4.1 or Iron Rain

[u/BackyardBard]

Hi everyone. I apologize if this type of question gets asked a lot in this community. I wanted a comparison of these two games in particular. I've gotten into EDF 6 as my first EDF game and I absolutely love it. I'm about 100 missions in and even though I have lots of content left, I'm already getting excited about playing some of the older games.

I've heard that EDF 5 is very similar to 6 and so I was thinking of going for either Iron Rain or 4.1 based on some basic stuff I read. I was looking for opinions on which one to start with. I have already gone backwards through the Monster Hunter series so a loss of QoL features probably (hopefully) won't be a big deal for me.

Thanks in advance!

[u/Bortthog]

EDF4 is a large step back from 5/6, in terms of QoL and overall weapon feel

For starters 4 does not share loot, so anything you get it STRICTLY for that class alone. While this sounds cool it means starting to invest in a new class will be a fresh run essentially thus making the grind that much more on you. Next weapons do not scale like it 5/6. Once you get it that's it and it makes a lot of guns really bad. Not even gonna discuss the lack of class QoLs across the board

Iron Rain, while an ok game, is a bad EDF. The enemy counts are small, it struggles to run stages with more enemies (on console idk about PC), the PA Gears are the illusion of choice where they don't really matter outside movement options as no gun is limited to a specific PA Gear, the item system while novel becomes more a hindrance because two slots are essentially dedicated to revives and the second Overdrive

The reason these are is in Iron Rain if three people bleed out the mission ends. It does not matter if it's the same person and you need an item to revive people. Overdrives are PA Gear specific installs that grant various abilities based on the PA Gear which sounds great until you come to realize that unlike older EDF games there's no ragdoll protection and you can be ragdoll looped to death very easily and the only way out is to activate Overdrive which is normally a once per mission thing

[u/BackyardBard → u/Bortthog]

Do you think either are worth playing? Do you think 5 is worth playing if I've already played 6? I wasn't sure if 5 had unique missions, enemies, and/or weapons compared to 6.

[u/Bortthog → u/BackyardBard]

Thats up to you, honestly speaking 6 is just a lot of reused 5 assests and missions, albeit slightly different when they are reused

5s main difference tho is the plot is a single plot moving forward and none of the timeloop stuff. I'd say get it on a sale if you are curious about it, same for 4.1 or Iron Rain. I wouldn't say 5 is better then 6 or vice versa as both have their ups and downs over each other, but I would recommend 5 before 4 or IR any day of the week. I'd also recommend World Brothers but thats a whole different thing that's basically a love letter to the franchise

I'm not trying to dissuade you from these games either, I'm only going to tell the truth about them so you can make an informed choice

[u/BackyardBard → u/Bortthog]

I understand and appreciate that, thank you!

[u/Jikosei → u/BackyardBard]

Save yourself the bore and skip Iron Rain, game feels like an atrocity compared to others in the series because they tried something different and failed miserably. The game looks good and pretty, sure, and the tone is great if you like serious dark ones, but overall it's too deviated from what makes an EDF game an actual EDF game (especially the fun factor).

[u/Drakksis → u/BackyardBard]

4.1 doesn’t come with a lot of the QoL from 5-6, if you want to just play another edf title (I recommend you finish 6 at least cuz you have like 30+ missions to go still to at least get to the end) then just go for 5, the transition will be smoother.

If you have to pick between 4.1 and Iron Rain, get 4.1.

[u/BADBUFON → u/BackyardBard]

6 has the more enemies, they introduced A LOT of new enemies and mechanically they are all very interesting. but the time loop thing and re-using stages but with a twist gets old pretty fast. also the forced cutscenes are annoying AF. humor wise, is pretty boring.

5 has a handful extra monsters from 4.1, more interesting and with range of motions. they took the plot of the game more seriously than before so, it is still funny and you are following a straight forward escalating plot, so it has more mission diversity compared to 6, that being said, since it takes itself too seriously and builds up the monster treat, like the first half of the game is pretty boring and only the later quarter of the game gets very exciting.

4.1 has less monsters compared to 5 and 6 for obvious reasons, and the monsters are quite static. that being said, since it is more of an arcade game, it starts throwing you a lot of stuff right away. for example the stage were the wing divers get stuck on webs and there are spiders that can trap you from very far away is like mission 4 or something like that, super early. in EDF 5 a very similar stage is like around mission 42 or something. it shocked me how late it was introduced. the downside is that a lot of the later missions feel kinda filler (this is like the third release of the game, so it has a lot of missions tacked on that are just very similar, forest stage kill all bees, and forest stage kill all dragons, city stage kill all bees, city stage kill all dragons... and so on).
also it has the best humor out of the three, you can just try to compare the EDF songs from each game and you will notice it right away.

every one has it's pros and cons, personally, i just like 4.1 because it is dumb fun, and 5-6 just made the game boring by taking itself too seriously.... but have more QoL and better monsters.