Earth Defense Force 6 is the perfect podcast game

polygon.com:

This month, one of my favorite video game podcasts published a trio of mega episodes that, in total, spanned 24 hours. (A whopping 6.5 hours focus entirely on an exhaustive conversation about the Nintendo GameCube library.) I had accepted that I, a grown man burdened by the ceaseless obligations of adulthood, would never reach the finish line of this audio marathon.

But then an angel descended from the heavens. And by heavens, I mean “the furthest corners of outer space.” And by angel, I mean “giant cyborg frog carrying a laser canon.”

Earth Defense Force 6 (EDF6 for the sickos) is the latest entry in the iconic mid-budget series in which you defend Earth from giant bugs, robots, UFOs the size of skyscrapers, and yes, giant cyborg frogs. You start as a soldier with a puny set of machine guns and slow-loading rocket launchers, but within a few hours, you unlock the tools to fly atop a factory, release a half dozen drones, unload a heat-seeking nuke, and deploy a mech suit to push deeper into the chaos.

EDF 6 is also the latest entry in a rapidly growing canon of “podcast games.” This micro-genre distinguishes itself with shameless repetition, spectacle, and the ability to be enjoyed with the sound off — without fear of missing some profound dramatic beat. Rather than challenge your brain with complex ideas, podcast games reward the most minimal accomplishments with a drip of dopamine and serotonin.

Popular podcast games include Vampire Survivors and its spawn, along with any free-to-play game that hooks you with daily errands. Looking at you, Zenless Zone Zero.

Each level of Earth Defense Force 6 follows a podcast-friendly formula: pick a soldier, equip them with preposterously powerful weaponry, bring down a few dozen aliens (and probably some buildings too), and collect the weapons and upgrades that drop into the rubble. You don’t need to read any text on the screen or listen to in-game narratives (the series is popular amongst people who buy Japanese games