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Great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Most enjoyable handheld game I've ever played, but I confess I haven't played that many. I never got around to finishing this game, but there were so many hours of entertainment to just getting two-thirds of the way through that I certainly feel I got my money's worth.

There IS a lot of "grinding" involved here, so if you know that you hate that I guess you should stay away.

There is also a story here, but not one that's "in your face" with dozens of minutes of cheesy and boring cutscenes. (If I want to watch a story, that's what DVDs are for.)

The game isn't really that hard. Hard games are popular PSP games like Grand Theft Auto where you get a mission and no matter how many times you try you just can't finish it. The graphics are incredible on GTA and some other PSP games such as Daxter, but they are just too frustrating for me to play. In Etrian Odyssey, if you find an adversary you can't defeat, you just need to "grind" a little bit more to raise your levels.

I really love Etrian Odyssey!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I didn't buy Etrian Odyssey right away, despite having considerable curiosity about the game when it came out. I left it on my wish-list instead, and got it for Christmas (thanks Mom!). In contrast to the easy, story-driven Luminous Arc, (another ATLUS title for the DS) Etrian Odyssey is almost story-free, and extremely difficult. So difficult, in fact, that I was killed by butterflies on the first mission of the first level, and was so shocked that I put it aside and played something else instead. I was literally knocked right off the game, and didn't come back to it until a few months later.

A few of the things I feared I wouldn't like are actually some of my favorite features. Nearly half the gameplay centers around drawing your own maps of the forest levels you explore. I thought that having to do this would drive me crazy. It turns out to be really fun. Also, even though the combat resembles Final Fantasy I, it's still not too bothersome. The random encounters aren't really random, and the game gives you fair warning before ambushing you. The enemy's sprites shake when you hit them, and fade when they die, which was last standard practice in games circa 1994. Also the art for the enemies is a bit bizzare; they sure are ugly though. The art is absolutely gorgeous in some other places though. I would buy an art book, if one came out. Each of the character classes is pretty different from the other, and blending their strengths and weaknesses into your team is a fun challenge. The sequel, announced for Japan later this year, will include three more classes. Character levels are few and far between, and while I've managed to get a rhythm going that allows me not to die, the game is still beastly hard, demanding a lot of effort for rather meager rewards in experience points and leveling up skills. The skill tree for each of the classes is complicated enough to make you think about how you spend each precious skill point. This makes it hard, but also a lot of fun.

And exploring uncharted levels is sure fun.

Only one flaw

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Overall, Etrian Odyssey is a great game worth your time. This game has very beautiful scenery which changes dramatically every five floors. Exploring through the dungeon is fun and rarely repetitive. Every so often it may be annoying to go through the same floors over and over again.
There is only one real flaw that you probably won't notice until the end of the game draws near. You are limited as to how many skill points to assign your characters, which requires you to be very careful in appointing them. Once you reach your characters last level, you can't gain more skill points. If you want to reassign your skill points, you have to lose 10 levels, which take a good deal of time to earn. I really don't see any good in limiting the maximum level and skills your characters can reach. Until you reach that point in the game, however, the game has no real flaws.

The definition of "Hardcore"

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I don't think I have played a DS game longer than this one! It's been almost a year since I bought it on its release date, and I'm still playing it... The only other game that will make me stop playing it will be its sequel, Etrian Odyssey II : Heroes of Lagaard.
Just so you are warned, this game won't score high for its animation or use of the DS graphics engine. The art design had mainly two different artists, one for the characters and town, and one for the monsters you fight. All are presented in still 2D images, and while the characters drawings and backgrounds are gorgeus, the monsters' art design seems to be all over the place. The labyrinth scrolls in 3D in a first-person view, which is nice, but it is repetitive.
But the selling points of the game really are a) The character leveling which you do from scratch, and b) the map plotting, which you also do from scratch.
The story is light and very generic, and it doesn't affect the gameplay much despite a couple of twists. But that is the point: because you build the characters from scratch, they don't have any background, so you make them yours. This makes the whole game feel more personal, like you know the characters.
This is the game that I've enjoyed the most on the DS, but like most reviewers mentioned, it is not going to be everyone's cup of tea...

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