I'm not sure if I've rescued her yet, myself. But I have spoken with her and interacted with them. So, let me ask you-- have you paid tribute? But, as far as the elevator quest goes, I don't see much of a point. You're only supposed to deal with the Shrine Maiden to make it easier to get to the fourth floor.

As for the squirrel, try a room really close by to where you freed him. And make sure to look around with X, of course.

Ah I found the critter on my way home from work before I read your reply.

Well I found the Shrine Maiden on the 4th floor, and the people on the third floor is begging me to save her but I don't know how to.

I'm mucking around in the basement now. Rotating floors are tedious.

Really? I'm usually amused with rotating tiles. I guess I like spatial memorization, though.

Haven't dealt with the Shrine Maiden on the fourth floor. Huh. Just got to the fifth in order to slay the Killer Bunnies for Sir Garland. The "Slay ___" quests seem to unlock the secondary class missions, so it appears I have to press on through the Tower sooner than I'd like.

Well I finally made it to floor 5 and loving the music in it. I have completed several Secondary Training quests so I now have a Samurai and a Druid. My mage still needs 3 more Mage levels to be a Wizard and I haven't finished the quest yet to get a Ninja.

I dunno if its just me, but my party's AC isn't that good. Only my Samurai has a - before spell boosts.

I learned that magic is basically essential to complete the game when I noticed all the dozens upon dozens of enemies attacking you at once and a warrior can only hit one at a time whereas magic can strike multiple foes in one shot.

Update: Haha I finally unlocked Ninja. It took me a while to solve the quest :D

Okay, so, apparently this game didn't really sell, because it's now a very reasonable $9.99 at Gamestop.

It's a good and damn hard classic dungeon crawler, so it's hardly going to hurt if it turns out to not be your thing. Plus, if you buy it new (used is only a dollar less), you'll get the nifty soundtrack along with it.

Yeah, I bought it back when it was still $19.99 at Gamestop, which is reasonable for me, because I'm a big fan of dungeon crawling.

Though, playing this game, it seems like I took the create-your-own-map aspect of Etrian Odyssey for granted because I have no idea how I'm supposed to keep track of warps when there's like 4 adjacent ones leading to a room of 4 more adjacent ones. It gets confusing fast. (I'm looking at you, Floor 2)

I never really had any trouble keeping track of where I was. Even if I did, there are spells and items that can tell your exactly where you are and what direction you're facing.

If you keep at it, you get good at navigation very quickly-- especially in the basement, where movement tiles are all over the place to break your concentration.

See, most of the time, I don't have an issue with keeping track of where I am, but only when you put warp tiles all over the place do I get confused, especially if all the warp tiles are adjacent and I stop playing for an extended period of time and come back to it later.

That floor 4's labyrinth is a pain in the ass. Thank god there's a faq map for it. Motherfucking teleport tiles mixed in with rotating tiles in TWO separate girds. SERIOUSLY.

I went through 5 floors without realizing I had Visum Situs available. I always allocated points towards damaging spells instead, and besides I had several compasses and Fine Compasses.

By the way, how is it this game is HARD compared to Etrian Odyssey? Forgive me for asking, my sweetie has the game right now and only has one save slot so I couldn't really check it out til he finishes it.

Well, in some ways, Etrian Odyssey is harder because of its ample use of bosses that are impossible to beat when you first stumble upon them. This game, at least, always gives you winnable battles.

But in most other aspects, the Dark Spire is the more difficult of the two. Mapping and navigation are far more vague, regular battles are deadlier, leveling is slower, skills are more difficult to learn and have far more subtle uses than Etrian Odyssey's, etcetera.

Etrian Odyssey II and the Dark Spire are both great games though, and I'd recommend the former if you're enjoying the latter. I just think the Dark Spire has a much greater atmosphere.

The best way to figure out where you are after a warp is to look for changes on the map. If a new tile is marked, that's where I am (I'll move forward once to see what direction I'm facing). If not, it means I've been there before and I just have to either use a compass or look for landmarks.

I would consider Dark Spire to be harder than Etrian Odyssey personally on the note that it's so hard to find my way. (Although if you want to be really technical, DS is easier because of the "Save Anywhere" function.) I know I haven't even gotten deep yet, and since there's so many icons in the legend for the map I haven't even seen yet, I know I'm going to get even more screwed later on.

Which leads me to my next ponit:

I'm well aware of the strategy of checking the map for differences because that's how I initially figured out where I was about 3 or 4 weeks ago. Now that I haven't touched the game in 3 weeks, and all of the tiles are already marked, that strategy is no longer valid and I have to start guessing exactly where I am with the warps. (or use a Compass or whatever the spell equivalent is called.)

If it sounds like I'm hating this game, I'm not. I'm just frustrated that I have to resort to using tons of compasses just because I stopped playing for a bit and forgot how everything goes in something I've already explored. It's only an issue for me because I'm prone to going on-off on most games I play. :eagletear:

I think EO has a stronger emphasis on character customization since, as you've already mentioned, you level up faster. And every time you level up, you get a new skill, which means that even though you might have several characters of the same class, they can all have different disciplines of their class, and could play entirely differently. DS has a stronger emphasis on straight dungeon crawling and exploration, which I suppose is what's expected in such a genre. So if anything, EO is more of a regular JRPG in the guise of a dungeon crawler whereas DS is just straight up dungeon crawling with random bits of RPG elements. Both are fun, but for different reasons.

In that case, you need to start remembering where warp points take you. I never have too much trouble remembering since there aren't terribly many on each floor.

If that fails, I've found it's really easy to deduce where you are by looking around at the layout of the dungeon and comparing it to the map. Takes me about 30 seconds if I'm completely stumped, since most rooms won't have the exact same amount of doors in the exact same places. I think I've used a compass maybe twice, and the first time was because I didn't know exactly what it did. The second time I was impatient.

As for customization, it's debatable. Classes are permanent in Etrian Odyssey, while it's all very fluid in the Dark Spire. Characters can ultimately fulfill several roles on the fly, while party members in EO must be carefully crafted from the beginning to fit in to one or maybe two specific roles through their entire career.

Yeah, I played for a bit just now to get reacquainted with the warps on the second floor and it didn't take that long surprisingly. I still don't know where I'm going, but I have an idea where the warps take me. Since most of them take me in circles, it's probably better if I just ignore those.

I do wish they would mark pitfalls though because falling through them really sucks when you're trying to match up warps with their destinations, though I suppose the only warps worth memorizing are the ones that take you forward.

Also, where is the Flame Jewel? I was wandering around the Basement and found the Blizzard Jewel (or something) by accident. I've also found Ectoplasm and other stuff, which I assume are quest items in the future, but I have yet to find this Flame Jewel, which is my current objective.

I use the save/load trick to find out where I am while avoiding having to use my spells in the process (I never use compasses).

I much prefer DS's style over EO's style. I'm not saying EO's style is bad though. I just think the atmosphere in DS feels more like a true dungeon crawler game than EO's anime style does. Also, I agree with what GB said in how DS is harder than EO. It's harder to level, get spells, map, etc. and the puzzles are harder too.

Right now I'm stuck on floor 7.