Fuji Television announced on Twitter that Game Center CX will have its host Shinya Arino play The Earth Defense Force in the upcoming 325th episode. This will be the first regular PlayStation 2 title on the long-running retro gaming TV show, which has been airing since 2003.
Game Center CX has a self-imposed rule to cover games from platforms that have been released in Japan for at least 20 years. In 2021, it officially added the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Game Boy Advance to the lineup. While Arino had played a title from the PS2 (Angelique Trois) and GBA (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) on the show, those were special episodes. They did no count towards the regular seasons.
D3 Publisher released The Earth Defense Force as the 31st title in the Simple 2000 series on the PS2 in June 2003 in Japan. Agetec later localized the game for Europe with the title Monster Attack in 2004.
The inaugural title of the Earth Defense Force series has not appeared on any other platforms. In a Famitsu interview in April 2021, the series producer Nobuyuki Okajima stated that his team abandoned plans to port the first game due to technical difficulties. The team instead started the Nintendo Switch ports of the older EDF games with Earth Defense Force 2.
The 325th episode of Game Center CX, where Shinya Arino plays The Earth Defense Force, will air at Fuji TV One on October 14, 2021, at 24:00 JST (11 AM ET).
