Etrian Odyssey <3
 

WHY ISN'T THERE A THREAD FOR THIS GAME YET.

Any folks who played the JP Wizardry games will fucking adore this title. It's smooth, slick, has a nice presentation, and fucking HARD gameplay. The dungeon will stomp on your ass until you ask for seconds. I can't believe how good it is~

A shame that it might end up as a sleeper hit because folks are circle-jerking over the FF titles coming out soonish.

The frame rate is incredibly smooth. No choppy moving or anything of the sort. Now, the folks who played Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken Land (PS2), you will feel like you're in an anime sequel to it all ;D The weapon shop details on gear (attack or defense+# as well as squares showing initials to class names that can and can't use them) is almost a spot-on-match. Visiting sites in town is just like Wizardry, but there are more places and it seems quite lively.

You start off being sent in to the labyrinth on a mission to map the first floor. This is an initiation to new guilds before they can take proper jobs. This is referred to as a mission, and you can take them from this special hall. There is also a pub that gives out quests & missions, but the bar wench won't let you take any until you do the initial mapping run.

The monsters are quite harsh. They land criticals and pre-emptive strikes fairly often, but not frustratingly so. I recommend grinding it out a bit at first so your healer can cast beyond four heal spells =p

Also, there are levels on top of skill points. Initially made characters get three points, and each level beyond that gives one more skill point. Ragnarok Online is quite a nice way to describe the feel in this part of the game, as you have three gathering abilities, upgrades to them, as well as each class bearing a wonderful amount of potential "builds". You could make a shield-and-sword tank or even hone him in to a healing paladin. Your warrior can be a cautious, precise attacker or an all-out berserker. The nuking class (alchemist) can range across Ice, Fire, Lightning, and Poison for their spells (I chose fire ^^). Healers can adopt the usual hands-on-healing spells or passive skills that regenerate HP following battles.

In addition to this, most mobs don't drop money (from what I've seen), but they drop items or "l00t" that you can sell to the weapon/armorshop NPC. After you sell enough of a certain item, the saleswoman gets an idea for making a new piece of equipment. This is a nice way of forcing folks in to grinding out certain items.

Sorry for the impromptu review, but I forget the special Latin/Germanic names that lotsa folks have :3 Anyhow!

I bought this game, and let me tell you -- I don't regret it. Lots of DS games I've purchased so far are quite nice, but I always had an ache kinda like "maybe I rushed into purchasing this game..."

Not in this case. It's the real deal for Wizardry fans. If anything can galvanize the genre, this baby is it. Its presentation, gameplay, and difficulty will keep me coming back for more -- I guarantee it.

The reviews I read on this were rather horribly put forth, harsh, biting, and it leads me to think that the punks doing the write-ups never played a game of this type. Some folks might not take to it due to the lack of a story that most folks adore, but that simply means that it is from before their time.

11/10. Oops. Typo. I meant 12/10 ;D

Now come on. Other folks are sure to have this game in mind :(

To be honest, it looks interesting but I've kind of been avoiding news on it. I'll barely have enough money this month for Odin Sphere, so a second temptation wouldn't be a good thing.

I'm not quite sure what you meant by this line. Is there a good enough story to inspire a reason to do all of this grinding? I'll go through a game with horrendous gameplay mechanics if the story is freakin' amazing, but a subpar story usually shoots games to the bottom of my list.

There really isn't a story because your whole party is made up of custom characters. You are basically playing the role of the leader of a guild (or you could "imagine" yourself as one of the characters) and a group of folks that you make on your own. You pick the name, class, and portrait (identifying as male or female) and go on from there.

There are quests, missions, and plots that go on in the dungeon but you're basically some dude out for fame and money, and the best way to do it is to get into the labyrinth and loot some treasure.

There isn't character development or romances or the like, but you run into recurring characters throughout the dungeon, find sequences that have you make a choice (ie: pick up item and fight a surprise enemy or leave it alone), etc.

Well, I wanted to buy this today, and had it pre-ordered, but apparently it didn't come in today's Gamestop shipment.

So... I have no idea when I'll get my hands on it. Looks great, though.

It's every bit as good as it looks. That sucks though =(

I miss the days of being able to name all your party members. I always name them after real life friends or internet friends. It just makes it all more fun for some reason. The only part that throws me off about this game is how you have to draw out your own map. I'd hate to pause every other second just to draw out a left and right turn.

You get used to it. I enjoy it =3 You can use special markers to denote sites, ie: treasure, event, dead-end, memo, etc.

I still dunno how the heck to use the Memo thing >_O You'd think it'd be click-and-drag like all the other icons but it doesn't wooorrrrrk.

The mapping concept is really nice though. You see your cursor and every step you move through it explored or placed with a lighter shade box. You outline the boxes however you want (for truth or to fuck around~) and you can also manually place an explored position if you so wish.

Same here. The game piqued my interest after I visited the official website, but I'm trying to save some money. If someone gave it to me, I'd play it and probably enjoy it, but if I'm going to buy anything now, it'd be Odin Sphere.

Still, it really does sound like it'll be enjoyable, though.

It is click and drag. However it is only able to be put on things that have a marking on them :)

Examples would be stairs, item points, event spots, so forth. You can leave a 22 character memo :3

Also this game is oh so hard, it will certainly keep me occupied for a while.

Hafta have something there? O crack :(

Well yeah... otherwise what are you leaving a memo about? The pretty looking floor? :eye:

The giant crab thing in the first dungeon sucked so hard.

Not as hard as accidentally taking a rest in the clearance though! Oh those darn monsters.

Miscellaneous things =o Like "wtf is this. o wull MEMO"

I bought this today also. I am an old school RPG lover, and this is perfect for me. It is insanely hard! I am still in the first dungeon and I am constantly leveling up. I remain poor because of deaths and the cost to revive people. But as long as I level up, I can obtain wealth after.

I did some absent-minded browsing of the internet while pacing forward and backward, and before I knew it, I filled up my inventory and made around 700 en. EXP wasn't too great compared to my rough encounters on the 2nd floor, but I'm able to just hold down the "attack" button and not look at it the DS except for crab fights =p

Do you actually get any EN or is it through selling items?

Selling items from what I've seen. But there are bound to be humanoids (ie: Goblins?) that drop coins later on, I'd think! Came across one spot that gave me a bag of 100 en, but that was just a search-spot.

How far are you Gech? And what levels? I'm in level 9 for everyone, close to 10.

Wow. You're further than I am! Everyone is around 8 for me, but the melee folk are geared up really nice.

I was looking over the official website and I absolutely adored the director diaries. I really agreed with alot he said. I'm the kinda guy that likes to impose a story on characters that don't have a story.

I'll probably pick it up this weekend should funds withstand.

The only thing this is missing are special characters that join you. In Wizardry, there were custom characters (all you started off with were custom, really) and bit by bit you got special storyline characters. They'd often offer input to storyline, but some were uber-ized versions of that class =o

I wish this had them, but it's perfectly wonderful as it ;D

I'm wandering B3F forever, trying to grind enough to kill those stalkers that roam.

I managed to get rid of one... gotta get rid of the other 3 =p

Since it's a slasher I guess I should go in w/ slash resistant accesories... but I miss my +18 hp.

Front Guard & Rear Guard > *

I'm waiting for IGN to ship the game to me. Didn't read about it at all, so I hope it's a good game :3

You killed a Stalker, Lacerta?! O___o

I'm trying to get my protector to get the En Garde skill so he can auto-block. Following that, I'm guessing that Parry, F. Guard, & B. Guard should follow?

Yes, I beat all four of them at least 4 times now. This includes the dual Stalker battle.

Landsknecht / Protector / Survivalist
Medic / Alchemist

FL: Defends (except Protector, they use Front Guard)
RL: Medic uses Cure on whoever needs it, Alchemist uses Fire (the only real weakness it has)

Everyone has Hide Rings so it's damage is not "omgwtfrape" but it still hurts.
It dies by the time my Alchemist's TP runs out >_>

Apparently it's weak to blunt type, but I don't have any attacking mace users (or a strong mace anyway) so I just stuck w/ defense.

My party's skills I guess you could say are totally messed up, however they are getting me through the first 4 floors with ease.

I hope I unlock Rest though, I would like to re-do some skill points.

I'd like to backtrack and undo some gathering/mining/chopping points. I sprinkled a few around on a couple characters '~'

Hmm. I'll try that. What's the purpose of F./B. Block though? The protector pretty much acts as a meat-shield?

I was going slow, but I just tore through the fourth floor like it was nothing. The Hexer that heals you near the stairway is pretty sweet ;D Also, I love the wolf FOEs. I can drop 'em in two rounds, easy. XP++. I just have my medic spam "Salve" every round. She's slow and I can't predict who it'll hit. Plus, it's only a little more expensive than cure. I suggest you put points into it if you haven't already~ =o

I need to explore the NW room on floor 3 (the one with two FOEs). I'll give that tactic a shot ;3 Thanks!