Attack On Titan 2: Final Battle Review

Attack on Titan hit the anime community by storm in 2013, and upon its launch the series was an instant hit. In a world overrun by giant humanoid abominations, humanity has sealed themselves behind massive walls. When these Titans finally burst through, a chain of events is set in motion that gives humanity a fighting chance against these giants. Immediately after the release of the anime we were greeted with a 3DS exclusive title, Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains. The game did not do well critically due to the 3DS’s limitations, but now we’re looking at a title running on the Switch and it’s more than powerful enough to deliver the audiovisuals desired by fans. Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle should provide plenty of entertainment value.

Having never played these games before, it’s easy to be concerned about the controls. The anime portrays characters moving around their massive environments with a device called The Omni-directional mobility gear, which allows the user to hook onto buildings or other objects and swing off of them. When you translate that into gameplay you’d expect it to be rather complicated, however, it’s actually really simple. There’s one button that hooks onto nearby walls or objects, and another button that allows you to boost yourself with gas. Movement in this game feels fantastic, perfectly nailing the movement of the anime without being needlessly complex. A perfect comparison would be to the web swinging in Spiderman 2, except that this game also factors in momentum. Depending on when you let go of the swing button, you’ll be launched high into the air or be shot forward at a high speed. Not to mention that the stages in the game range from a massive city to massive forests, so you’ll always have fun swinging across the maps.

While the gameplay is simple, it does require you to play fast at times. The enemies you will be facing in this game are massive giants who can move fairly quickly as well. You can lock onto multiple body parts and cut them off, but only a cut to the back of the neck will kill them. Between locking onto their body parts, your fast swinging, and them swiping around at top speeds, you will have to master the controls to be fully effective. And while Warrior games are mostly known for being button mashers, this game does require a bit more thought taking down the enemies. In fact, you can actually damage your weapons by simply attacking willy-nilly and instead are rewarded by skillfully taking down your foes via perfectly timed attacks and severing off a few extra limbs.

The story of the game covers the first two seasons of the anime, but with a small twist. Throughout the story mode, you will get to experience the adventure through the eyes of your custom character. That being said, the story never really focuses on your character. They are just bystanders in the grander story, which is done amazingly in this game. The game uses full-motion cutscenes to recreate sections from the anime, and they are all spot on. They aren’t as detailed or as graphic as the anime, but it’s honestly a great way to experience the story of Attack on Titan if you are new to the series. The Final Battle DLC adds in a new story mode, which focuses on the plot of the third season, which just wrapped up.

While the episodic mode alone adds on another six to eight hours of gameplay, the DLC also offers a ton of other content that makes the playtime skyrocket. There are five new characters to play as, 2 new weapon styles, and a new gameplay style. The latter allows you to fight against other humans, whereas originally the only enemies you could fight were the Titans. While this new addition is neat, it doesn’t really offer much to the game. It’s not nearly as fun as fighting the Titans and they don’t add any new gameplay elements to make fighting other humans a unique experience, which is sad because it could have made for a fantastic online mode. The base game already had a ton of awesome online modes, but none of them let humans fight each other. There are modes where you can play as a Titan and fight against other human characters, but none that lets you fight them as a human. Had they put more focus into developing the feature then it could have been a fantastic addition to this game, but as it stands right now it’s just a very lackluster feature.

There is one other mode added to the DLC, and it alone makes the DLC worth getting. Territory Recovery has you travel beyond the walls and into the wild to build your faction of humans and to try and fend off the Titan menace. This is a very open-ended mode that allows you to be in control of your own story. You’ll encounter up to 40 characters in this mode, and hours of unique mini-missions. This is by far the most Dynasty Warriors inspired mode in the game, and it is a very welcome addition.

This game does have a few flaws, such as the aforementioned human combat addition, but this game does so much more right. The DLC is also very solid; it adds a ton of new content and features that will extend your playtime extensively. Though the DLC does have one very massive issue that just cannot be overlooked: the pricing. Now, on the one hand, the game and DLC are bundled together for $60. That is an amazing deal, but on the other hand owners of the base game have to pay $40 for the DLC. Meaning that those who bought the original game for $60 now have to pay $40 extra for the DLC. That’s a bit extreme and not a great way to thank those that shelled out $60 for the main game.

Jordan Brewer

Jordan is a gaming fanatic who grew up in a home of shovelware. Years of discounted drivel has molded this man, shaping him into the seeker of quality he is today.