Freedom Wars is a third person action game developed by Japan Studios.

The story behind Freedom Wars is actually quite interesting, but at times can seem to get in the way with a lot of talking. Taking place in the year 202014, most of the world’s resources are scarce and everyone that is born is considered a drain on those limited resources. Being as you’re a drain on the resources of this Panopticon, you’re assigned one million years of servitude; the only way to deplete your sentence being either completing operations or donating some of your resources.

Completing these operations can cut hundreds of years at a time from your sentence but breaking the rules can have them added back on. If you sleep lying down before you earn the right to, that’s a crime, if you speak to someone of the opposite sex without the right to, that’s a crime. When given the punishment of an extended sentence you can put your thumb on the Vita’s screen where the sentence has appeared to accept it, you cannot continue until you have accepted your punishment. An android known as your Accessory follows you at all times to monitor your behaviour.

The actual missions that progress this storyline are mechanically wonderful. Freedom Wars is at its best when you get into the nitty gritty of fighting on a battlefield with other teammates. Each teammate has an Accessory. Accessories are androids that you outfit with gear and give tactical instruction to during battle. That means that there will be a whole slew of players on your team as you command your squad to tackle an objective.

That objective might be taking down all the enemies, rescuing citizens or destroying giant robots known as Abductors. This is a third-person action title where you’ll sprint around the map firing a host of craftable weaponry at the enemies around you. You have something called  a “Thorn” attached to your arm, and that lets you attach to objects and fling towards them (or drag them down in the case of the Abductors). The whole thing is tight, responsive and satisfying.

One of the best things about the combat however, is that you can mix and match the different thorns with your teammates and really get a strategy going. I preferred using the binding thorn and doing a lot of the cutting of limbs on the abductors, but there were many other roles and ways to tackle the problem.

Not only does Freedom Wars have you choosing different types of thorns to use, but there are tons of guns and melee weapons to equip as well. Each Sinner is able to carry two main weapons (which you can mix and match however you please), while your Accessories can only have one main weapon.

The main story doesn’t involve your character trying to find out about their past or meeting anyone they once knew, the amnesia appears to be just there for a reason to give you a one million year prison sentence.

The gameplay in Freedom Wars feels really good; except the camera that can sometimes mess you up. They give you multiple control schemes too if you want to use more guns then you can use the one designed around shooting. I found myself sticking with the original control scheme, but would change it up when playing multiplayer.

If you were buying this game just to play offline I don’t think I could recommend it. You would miss out on half the fun of seeing other player’s character designs and mixing up the game by working as a team in some operations and then competing against other players in the versus operations. Online is where the game really shines.