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  • Disk One Nuke: If you go to the hardest difficulty you can access and play the first few levels which are usually fights against a hordes of The Goomba, you can farm for much more powerful weapons than you are supposed to have at that point in the game, meaning you can blow through the lower difficulties much easier, it's this, rather than Infinity +1 Sword, due to when you move on to higher difficulties for real, the power gap gets much smaller.
  • Friendly Fandoms: Fans of EDF get along well with fans of Starship Troopers. The Prowl Rider gear in Iron Rain also gave fans of EDF and fans of Attack on Titan something to appreciate together.
  • Narm Charm: Even in the latest main games like Earth Defense Force 5, you can bet that the cast will pack on the Ham and Cheese, take everything about as B-movie as humanly possible, and occasionally even begin Chewing the Scenery in just how absurd it all gets. It's so ingrained that games like Insect Armageddon and Iron Rain were criticized for trying to take itself too seriously, making the Narm Charm part of the franchise's very life and blood.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Giant bugs. Ants, spiders, ticks and other creepy crawlies. This series will not appeal to many entomophobics.
    • 4.1 takes it up a notch to feature giant spiders in long dark tunnels. You'll be pretty freaked out seeing their multi-eyed face pop up rushing at you.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: Persistent throughout the series:
    • The lack of subtitles despite there being many background characters and, starting from 4.1, bilingual support.
    • The fact that you have to quickly get your loot before the mission complete prompt and fadeout. Rectified in Insect Armageddon where you collect credits depending on your mission performance and difficulty to unlock various weapons, Iron Rain where loot are no longer randomized (instead you collect various type of currency item to unlock different items) and there are time limit shown to gather the remaining item drops, and World Brothers where equipment is tied to characters (with high enough skill level, a character can equip another character's equipment), and as soon as you start a mission, characters need to be rescued are immediately marked on your map.
  • Spiritual Adaptation: The series feels like a sequel to Jet Force Gemini, mixed with Starship Troopers.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • 4.1's announcement trailer mostly focuses on the usual bombastic and lighthearted tone up until about the end, where one of the newscasters snaps from the strain of having to lie to the public about the true status of the EDF's fight. It's a Hopeless War that they have next to no chance of winning. Even his co-host is only trying to get him to stop because she's a Stepford Smiler. Even she thinks it's too late for humanity. As it turns out, a world where Humanity is locked in a Forever War with Giant Insects, Giant Robots, and Kaiju is a world that fucking sucks to live in.
    • Even the EDF's bombastic war chant takes a somber turn during the last verse, with the soldiers singing it taking on a much more tired and defeated tone.
      Call: Our forces have now dwindled and we pull back to regroup,
      Response: The enemy has multiplied and formed a massive group.
      Call: We'd better beat these bugs before we're all turned to soup.
      Response: The EDF deploys!
    • Worse still, from another trailer for 4.1, is a reprise of the EDF war chant by a correspondent trapped in an underground tunnel.
      I've been abandoned underground and left alone to die.
      The EDF won't come for me, won't even tell me why.
      It's dark, the walls are closing in, I'm trying not to cry.
      I WANT MY MOMMY'S SOUP!

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