Today’s the big day for some gamers in Japan as Earth Defense Force 4 is out and getting furiously played by many. Those of us who’ve imported copies will be waiting patiently around their mailboxes like vultures for our copies to show up and it’ll be hiding away from the sun for a bit as we plow through the game and see what developer Sandlot has done with the series in the five or so years since they last worked on a home console EDF game.

From some poking around on GameFaqs, a few users who live in Japan and have the game are loving the changes so far (a good sign) and combined with the positive Famitsu scores (a 34/40 average), this one looks like a keeper.

Of course, when the game hits US shores next year, you WON’T be seeing these wacky Japanese ads for it at all, so I’m doing my civic duty as an EDF patriot and running them here.

I don’t know what D3Publisher of America’s ad plans are, as they generally don’t run a ton of ads for their games anyway, but it would be nice to see some sort of equally oddball campaign here that’s inexpensive yet equally amusing and effective.

Impressions of the import to come in a bit – I’m going to go get my vulture outfit out of storage and go hang out downstairs…

 
And here’s another Earth Defense Force 4 video straight from D3Publisher in Japan with yet another laughable yet free verse-like *biiiiiing!* translation job below the jump. This seems to be a recruitment advertisement of sorts and yes, I’ve signed up already (well, I have a copy of the import coming soon). The game has gotten some pretty solid Famitsu scores (9/8/8/9 for 34 out of a possible 40 points, the best scores of any EDF game in the series), meaning it should hopefully do well once it’s localized for the US and Europe. Of course, those who don’t import have to wait until next February (yikes!), but I guess that gives you all time to get through that stack of holiday titles you’re planning to buy or ave gifted…

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