part of another game. It would be even cool if we could use our own accessories outside of the game, I mean accessories as a assistant aplication on Vita that run in background… wouldn’t that be cool? Something like siri but for Vita only.

    But yeah… I can’t wait to play it…

    (btw. yeah SAO is great… bit shame there will be only digital game in NA and EU… :/ but on the bright side there are already 2 volumes of LN translated to English… but still… no retail spoils the fun :/ but than again… LN…. huh… it is complicated)

    (btw. numero 2 btw. did you also watch hack. series?)

    • I was a big .hack// fan back in the day!

      Thanks for the kind words, Archacus – glad you’re looking forward to the game!

  • So I see a lot of people are interested in this game a lot people need to support the ps vita games like they showed there support for this game. Great games are incoming for the ps vita now watch Gamescon and you will see.

  • Since I play most of my Vita games at light with the sound low or off, I have no issues with the lack of dubbing because I’d turn on subtitles anyway.

    Is there going to be a demo prior to release?

    • Appreciate the kind words, xClayMeow! We’ll hopefully have more news regarding demo possibilities in the future!

      Thanks for being patient!

  • Uh oh… Mr. Nick I have one question.

    There is one guy on EU blog who doesn’t like Japanese voicework, he is asking whether there will be option to turn off voices in cut scenes and battles… can you give some sort of reply for that? I don’t think that from SCEE side anyone will answer but if you will reply here I will tell him the answer.

    Anyway Thank you!

    • You can indeed turn the character voices all the way to zero if you so choose – there’s a volume slider for character voices that goes from 0-100.

      Why you’d do that with this awesome voice cast, I have no idea!

  • http://www.reddit.com/r/vita/comments/29tt7d/freedom_wars_is_a_glass_half_empty_and_painfully/
    After reading this, there is no way I will ever buy this game even if it does get a dub

  • Is online co-op going to be at all possible for the game in the future? It’s not a deal-breaker in any way, but I don’t know too many people with Vita is all!

    Super stoked regardless.

  • Really excited for this game and am happy Sony decided it was worthy of the illusive retail release. Day 1.

    If only SS Delta would get a retail copy. Patapon 2 got an UMD after initially being a code in a box. :(

    Oreshika feels doomed for digital too. *sigh*

  • Side note: thanks for all the replies Nick. Always feels nice to have someone dedicated to replying to comments here.

    • You’re extremely welcome, and thank you for always posting great comments!

      Really appreciate the kind words – we worked hard to make sure Freedom Wars got a retail release!

  • AWESOME :D

    Thanks for the replies, Nick!

  • Freedom Wars is Awesome Game!!

    I have a question. The game will Include spanish language??

    Thanks a lot

  • Can’t wait to have this game! Thought I would keep my wallet full for a bit, but looks like that won’t happen.
    Great to watch, but better to play.

  • oh gosh do want this

  • can we switch between japanese VO with ENG subs?

    • The only audio within the game will be JP, but there will be a choice between English, Spanish and French subtitles!

      Hope you enjoy, and thanks for your enthusiasm!

  • Oh god thank you for Japanese Audio!
    I tried the demo, and them saying my name was soooo awesome!!
    I figured if it was dubbed it wouldn’t be as good, either quality down or less dubbing! But oh my god!!!!

    • I love it! Hope you’re ready for the English localization! (Happy to keep that Japanese audio in there for you!)

  • I heard a lot of negative reviews about this game at Amazon jp. I don’t know what it’s about, but I hope this doesn’t change my decision to get the game as it looks great graphics and gameplay wise. Doesn’t disappoint me one bit.

    @ImPaCTxX- Oh let him moan. It’s his choice and he has his reasons…

    • I sincerely wouldn’t worry about amazon reviews – the game’s already changed a lot since launch in Japan, and you’ll have all the improvements from Day 1.

      Hope you check it out!

  • Looking forward to picking this up :) I like the PS TV support too.

  • Any infos on are the US/EU versions of Freedom Wars able to play together (via adhoc or internet) with players from the Japanese version?

    Cheers!

  • Avatar photo

    We’ll have more on the online features coming soon my friend! Thanks for your patience!

  • I agree with Mando, as far as the english dubbed, i would even be content with a english voice over pack. It made me soo angry when DW Reborn didnt even give me a choice. I will end up buying this but it would be nice if sony could put in a request to this company about a english voice over pack.

  • Shuei , recently Asia plastation release an Freedom wars chinesse language for region 3 (Asia) , i just wonder will sony release region 3(asia) in engish too? Because you know we are asian but all of us didnt speak or read chinesse, like indonesia ,singapore ,hongkong , we dont. And my psn is region 3 (asia) i will be very dissapointed if u guys didnt release english ver on asia . Example like: idea factory who always release only region 1 (NA) games.

  • Nick(sorry wrong name earlier) , recently Asia plastation release an Freedom wars chinesse language for region 3 (Asia) , i just wonder will sony release region 3(asia) in engish too? Because you know we are asian but all of us didnt speak or read chinesse, like indonesia ,singapore ,hongkong , we dont. And my psn is region 3 (asia) i will be very dissapointed if u guys didnt release english ver on asia . Example like: idea factory who always release only region 1 (NA) games.

    • Hi Nixrulez! I unfortunately am not in a position to say much about the Asian release of Freedom Wars, but I’d stay tuned for some upcoming announcements if I were you! :)

  • Buyer beware guys.

    I know you’re all excited about this one, but really watch out. I’ve got the Japanese version over there on my shelf and I wouldn’t recommend buying it to anyone. Check out the reviews (especially that glass half full one, it’s spot-on) before you invest.

    I absolutely loved the game up to code 6 (the combat mechanics feel amazingly good) but in code 7 EVERYTHING becomes terrible. I even posted on playstation lifestyle defending the game, before that…

    but out of respect for the guy taking the time to answer all your questions I won’t say any more than that. Just, do some honest open-minded research before considering buying this thing. I wish I had.

    • “the guy taking time to answer all your questions” here!

      Trust me when I say that we’ve heard the feedback regarding the latter parts of the game, and I’m sure you’re aware that the team’s been busy balancing things through several patches. I’m proud to announce that we’ll have the complete updated experience from Day 1, so I personally wouldn’t fret about late game difficulty.

      I’d encourage you to give it another shot, astayanax, and thanks for your comment!

  • I was thinking about getting this game, but I heard its subb only. If so will it lessen my enjoyment of the game?

  • The Japan producer (hyper energetic guy) and game designer went to Taiwan to promote the game last weekend. Their interviews really got me excited that I want to get the Chinese version now.

    I know both Chinese and English versions will not be able to play with Japanese version. Will the English version (US and EU) be able to play together with the Chinese version? I noticed that the Chinese version has international cities like Tokyo, New York, London, Vienna and Sydney, in addition to the Asia cities like Taipei, Hong Kong and Seoul (these are some of the top scoring cities now). Is that indicative of cross-region play (except with Japan)?

    Is there cross-region restrictions based on game region, PSN account region or IP address (physical location) region?

  • I wonder will people be happy with just a text-to-speech English dub, lol. The game already has a text-to-speech engine which allows you to customize what your characters say in certain situations (you type in the text, your char will voice it). It allows adjustments to the voice so each person can sound very different. Sounds to me you could do a machine dub by just running the English text thru the text-to-speech engine (no lip sync) without spending a large budget on full cast voice dubbing.

    By the way, the current engine lets you enter Japanese text as well as English text. However English text will be pronounced with very prominent (and hard to understand) Japanese accent. Is this going to be improved to have more realistic English accent?

    • Hey Gummycore –

      Lots of questions! We’ll be covering multiplayer details a bit later, but in terms of the audio, we’re really not altering anything from the JP release, so I wouldn’t expect any signification changes to pronunciations either.

      Thanks for your kind words about Freedom Wars!

  • It’s not dubbed so I won’t be buying this day one. I will keep an eye out for when it’s on sale someday down the road.

  • I’m tempted to order the Chinese version to get the collectors edition. Will a collectors edition be coming to North America. Or will importing it be the only way?

  • Can’t wait to play.

    Good new + it’s coming is physical in europe too :D

  • I am still Day 1 on this title for several reasons. First off because I love this type of game. Co-op on Vita is fabulous in games like Toukiden, Ragnarok Odyssey and Soul Sacrifice. I want to show continued support to Sony and the Vita to encourage development of more great games. Finally, in hopes that they patch the issues with the later phases in the game.

    Nick – Thanks for the info and showing such interest in the community with all of your responses.

    • You’re awesome, andremal – thank you very much for your support!

      Several updates have already been deployed for the JP release, and I’m sure there’s more balancing to come. Luckily, we’ll have the most up-to-date version from day 1 over here, so I hope you really enjoy it!

      And you’re very welcome. You guys make this all worth it, and it’s a privilege to tell you more about such a great game.

  • Do you know yet if this will be playable on the Playstation TV?

  • @80: Those are from launch. Reviews can’t be trusted on games that get plenty of updates. Hardly anyone updates reviews per update to the game.

  • Hey what time will the anime sale be released on the east coast?

  • i like that you are replying a lot, NIck.
    please consider a collector’s edition like the japan and asia versions. We don’t see a lot of collector’s edition in the West for the vita and it is pretty weird SCEA and SCEE hasn’t done one yet while other companies have done so.
    Also i don’t consider the console/game bundles to be a collector’s edition

  • HYPE ! Getting this one day one with my buddies! Thanks a lot for bringing Freedom Wars and Oreshika to the West ! We Appreciate it ! I really wonder about multiplayer and about those panapticons/cities , especially EU version:) by the way , any idea about gravity rush 2 or Soul Sacrifice 2? :?

  • is this will come with psvita bundle? hehe

  • Please gives us a DEMO version to quench our thirst a little :D !!!

  • I am so excited for this game. My friend uses Hong Kong PSN and I uses US PSN. Will we be able to play together? And what is the release date?

  • Why does it take so long for na release? i want it now NNNOOOOWWWW!!!
    friends in asia already playing… :(

  • This is a must own game for every Vita owners.

  • I hash a question .-. Is it 30$ because it’s an online co-op or is there a strick story no online mode because frankly I don’t have access to internet at the moment

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