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Old school RPG, indeed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 13
Date: June 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is a grind-fest with practically zero story. I felt like I was playing a primitive RPG. I will admit it is one of few RPGs I have played that is truly challenging.

I am not sure why this is on the DS. Besides the draw your own map idea the game makes no use of its power. There is almost no animation. You never see your characters except in a portrait in menus. Battle is represented by an enemy portrait being assaulted by a flash and either a yellow slash or maybe a lightning bolt. The rest of the game is done by exploring a 3D maze first-person style sometimes avoiding a glowing ball that represents a tougher enemy or navigating menus in town.

If you like true old school gaming on the go this game is for you. If you want a more evolved game with more substance, I don't recommend this one.

Tedious timewaster

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: August 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm middle-aged, male, and a lifelong gamer. I've forgotten more games than most people ever learn how to play. I love RPGs in particular and have played many easy and hard RPGs through to completion. I can honestly say, this is the worst RPG that I've ever bothered to finish.

I see a lot of glowing reviews by gushing fans. I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I might have loved it a few decades ago, but it's sub-par by today's standards. The graphics are cutting edge circa 1987 -- 2D sprites that shake when you hit them in combat. Combat is menu-driven and slow. Worse, like many old school RPGs, combat surprises you out of nowhere unavoidably, and is completely repetitive and mind-numbingly boring. What I wouldn't give for an auto-combat option! The maze is likewise repetitive and dull. While there are hundreds of pieces of equipment you can use, they all feel precisely the same, they just flash larger numbers on the screen. Quests don't correctly remind you what you need to do, so you'll either have to take notes or consult a FAQ if you forget. The plot is linear and completely predictable. The game makes no use of touchscreen features aside from drawing a map, which is only required in 2 places. (You can't use the stylus for menus, inventory, etc.)

But it's not all bad. I did find the game compelling enough to continue playing. I enjoy a good timewaster now and again, and there aren't a plethora of excellent DS RPGs. I particularly enjoyed the music, and I have to admit I enjoyed mapping the game myself rather than using an automap, at least for the first 10 hours or so. But I only finished the game because of a mildly compulsive nature, not because I loved it. I didn't recommend this game to any of my RPG-playing friends.

You can enjoy this game, but know what you're getting into first. It's long, it's tedious, it's repetitive, and it can be hard at times. There are no huge adrenaline rushes or major plot twists. Also, I have some recommendations that might improve your gameplay experience:
* Don't overlevel! It makes the game profoundly boring.
* Hold down A to go faster through combat.
* Invest heavily in the skill that reduces combat frequency.
* Skip past the FOEs and come back later, otherwise you'll overlevel.
* Don't expect a 5-star game and you'll enjoy it more.

Nod to the old school

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 22 / 24
Date: June 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Etrian Odyssey is as old school as it comes when thinking of the RPG's and dungeon crawlers of the past, and in this case that's not such a bad thing after all. At first glance it seems like a simple, tried and true, turn based RPG, but once you get deep into the core gameplay of Etrian Odyssey, you'll see it for what it really is. The game offers some incredibly challenging gameplay elements as you tackle the usual RPG settings, particularly labyrinths. Not to mention that the various abilities of you and your party are just begging to be tinkered with, which also provides a great deal of fun and challenge as well. What really makes Etrian Odyssey worth checking out is the great use that the game makes of the DS' dual screens, touch screen, and stylus. The mapping interface used with the touch screen and stylus is inventive and helps set the game apart from the recent flood of RPG's to hit the DS, along with the overall atmosphere and charming graphics as well. The only real downsides of Etrian Odyssey are the same problems that plague many RPG's: there is far too much back tracking involved in your lengthy quest, and when I say lengthy, I mean lengthy. The game offers a long and satisfying story and quest, but the game's steep learning curve and difficulty may put off some gamers. Despite it's few flaws though, Etrian Odyssey is a real treat for longtime and hardcore RPG or dungeon crawler addicts that own a DS, and it is definitely worth picking up.

Old-School Gaming + New Twists = Lots of Fun!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 22 / 22
Date: July 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Since my reviews tend to be a little long-winded, I'll short-form it for you here: if you're looking for an old-school (say early `90s) RPG you can take on the go and have as much fun with for twenty minutes as you can for two hours at a stretch, and you don't need flashy graphics, sound, or story, buy this game! I was very cautious about getting it after it was suggested as a "You Might Also Like" during an Amazon.com search, especially after having been quite disappointed with FF III on the DS, but I have not been able to put this down since I got it. It looks like Amazon has rescinded its "more on the way" message, but I found a ton of these at J & R (jandr.com) and Gamestop, so try there if you can't get it here.
Now for the in-depth version: if you like the level design of Wizardry VI or VII combined with the battle engine of Dragon Quest II, all done up with the graphics of Phoenix Wright, you will love Etrian Odyssey. This may sound like a slam or a backhanded compliment, but really it's not. EO takes an old-school approach to RPGs and adds some clever updates to the formula. While the game won't wow you with cutting-edge graphics, dramatic voiceovers, or epic, involving story lines (EO has none of these), it has all the addictiveness of a Vegas slot machine, because it offers so many opportunities for rewards, starting off with some quick character enhancements and easily accomplished quests, and ramping up to missions that may take hours or even days to complete. This isn't a game where the player gets lost in the realm of the senses, this is a hardcore gaming experience that takes RPGs back to the basics of character classes and unique enemy types, skill development, and hard choices about what style of gameplay you want to emphasize (all-out attack, defensive with lots of healing, or a balance of the two), yet still manages to throw in some new twists that really keep things fresh.
One of the major innovations in EO - in fact, the one which makes it unique among RPGs today - is the mapping feature. Now, obviously, any of you who have played games like M&M I through V know, an in-game map is nothing new. What sets the mapping in EO apart from all other RPGs is that you have to draw it yourself - and the game provides the interface to do so! Say goodbye to those loose sheets of graph paper and smudged, illegible pencil scratches, because EO allows you to create and save maps of the levels on the touch screen! In fact, in order to be able to progress beyond the first level, the player is required to map out a portion of the labyrinth in a nifty little tutorial that seamlessly blends into the gameplay. At first, this takes a little getting used to, but once you figure out what all the symbols should be used to represent, it really works, and the DS' touch screen and stylus could not be better suited to the task. The game includes an optional auto-mapping feature that paints a flat, pale-blue square for every square of the labyrinth you've stepped on, but you have to draw in the walls, stairs (up or down), Events, treasure boxes, traps, and items yourself. You can even append these icons with short memos that will appear in the world view screen when you step on the square in the labyrinth represented by the icon, or tap on the Memo icon with the stylus on the touch screen. On top of all that, you can even erase mistakes - without all those messy pink eraser scraps to clean up!
Another of the innovations I really appreciated was the setup of shops and advancement of items available. Instead of finding money (or Gold, or Gil, or what have you) on the corpses of slain enemies, you sometimes find items, like Butterfly Wings, or Soft Hide, or Metal Horn. You then take these items to the shopkeeper and sell them to her; occasionally, the items you've sold will allow her to create new, more useful items. Sometimes it's just a matter of selling enough of a common item, but more often it's selling her the rare items that allows her to create the really good weapons, armor, etc. The rate at which this occurs is very nicely ramped, since the further you explore, the more difficult the enemies you encounter, the better items they leave, and the better equipment and accessories the shopkeeper can make from them. As an added element of depth, some of the items are required to complete quests, but you don't want to sell them until after you've received the quest - it makes for a nice conundrum: do I wait for the quest that will require these items and slog my way through with what I've got, or do I sell them, get the better equipment, and hope I can find these items later?
Another innovation is the way in which you customize your characters. At the very start of the game, the only difference between, say, a warrior (Landsknecht) and a wizard (Alchemist) is their stats and what they can equip - they both start with a knife and a tunic and no skills to speak of. To be able to have the wizard cast spells, you have to spend an Experience Point on the class of spell you want him to cast (Fire, Ice, Volt, Poison), and then you have to spend an Experience Point on the spell you want him to learn. Then, if you want the spell to do more damage, you have to keep spending EPs on that spell. In addition to the usual, expected abilities like healing spells, damage spells, increased attack damage, and the like, there are a host of other skills that particular classes can learn, including those that decrease the rate of chance encounters, weapon-specific attacks that also inflict ailments or damage spells on the enemy, sharp-shooting, multiple-hit attacks, etc. Abilities exist in a hierarchy, with some skills requiring the acquisition (and sometimes leveling up) of other, related skills before they can be learned. Each class has 21 abilities to learn - most of them unique to that class - with a cap Level of 10 each, but you are limited to 102 EPs per character (you start at Level 1 with three, and can only level up to 100, for an additional 99 EPs), so you must choose to mold your character as either a jack-of-all-trades type or a supreme master of only a few skills. Combined with the availability of nine classes and the freedom to put any number of each class in your party of (up to) five, this makes for a great deal of flexibility and individuality in gameplay.
To sum it up, EO is simply a great game to take along when you're stuck on the bus for a half hour, or the power goes out and you can't play the latest hi-res blockbuster Final Fantasy on the PS9 via your HD TV. Short of a more mindless handheld game like Lumines or Tetris, it's the most fun you can have in short bursts (or long sessions) that doesn't require a huge investment of time, skill, or attention...which is exactly what a portable game should be.
(I've put in some tips for the first set of levels in the Comments section; note that much of what is there could be considered spoilers, though not in the sense of story, since there really is none.)

Seems like the old times, but not quite as good.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: June 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is a breath of fresh air. I started playing RPGs way back on the commodore64. Legacy of the Ancients anyone? I was and am a true Bards Tale fan. The story lines were very in depth and the control you had over the developement of your characters was intense. You were never really dragged on a leash from one setting to the next. Though you usually got your rear handed to you if you tried an area way to tough. And not to mention the fact that graph paper was a must, or you would spend some time trying to get out of dungeons. Even if you had a kick butt team, getting lost in a labrynth was just no fun.

I remember how I hated how different asian RPGs were in comparison to american. When I was that kid looking for a C64 game and getting a nintendo version I was dissapointed. Though I have learned to love them of late.

So Etrian Odyssey tried to bring back some of that old flavore, and for the most part has. But the big thing here is they brought SOME of that old flavour. I still feel that a lot more that could have been put into this game to give it perfection. The biggest let down being the non-story line. What story there is is very sparse. And has to do with "We don't know what the bottom looks like". And a couple of jobs to complete on the side. Like "This kid is dying and wants to see a lvl 20 guy before then". Or get this holy water and come back, please.

What you are left with is a complete dungeon crawl. And hey I like that. But not everyone will. I've read the reviews and though I've never played wizardry, I am a fan of the oldies. So for those of you who remember those games and, well, have time to waste. This is a game for you. But this is by know means a Riviera: the promised land, or final fantasy 12.

Great old-school dungeon crawler

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: June 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I spent many days during my misspent youth playing the original Wizardry RPG on my Apple II, making little paper maps to mark my way through the dungeon.

Etrian Odyssey captures that old-school feeling, complete with annotating your own map as you traverse the labyrinth. I never thought that I'd ever again have the patience to draw my own map in a dungeon crawler, but Etrian Odyssey makes it fun (it does most of the grunt work for you, leaving you to just fill in a few details here and there).

Etrian Odyssey, aka Yggdrasil Labyrinth

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Formerly known as Yggdrasil Labyrinth, Etrian Odyssey is a very challenging, completely turn-based RPG. Think of it as an old-school RPG, but stripped down to its elements. There is very little story and your party characters have no distinguishing features except for their job class and character portrait, which you pick from 4 possible designs. Don't expect interesting environments--there are 5 different environments, which change every five floors you go through the dungeon. They're 3-D and quite pretty for a DS game, but extremely repetitive. They're really just a background.

It's worth mentioning that although the game is ridiculously hard on the first floor, it gradually gets easier as you progress, although it's never as easy as most modern RPGs.

If, like me, you thought Final Fantasy III (the best RPG available on the DS currently) was fairly easy, then you should be able to enjoy Etrian Odyssey despite its difficulty.

My favorite DS/GBA game ever

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Etrian Odyssey takes me back to my Wizardry days circa W Vii.

A challenging dungeon crawler with an excellent underlying character system. The classes are generally well balanced; the class skills and spells are all logical; and the desire to explore more (for more XP, loot and quests) really is done well in this game.

The game starts out with you forming a guild and creating your characters. Each class has 2 male and 2 female avatars. Once you have your party of 5 (you can create as many characters as you wish), there are missions to do (the main story line), side quests to do, items to unlock and 2 classes to unlock.

Most of this takes place in a labyrinth of a descending forest dungeon. As you explore the dungeon, you will map out each level using your stylus on the touch pad. You can leave notes on maps, plot where monsters are, indicate doors and treasure boxes as well as note where nodes are for materials gathering (you can mine, chop and take for some classes skill choices).

Combat takes part in turn-based fashion, and the game is quite challenging.

I don't want to spoil anything beyond what I have already said in describing the game mechanic ... so I will leave it at that.

I would give the game 5 stars if it had more than 1 save slot. This is really unfortunate. However, since you can roll up as many characters/classes as you want ... I guess this sort of is mute. I would still like the option of starting over without losing my current game. I also wouldn't mind stats being kept (like avg. damage, kills, deaths, etc) per character, but thats a wish item for EO2.

cheers

Entertaining challenge

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This has been a fun game and at times frustrating. It's enjoyable to "create" the maze as you go thru it. I felt more like an explorer charting as I went along.
A downside to the game is after mapping a floor continually going back to level on that floor until you can level safely on the next one. At least the quests provided help alleviate some of that problem.
Overall it was a fun game for both myself and my teenager.

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.

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