Developed and Published By: Bandai Namco
Category: RPG
Release Date: 01.10.25
Price: $39.99

Every now and then, a switch port of a handheld game comes out where gamers are left wondering how the devs managed to rework the game to fit and run well on a bigger screen. Freedom Wars is one of those games. The game was originally released for the PS Vita in 2014 and can now be played on a giant TV, and oh boy does it look great.

Alongside Persona 4 Golden, Freedom Wars was one of my top two games on the Vita, so when I found out it was coming to the Switch, I knew that I had to get my hands on it. The original was already a must-play but the remaster included multiple visual enhancements, gameplay changes, and went multiplatform.

Before I talk about how much I love the game, I should mention the one thing that I didn’t like…and that’s the gameplay. I might be the only one who thinks this, but I always thought the combat was slow and not as fluent as I would have liked. When doing close combat, I always felt it was easy to overshoot your target and end up wasting time trying to correct yourself.

I experienced this on both the Vita and Switch versions, but it wasn’t really that distracting to me. I still found the combat to be fairly enjoyable, especially with the guns and grappling whip. While combat was the weakest link for me, I hold everything else within the game with very high regard. I absolutely love the story, themes, and other gameplay mechanics.

For those who haven’t played the game before, Freedom Wars takes place in a very dystopian future where resources are scarce. Because of this, simply existing and using these resources is a crime. Citizens across Japan are born into a one-million-year jail sentence as a result. 

Sentences are reduced by serving your panopticon, warring city-states that are effectively dystopian counterparts of modern-day prefectures. Those with sentences, called Sinners, can knock years off by completing missions for the panopticon or by donating recourses that are collected. But you have to be careful because the smallest of actions can add more years to your sentence.

That’s right, the panopticons are petty. Walk more than a few feet or lie down in your bed and you’ll have years added to your sentence. You need to buy the right to do menial tasks, which really shows how far society has fallen in this world.

That’s what I love most about this game. I love discovering all the ridiculous laws, learning about the world laws, and interacting with a big cast of quirky characters. There’s also a lot to unpack when it comes to the main story, but it’s such a cool experience that you don’t want to have too much spoiled beforehand. All you need to know for now is that the gameplay is fun, the visuals are cool, there’s full voice acting, and there’s so many gameplay and customization features.

If you’ve already played the game before, you’re going to want to play it again. Being able to play the game on a big screen is one of the reasons but there’s also so many more improvements.  The game has higher resolution, a new difficulty mode, all DLC, and the ability to choose between English and Japanese audio. 

If you haven’t played the Vita game, you’ll want to if you’re even the slightest fan of action RPG’s. The game is very cheap for what it is, it will cost you only $40 while offering between 30 and 90 hours of gameplay, if not more. 

8/10