Hands-on with God Eater 2: Rage Burst’s PC Version

It’s been a long time coming, but both entries of the God Eater series have finally made it overseas! Several months ago, Bandai Namco announced that not only would both games come to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, but on the PC too via Steam. The wait is over - God Eater: Resurrection and God Eater 2: Rage Burst are now out in English for North America and Europe!

While Bandai Namco has had a relatively good track record of competent PC ports recently, I remained skeptical after the Tales of Symphonia PC debacle. So, I dived into God Eater 2: Rage Burst for a bit and wanted to share my findings to anyone on the fence about its PC port.

Video & Audio Settings

God Eater 2: Rage Burst offers a few graphical settings on the PC to accommodate a wide range of specs. While my monitor only supports up to 1080p, there have been reports that it supports up to 1440p and possibly even more. I find it a bit barebones, but it gets the job done. The texture filtering helps give it a smoother visual on higher resolutions while retaining a crisp surface. I wish that FXAA wasn’t its only anti-aliasing option; it’s decent in action, but leaves me wanting a tad more.

Control Schemes

You’ll be happy to know that God Eater 2: Rage Burst supports a wide variety of control schemes with all completely rebindable buttons. It detected my Xbox 360 controller, keyboard & mouse, Dualshock 4 (plugged in via USB), and even my Mad Catz Tournament Edition 2+ Arcade FightStick!

I primarily tested this PC port on keyboard & mouse and found it an enjoyable way to play. It took me a bit to get accustomed to the fact that the mouse camera isn’t completely maneuverable in a 360° angle. While I found it to be stiff at first, it actually works quite well the more time I spent with it.

The default controls for keyboard & mouse are as follows, but I’ve also taken screenshots for all the other default control schemes down in the gallery below (yes, even the FightStick’s controls).

Performance

Here’re the specs of the rig I tested this port on.

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700k

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970

OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

The PC version of God Eater 2: Rage Burst runs beautifully on this setup. Outside of pre-rendered cutscenes, it runs at a stable 60fps on 1080p with very minimal load times that average about a second at most. What particularly caught my eye was how gorgeous the lighting traced the edges of character models.

Details on character clothing, cosmetic accessories, and weapon transformations all benefit quite nicely at higher resolutions. I’ve always been a fan of God Eater’s art direction, especially its mechanical designs, so having a clear view of its little touches has been a great experience for me.

Texture mapping on characters and monsters are also vividly displayed well. Fur on monsters are more noticeable, though environmental textures still fall a bit flat in no fault of the PC port itself.

Shadows in this port are pretty great too! The model on the Devour form has an awesome showcasing of it as the game’s shadows transform with the models in the appropriate direction.

Visual effects on hit impacts are satisfying as well. The game’s sound design is on point as slashes and bullets pull up exaggerated sparks to mark a hit on the enemy.

Final Impressions

I find the PC version of God Eater 2: Rage Burst to be a wonderful platform to experience the game. While its PC settings may be lacking in some aspects, its versatile control schemes and increased framerate to be an exhilarating experience to play it.

Look forward to our full review of the game coming soon! Until then, check out the gallery below for a lot more screenshots of God Eater 2: Rage Burst’s PC version.

God Eater 2: Rage Burst PC Gallery