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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).

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.

Only one complaint

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The other reviewers have done a much better job of reviewing this game than I can. I received it on Monday and I have to say that I only put it down to eat, sleep and work. I'm not a gamer, per se, I don't buy the newest games and gaming systems, so I'd like to enter my review in that vein.

If you're not a gamer, like me, you might find this game a little hard. My one and only complaint is that while the booklet that comes with the game does an excellent job in explaining the game screens, it doesn't do a very good job explaining the different character classes and weapons. I've often purchased a weapon just to discover none of my characters can use it! Very frustrating! Plus, I would like a in game help tool. But, that's just me.

It's very challenging and fun to play. I look forward to the next one and I'm not done with this one.

One more thing, the best part of this game has to be that you play it on the DS, so I don't have to leave it behind and I can play while on lunch.

Because I like this game so much, I will be trying Odin Sphere

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

Old School Goodness

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is an old school rpgamer's dream come true. The battles are reminiscent of Dragon Warrior, and exploration is handled through a first person view like Eye of the Beholder. Players can make their party from scratch by selecting several different character classes. The classes all fill their own niche and are all useful in their own way. The story is lacking, but this game is a lot of fun even without a deep story. The game is driven through simple exploration of the dungeon. Not as pretty and fancy as many newer rpg's, but a very fun game not to be overlooked.

Etrian Excellency

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

First I'll post my main rating for this game.

Gameplay: 9.5/10 There's some repetitivity at times, and there is intense level grinding. Level grinding is when you have to battle around for atleast 30 minutes for cash or levels for the sake of being able to advance in the game. But once you're high enough you can usually walk right through the next floor of the dungeon.

Difficulty: 10/10 No matter what floor you're on when you first start a new floor you'll fear running into a FoE and dying. Like I stated before, intense level grinding which is time consuming, but if you like battling it's quite fun.

Interface: 10/10 EXCELLENT, to the point, etc., Everythings in the right spot, easy to navigate. Only thing I wish could be changed is mapping in full labyrinth view. Due to hardware restrictions this may not have been possible though!

Graphics: 9/10. Quite possibly the best '3d' graphics I've seen on the ds. It can be blocky, usually it's incredibly pretty. One downside is the initial dungeon graphic you see is what you see the whole game. There are no changes in scenery. But it's nice enough to tolerate the whole game. Therefore -1 for repetitive.

Length: 10/10 This is one game that the second you pick it up you know you'll be playing for many many hours. I'd say it's possible to beat the game in under 45 hours, but a casual player will probably take 60 hours! This is the longest game in my DS library, and I have a bad attention span, yet I've played it for awhile.

Overall: 48.5/50, 97/100

There really isnt a thing I dislike about this game. It can easily be completed without a guide, though finding secret rooms usually helps, and guides greatly aid you in this feat.

The classes are all strong, there really isnt a 'horrible' class. Some are slightly better than the other, but in all honestly you can't really mess up to the point you make a character useless. Skill points also are handy, and it's not too hard figuring out how skills work.

Warning: If you are not a person willing to commit time into this game I don't recommend buying it. Don't expect it to be easy, or breeze through it. At first in the game be prepared to die and lose 1/2 hours of gameplay 2-3 times. Thankfully you don't lose your map! :)

The gameplay apparently only appeals to a small population of people, though I am honestly in love with this game. If you are able to accept there's not much plot (Really, I dislike games without plot usually, but this one is just so excellent it's hard for me not to like it) then Etrian Odyssey may not be for you.

You'll either love the game, or hate it. And remember! If you dislike it you can always resell it and be out a few bucks, if you're into RPGs though, I think trying this one is definitely worth it!

97/100

BEST GAME EVAR

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 27
Date: June 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind;

F O E! F O E!

Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind;

F O E! F O E!

Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind,

etc.

Great little RPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I found Etrian Odyssey kind of easy actually except in certain spots where you run into like a traffic jam of enemies and you have to keep re-entering the dungeon to build up exp to pass those bottlenecks. The mapping is a cool feature, very interseting, with the GUI seeming like it's lifted straight from Trauma Center. It's fun exploring the labyrinths as each level is uniquely laid out (none of it is random as might be expected from people who grew up on Fargoal or Diablo). It has nice art and music, but not much animation or strategy. It's a throwback to old-style RPGs of the 80s and they hired Yuzo Koshiro to do the music in an FM-style like the PC-88 -- it sounds good, although the tracks are more subtle than flooring and they grow on you. The controls also work well. The only gripe I could think of with the controls was that you had to exit a menu to go into another menu when buying things in order to compare prices and see if you already had the item, whereas in games like Castlevania it immediately does the comparing for you. The dungeon art was the single best aspect about this game, in my opinion. The different textures scale well and are effectively moody and mysterious. Monster art is also good. The rest of the art was kind of anime-ish, which sucks, but it's drawn well. Overall I had a lot of fun playing this one and will probably play it again sometime with a more unusual roster.

A Roguelike on my DS? YES!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: September 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Etrian Odyssey hearkens back to the old days of online computer video games, a simple RPG-style dungeon crawler with enough difficulty and content to keep you interested for as long as you choose.

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.

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