Hands on: A.O.T. Wings of Freedom
During the recently completed MCM London Comic Con, I had a chance to try out the PlayStation 4 version of Koei Tecmo’s upcoming action game, A.O.T. Wings of Freedom.
Firstly, unlike the North American version, the European version will not have the name Attack on Titan, but just A.O.T.
Now before going further I would like to point out that I haven’t watched the Attack on Titan anime, or read the light novels or manga, but I’m vaguely familiar with the franchise due to word of mouth. With that said, I never found myself getting hampered by the fact I didn’t know the game’s source material, which in many ways was good because the game does encompass season 1 of the anime.
Now, let’s talk about the game. During the hands-on demo, I played the tutorial and the first mission, and my first thought was just how fast paced the game was. In many ways, the game felt like a Spiderman game with my character’s grappling system moving me effortlessly through the environment. The transition from simply moving through the environment to combat was very clean as I could easy go from swinging around in the trees (in the tutorial) and houses (in the first mission) to latching onto the game’s enemies, Titans.
While swinging and flying around the city was fun, bar the minor mistake that saw me temporarily trapped inside a walled building, the combat was surprisingly easy. To kill a Titan you need to latch onto them with your grappling gear and select a limb to attack, your options are legs, arms and neck. The most important part to attack is the neck as it is simply a one shot kill (well in the first mission anyway). While it was easy to latch on and boost toward the neck and slash when I got in range(speed does play a key role in killing Titans) there was something oddly satisfying about cutting off a Titans arms and legs and watching them squirm before launching your final killing blow.
As the game progresses, Titans do supposedly get tougher, and I feel in many ways I was lucky during my hands-on demo, as I seemed to take out most of the Titans before they had a chance to react. However, those that did react quickly kept an ever-creepy looking watch on me, which meant that I couldn’t go for the neck straight away.
Since Titans are massive naked killing creatures, it really isn’t a solo job and as so you can recruit NPC allies to assist you. These allies are great for distracting Titans making them even easier to kill.
When killing Titans it is important to keep an eye, on both your gas and blade gauges because as they deplete your mobility and attack strength suffers. To refill both gauges you need to complete time sensitive quests, loot your fallen NPC allies or talk to a friendly resupply NPC.
Conclusion
My short hands-on demo of The A.O.T. Wings of Freedom did exactly what it need to do to get me, a non-Attack on Titan fan, interested in the game. The movement and combat were enjoyable and there was something oddly satisfying about killing a Titan.
Author: Ash Meehan
Hi, I’m the creator of SG Gaming Info. When I’m not working on my writing or creating content for this site’s YouTube channel, I like to relax and enjoy character driven story games.