I started writing this post about the awesomeness that is Earth Defence Force 2017 a few weeks ago, but after my play session yesterday I’m compelled to finish it. Before, my thoughts were how EDF was the greatest Xbox Live Arcade game that never hit XBLA, and how its pick-up-and-play nature was just what I needed after driving countless laps in PGR3 and running through the vast Cyrodiil in Oblivion. The controls were simplistic, and the gameplay was addictive, and each of the 53 missions are just short enough for that adrenalin-infused diversion between serious gaming. And it’s one of those titles Xbox owners have been pining Playstation owners over for two generations – wacky, cheesy, and unabashedly Japanese.

So last night, around midnight, I’m playing mission 34, a particularly difficult one, when after countless tries I decided to give it a rest for the night. I did what I do with all my games – quit mission, return to title screen, hit guide button, Y, shut down. I get about halfway through that routine – quit, return – and then introduce a new step: the “oh, shit” exclamation.

You see, EDF rocks, but this is where it earns its asterisk. In a time of game development where interfaces and control schemes are using standards, only the Japanese would be proud to buck that trend time after time. Thank goodness the basic control scheme is as simple as it is, because I’d be complaining about its complete ignorance of third-person action titles which preceded it; instead, the developers decided to reinvent the controls for flying helicopters and piloting tanks and mechs into a counterintuitive mess. But no, that’s not even the biggest problem.

The biggest problem, that “oh, shit” step, is that moment I realized the developers decided not to build an autosave feature in their game. Here is a game, segmented into clearly defined missions each with a beginning and end, possessing the perfect opportunity to autosave upon completion of each. Yet like a good Japanese developer, they decided to make the obvious completely unexplainable. Sure, the argument can be made I was careless to exit without saving, but I didn’t even get a warning message. “All data will be lost. Do you still wish to exit?” Nothing. And it isn’t even the first game on the Xbox 360 I’ve encountered this, the first being Rumble Roses XX.

Now, I’ve ranted before about Japanese developers. Because it was the birthplace of Mario, people think Japan is the center of the videogame universe. But all I see lately are tentacle raping, waifish girls with destructive powers, ridiculous stories involving the La-li-lu-le-lo; and, for every step forward, one completely failed gameplay mechanic. The autosave has been around for two decades or more. People assume it is there, and in my two examples above, there is no excuse for it not to be. If one were to equate this to a sports team, the coach would be saying his players lack fundamentals. I would say Japanese developers are fundamentally flawed, because they fail to recognize the status quo.

Even for a simple budget title, the lack of an autosave is annoying and inexcusable. That and the vehicle controls do not ruin the overall experience, far from it, but it does emphasize a greater problem coming from Japan today of Godzilla-like proportions which could be inhibiting the maturity of the multi-billion dollar industry. But back to the point, EDF is great fun.

It just comes with an asterisk.