Sounds interesting, to say the least. I haven't picked it up in a while, but I do this with most of my DS games, where I routinely switch out the current game that I'm playing to get a bit of variety.

I think I got to the 3rd stratum and stopped. Maybe I'll pick it back up, but I'm missing some quests from the second stratum as well. Might go back and finish those up first. Can't find butterfly eyes, or whatever it is.

You can get those on the first floor, you just have to kill the butterflies in a certain way. I think you have to kill them with magic to get they eyes.

Takes place in a different land.

Password option from MeiQ 1 is used in the very beginning to transfer your guild name, a random character to appear later in a quest (supposedly), and either Etoria Crown or Etoria Medal (town crown/medal) although they have been nerfed from their MeiQ 1 counterparts.

A ton of skills have been removed or changed, and there have been numerous additions. Everyone gets the standard skillset now (HP,TP,STR, etc UP, along with Escape UP), along with their own skillsets. Biggest changes is no more defender, or immunize. Also removal of Boost Gauge in favor of a Force Gauge. Force Gauge lets you use a Force Skill which is a really powerful skill for that class.

Ex. Bard gets a full Force Gauge and uses their skill, the entire party receives the ATK, DEF, and HP songs all at once.

They added an equipment compendium -_-

More map options, so on and so forth!

A basic translation (more like copy everything from MeiQ1 and add in what wasn't there) of the new town:



Taco and I are pretty much struggling through it, so I guess you could ask us various questions?

EDIT: One thing that kind of sucks is they nerfed the harvesting skills, so you don't get a ton of uses from one point now. One point is one attempt.

Man, I'm loving the new map icons. You can finally label shortcuts effectively, as well as differentiate between the three different item gathering types without having to comment on every single one. I haven't run into any damaging tiles yet, but I know the three colors you can paint the floor tiles with will be useful there as well.

Something I've come across that hasn't been noted is that there seems to be a type of Geomagnetic Field Checkpoint system. On the 3rd floor I came across what looked like a Geomagnetic Field gate from the first game, only instead of pink this one was orange. At first it was shown as a grey icon on my map, but when I activated it it turned to orange. However, it wouldn't let me go back to town. I used an Ariadone's Thread (Warp Wire) to get back to town, and the second option now presented me with a YES/NO question. Answering "YES" took me to the orange warp point I had previously activated on the 3rd floor. There was no menu to select the warp points, either. It makes me wonder how this checkpoint system is going to work in other strati.

Fights are a lot harder. My party's level 5 and I can't even hope to beat even the first normal FOE I came across. 3F has more Red FOEs, just like in the first game.

All in all I'm very satisfied with it. I'm loving the changes that were made from the first.
Edit: Except for upping Salve's level 1 TP cost to 18. The hell is up with that? ;_;

(Probably)

On the topic of skills, let's go over what's been removed and added. Removed in Italics, Added in Bold (at least, what I call it). Name Changes also in bold?

Half-assed translation of the skills that were added, some of them don't really make sense anyway. Unless there was a reason not to; I put the English skill names.

Swordsman (I'm not calling it the damn landshark)
Hell Cry
Flee

Counter
Sonic Raid
Ray Slash
High Swing
Power Gain

Arm Heal -> Bondage Cure (I think that's what it's called...)
Power Crash -> Death Bound
Chaser skills reworked to somehow be even more stupid

Ranger

Trickery
Quicken
Cloak
Disable

Sonic Step
Slow Step
Chain Dance
Sleep Arrow
Paralyze Arrow
Poison Arrow
Scout Watch

Escape -> Escape Rate UP
Aware -> Danger Perception
Owl-Eye -> Perception

Paladin

Cure
Cure II
Defender
Stalker

Guardian Backwater?
Divine Protection
Refresh
Full Guard
Material Guard

Provocation changed to function correctly.
Flee -> All Flee?

Dark Hunter

Boost Up
Fury
Cloak

Demonic Poison Pole?*
Selfish Pole?*
Trapping II
Temptation Leg?

*Not sure if they are supposed to be pole, or like in EO1 if they were supposed to be called Climax

Trapping also changed, for some reason

Medic

Immunize (known in Japanese as Defensive Medicine)
Healing Touch
Regen

Area Full Heal
Full Recovery
Full Refresh
Medical Desperation
Scout Watch

Cure II -> Healing
Cure III -> Full Healing
Area Cure (Salve) II -> Area Healing
Refresh changed a bit
Defensive Medicine II (CPR) -> Resist Dead

Alchemist

Toxins
Poison
Venom
Scavenge
TP Regen
Sight

Analysis
Physical Mastery
Decapitation
Death Crusher
Kan Hammer?
Nuclear Temperature

Warp -> Recursion
Large Thunder Storm (Thor) -> Large Lightning

Bard

Healing
Relaxing
Stalker
Return

Evil Endurance?
Calm Pastoral Song
Attracting Serenade
Beckoning Sonata
Entire Lullaby

Bushido

Sword Mastery
Sight
Crit Up
Ibuki
Kesagiri
Mikiri

Drawn Sword Taking
Heart Strike of Death
Corpse Law
Scabbard Attack
Demonic Flame Decapitation
Moonlight
Honorable Lightning God's Build?
Light Snow Fall

Gatotsu -> Armor Omission
Stance Masteries

Curse Maker

Stagger
Relapse
Lure

Wide Knowledge (Scavenge)
Mutation
Poison
Paralyze

Evil Eye has lower requirements
Revenge has different requirements

Universal (Meaning on every class skillset)
HP UP
TP UP
STR UP
VIT UP
AGI UP
TEC UP
LUK UP
Escape Rate UP

Force Skills (from what I understand of them anyway):

Swordsman - Full Gain - Huge damaging attack (all enemies?)
Ranger - Dream Line - Evasion is greatly increased for entire party
Paladin - Complete Protection - All damage nullified for one turn
Dark Hunter - All Bondage - Bondage every area of the enemy
Medic - Super Medicine - All Statuses Removed and HP Recover for all?
Alchemist - Super Nuclear Temperature - Large damage to all enemies
Bard - The Final, Decisive, War Song - ATK UP DEF UP HP UP to entire party
Bushido - Flash - All enemies take massive damage and instantly die if possible
Curse Maker - Yellow Flag - All enemies are inflicted with a random status effect
Doctor Magus - Ancient Road of the Shrine Maiden - Party HP Recovery and all attributes UP?
Gunner - Supreme Magical Bullets - Single Target, Massive damage and 100% chance of Stun
Pets - Ultimate Wound Licking - Party recovers HP? Something about not removing status effects I think...