This January is the calm before the storm. There aren’t a ton of major new video game releases coming this month, save for Dynasty Warriors: Origins, but February is going to be a stacked month for games. It’ll give us Civilization VII, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Avowed, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and Monster Hunter Wilds. January, on the other hand, is filled with remasters and PC ports. Some of those games feel like perfect primers for February’s games. Case in point: Freedom Wars Remastered.
The new port brings a PlayStation Vita classic to modern consoles, and that timing is ideal. Freedom Wars is an action RPG that shares some similarities with Monster Hunter, though it’s much smaller in scope than something like Wilds. That makes this solid remaster the perfect warm-up game ahead of one of 2025’s biggest releases.
Fighting for freedom
Freedom Wars takes place in the year 102014 where humanity has almost been completely wiped out. In this postapocalyptic future, different cities called “Panopticons” fight over increasingly dwindling resources. Panopticons function as surveillance states, where every person is automatically branded a criminal because even existing is a crime in itself.
As such, criminals, called Sinners, are given a 1-million-year prison sentence and can reduce their time by fighting against giant robot monsters called Abductors. Despite the dark premise, Freedom Wars’ tone is surprisingly light. That’s not unlike Monster Hunter, which successfully straddles the line between goofy and serious. The monsters are fierce, but I don’t feel deathly threatened by them. Freedom Wars nails that same tone with its Abductors. It’s more satirical than anything, even calling Helldivers 2 to mind.
In Freedom Wars, players unintentionally add on to their sentence by doing seemingly innocuous things like running for more than 10 seconds in the home base or lying down to sleep. All of these silly instances make Freedom Wars’ setting more like a dark comedy rather than a gritty sci-fi adventure. It’s not too dissimilar from the upcoming Synduality: Echo of Ada. Both have postapocalyptic settings, but their bright anime visuals overshadow its dark undertones.
In Monster Hunter, the story is just a pretext for all of the action and hunting; it’s the gameplay that shines. Freedom Wars is surprisingly story-focused by comparison. It features some engrossing lore, such as the existence of On High, a mysterious place above the Panopticons where more privileged people live and terrorize the citizens below with Abductors.
It’s a strong foundation, but the story quickly delves into predictable territory that’s easy to tune out of. Freedom Wars Remastered does help alleviate that a bit with new English voice acting. The original only had Japanese voice acting, a common concession that developers took when localizing Vita games due to the system’s poor sales. It’s a small change, but one that helped me focus a bit more where I previously would have glazed over the trite story.
Severing off parts
Freedom Wars is much faster-paced compared to Monster Hunter. Guns shoot quicker, movement is sporadic, and the maps are smaller. Each mission lasts around 10-15 minutes, with different objectives to complete, from rescuing civilians to taking down Abductors. That makes Freedom Wars a great fit for short gaming sessions and a stark contrast to recent Monster Hunter games. The latter emphasizes much longer play sessions due to how much preparation you need before going on a hunt. Monster Hunter World’s map was already big, and Capcom claims that Monster Hunter Wilds’ map is twice as big. Freedom Wars is a much more digestible experience.
Like Monster Hunter, Freedom Wars has players picking off certain parts from Abductors and using them to craft new weapons. I find that targeting a monster’s specific parts in Monster Hunter can often be unreliable, and that’s where Freedom Wars differentiates itself. I can lock on to an Abductor’s legs, arms, or chest, use my Thorn (grappling hook), and sever the parts with my weapon. There’s even a handy HP bar for each of the parts so I can always tell how close I am to my goal.
Creatures in Monster Hunter don’t have HP bars and usually change their behavior by doing subtle things like limping when they’re on the brink of death. I appreciate how direct Freedom Wars is next to that. Monster Hunter’s method is more immersive, but there’s no confusion on whether I’d be able to sever a specific body part before the entire Abductor goes down in Freedom Wars.
While there’s a lot to love here as a quicker Monster Hunter alternative, Freedom Wars has its issues. It starts to recycle the same maps, enemies, and objectives not even halfway through its story. The gameplay loop gets repetitive as a result, but that’s why Freedom Wars fits much better as a handheld game. Even though the PlayStation and PC versions are at 60 frames per second with higher resolution, I still recommend playing it on Switch even if it doesn’t have those visual and performance upgrades.
Freedom Wars Remastered doesn’t do too much to fix the original’s flaws, but it does feature some quality-of-life improvements. In the original’s crafting system, weapon mods were randomized whenever you combined two weapons to make a new one, which was an annoying process when creating gear. This randomized aspect has been taken out and replaced with a more streamlined process, making for a much smoother experience.
While Freedom Wars Remastered definitely shows its age at times, its new features do just enough to bring it up to speed for a new audience. As the Vita version’s servers were shut down back in 2021, the remaster now gives a new way to play online co-op, which is a win for game preservation. Before February rolls around and you’re plunged into the expansive natural biomes in Monster Hunter Wilds, make sure to experience the ravaged cities in Freedom Wars Remastered.
Freedom Wars Remastered launches on January 10 for PC, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
