Back in June, I played Freedom Wars at E3 , an impressive Vita-exclusive that takes a page or two from the Monster Hunter book of design. Games like this aren't exactly unprecedented on Vita, of course -- Soul Sacrifice, Toukiden, and Ragnarok Odyssey are just a few like-minded titles -- but Freedom Wars may just best them all when it comes to gameplay, polish, and insane levels of granularity. It's a game Vita players have been keeping a close eye on in recent months, and for good reason. Freedom Wars has a lot of excitement surrounding it, and better yet, it's a triple-A game exclusive to Vita, something many Vita fans have been clamoring for more of.

“ ...massive prison cities called Panopticons have been erected, and you can be thrown into a Panopticon for the mildest of crimes.

Beware the Abductors.

“ Each foray into the wide open world outside of the Panopticons begins, ironically, in your gray, desolate prison cell. It's from here that you can navigate detailed menus, build your load-outs, and accept new missions, both in the form of a main quest and side quests.

“ Abductors are everywhere, constantly running amok. Different types of Abductors have different kinds of attacks, and different parts of their bodies are susceptible to damage.

As a Sinner, it's your job to rescue citizens from danger... if you want to lessen your prison sentence, that is.

“ At the end of each battle, you'll be rewarded with goods, but you can actually translate those goods into even more time shaved off of your prison sentence and, perhaps more importantly, experience points that allow you to buy things called Entitlements.

If you're not familiar with Freedom Wars, its surprisingly interesting and unique story goes something like this. In the future, the population of the human race has gotten out of control, making resources and space increasingly scarce. As a result, massive prison cities called Panopticons have been erected, and you can be thrown into a Panopticon for the mildest of crimes. Worse yet, prison sentences aren't light. They're extreme. Like, to the tune of a million years per prisoner, even if you didn't exactly commit a felony.The government of this post-apocalyptic world -- cryptically known as the Central Authority and represented by a strange, propaganda-spewing teddy bear called Percy Propa -- is well-aware of the inane sentences they regularly strap to people. It's all part of their grand design. That's because they're willing to negotiate with prisoners to let them out of their life sentences early. All prisoners have to do is work for the government, and that's where you come in, as a character eager to eliminate his or her staggering sentence by any means necessary. All it requires is a whole lot of monster-killing and citizen-saving, and just a bit of patience. After all, zeroing out a million year sentence will naturally take some time. Lots and lots of time, actually.Each foray into the wide open world outside of the Panopticons begins, ironically, in your gray, desolate prison cell. It's from here that you can navigate detailed menus, build your load-outs, and accept new missions, both in the form of a main quest and side quests. As alluded to earlier, Freedom Wars is insanely granular. It focuses a great deal on the little things, which is one of the reasons why it's so exciting. Both the Sinner and Accessory can be equipped with melee weapons and firearms, which can be switched between mid-battle by pressing up or down on the Vita's directional pad. Weapons and other gear can be augmented with components you find both during battle, as well as components you earn after battle, and you can even combine weapons with one another, gaining statistical boosts, elemental bonuses, and more. There's a lot to wrap your head around in Freedom Wars when it comes to managing your inventory, and that doesn't even take into account the game's other features.Once you accept a mission -- which is ranked in difficulty, with clearly marked goals and rewards -- you'll be transported, along with either three ad-hoc or online companions, or AI-controlled members of your team, to a random map. We fought on three maps in particular: an outdoor, industrial-looking locale, a tight, indoor, warehouse, and a wide open, sprawling desert. No matter where we were, however, the task remained the same. Find the map's boss (or bosses) called Abductor(s), kill it (or them), and rescue innocent citizens in danger.Fighting in Freedom Wars is all about verticality. Sure, you can run around on the ground, swiping your melee weapon or shooting your gun, and that's effective enough. But when you break out your special hookshot-like implement called the Thorn, you'll understand what makes Freedom Wars so unique when it comes to felling enemies. The Thorn allows you to jump on top of objects in the environment or quickly work your way across an area, and most importantly, it allows you to tether yourself to the monstrous foes on maps, identifying and focusing on specific parts of their hulking bodies.Abductors are everywhere, constantly running amok. Different types of Abductors have different kinds of attacks, and different parts of their bodies are susceptible to damage. Carefully aiming the Thorn allows you to take these parts of their bodies out, either by climbing up to that area and slashing at it, using your Thorn to damage it directly, or collaborating with your partners to use everyone's Thorns to bring an enemy down to the ground, leaving it exposed for massive attacks.Killing Abductors is a necessary evil, because they will in turn give up the citizens they've abducted, the citizens that you then need to deliver to safety on behalf of the Central Authority. But these citizens will also help you out later on, by facilitating the faster creation of new weapons, gear, curative items, and augments. For instance, if you save someone with medical expertise, you can later use him or her in your medical facility to rapidly create healing items. In this way, everything in Freedom Wars seems intimately and cleverly interconnected, especially when you take into account the in-game leveling system.Balancing the harvesting of new items to create new weapons and gear, as well as strengthening what you already own, must be carefully balanced with shaving time off of your sentence and purchasing new Entitlements. All of these features of Freedom Wars seem to be interconnected delicately, yet intimately. You can't get far in the game without keeping a close eye on all of the spokes of the wheel, dedicating resources to making sure that you're progressing in all facets of the game as you climb higher and higher through the Panopticon's eight levels, and ultimately towards your freedom.Freedom Wars is due out in the west on October 28, 2014, and will be available exclusively on PlayStation Vita. While its text has been fully translated, its slate of voice acting remains entirely in Japanese. Naturally, we'll have our full review leading up to its release.

Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter.