Etrian Odyssey

[Eusis]

It'll be available to buy on the 16th, so I'm wondering if anyone's going to pick it up? I'm kinda on the fence to be honest, I want to see what some reviews say - all I know right now is that EGM gave it 8.0/4.0/6.0, and without knowing /why/ scores like those are nigh-meaningless. However, it sounds like it might be a fun, more hardcore RPG experience, and will probably be on sale for $25 at Fry's anyway.

However, I kinda expect to see bitching about having no story given the comics on their site and that FFXII thread. Personally though, I think it'll be refreshing to play an RPG that just doesn't give a damn.

[Leo]

Hey, it's a DS game, so one more to my pile; yeah, it's obsessive, but DS games are like gems to me, and all the more worthwhile that it's an RPG. Putting that aside, it looks alright. I like the exploration factor; old school shit all the way. You think a store like Best Buy will have it?

[Fadedsun]

As you can see by my banner, I will be getting this game. Already have it on preorder. I love games like these. One, huge dungeon to explore.

I remember playing Shining In The Darkness back when I was younger. Etrian Odyssey will bring back similar memories.

I've already read enough about it to know what to expect. Difficult, not much story, turn based battle system, skill system, exploration. And I like the idea that they want you to apply your imagination to bring life to the characters. I know this will be tough for a lot of RPGamers now a days. :P

[Eusis]

Hey, it's a DS game, so one more to my pile; yeah, it's obsessive, but DS games are like gems to me, and all the more worthwhile that it's an RPG. Putting that aside, it looks alright. I like the exploration factor; old school shit all the way. You think a store like Best Buy will have it?

Probably. BestBuy's no Wal-Mart, they tend to carry most games. For how long is another question.

[Leo]

Hmm...I don't see anything on their site, at the upcoming releases section; 'guess I'll try other retail stores. If possible I try to avoid the game stores nowadays, as a personal preference. Or hey, I could always buy it online.

[Eusis]

Amazon's got free shipping, since the game's over $25. Of course, that /might/ take awhile. However, I dunno whether I'm lucky or what, but it usually takes less than a business week to get anything I order off of there, so I just go for free shipping there whenever possible.

[Willy Elektrix]

I hope my roommate will buy this (she owns the DS and buys all the games). I love first-person dungeon crawlers so much I even played through Deep Labyrinth (seriously). I'm hoping it will be as hardcore as people think. I want nothing but tons of corridors packed with god damn monsters, although probably we won't be that lucky.

[jj984jj]

Michael Donahoe gave it a 4.0 because he's a wimp who couldn't make it through the game. Game Informer gave it a kinda low score as well (6), a quote from the review:

I had to give my party members names like "Fight" and "Heal" just so I could recognize who should do what in battle.

This person got paid to write this for GI...

[Eusis]

Michael Donahoe gave it a 4.0 because he's a wimp who couldn't make it through the game. Game Informer gave it a kinda low score as well (6), a quote from the review:

I had to give my party members names like "Fight" and "Heal" just so I could recognize who should do what in battle.

This person got paid to write this for GI...

Michael Donahoe's review I'd like to actually read. No matter, it'll be up on 1up before long I suppose. However, it seems safe to call the GI review bullshit, at least for me and probably most people who frequent these boards. Might work for the average player that doesn't really want to track stats and just wants to play shooters and stuff like GTA and Halo, so in that regard it might actually be a good review, but for anyone that can be bothered to remember what class their characters are (I had no problem with DQIII), it's probalby not a review to take seriously.

[MeshGearFox]

It looks like someone finally got it up in their minds to release a proper Wizardry-style game for the handheld. About damn time considering the Wizardry Summoner localization got canned.

Granted, Wizardry Summoner looked about on par with the first five Wizardry games, whereas... yeah, Wizardry 8 was sort of miles upon miles ahead of those in terms of being better was, and Tales of the Forsaken land is probably the best way to do the classic formula........

Anyway, lots of character classes looks nice! Interested in seeing what sort of skills it has.

[Robert Boyd]

Really, I wouldn't be too worried about review scores when it comes to Etrian Odyssey.  I mean, it's a first person perspective JRPG take on old school dungeon hacks like Wizardry or Might & Magic, complete with drawing your own maps (via the touch screen).  On top of that, it's supposed to be very difficult.  That's about as niche as you get.  It just doesn't seem like the kind of game that your average reviewer would get.  The couple of impressions I've read from people who have imported it have been very positive and that's good enough for me.

Personally, I've been counting the days 'til it comes out for weeks (this Wednesday, woohoo!).  5 character parties plus 9 character classes to choose from, each of which can be customized further depending on which skills you pick for them (and from what I've heard, even a max LV character won't have enough skill points to learn even half of the available skills for their class).  Toss on visuals that look rather good for the system and the fact that I haven't bought a game for my DS in months and am looking forward to having a reason to turn it back on and you can see why the one game I buy this month will be Etrian Odyssey despite all the other RPG goodies this month (Pokemon, Odin Sphere, Atelier Iris 3).

[Willy Elektrix]

Personally, I've been counting the days 'til it comes out for weeks (this Wednesday, woohoo!).  5 character parties plus 9 character classes to choose from, each of which can be customized further depending on which skills you pick for them (and from what I've heard, even a max LV character won't have enough skill points to learn even half of the available skills for their class).  Toss on visuals that look rather good for the system and the fact that I haven't bought a game for my DS in months and am looking forward to having a reason to turn it back on and you can see why the one game I buy this month will be Etrian Odyssey despite all the other RPG goodies this month (Pokemon, Odin Sphere, Atelier Iris 3).

Yeah, I've reading about the character customization too. I'm getting serious wood off from this. Hopefully the system will be elegant in its customization and not have a ton of extra cumbersome rules. From what I've heard, that doesn't seem to be the case, but you never know if there is going to be something retarded like "new skills are gained from finding rare items" or some such nonsense.

[MeshGearFox]

Skills from rare items is sort of why SD3's class change system bothered me. I like abstract systems as much as I like... less abstract ones, but... well, you all know what Nintendo logic is.

Learning skills from items didn't really bug me in FFIX or FFTA. Then again, skill systems that don't really make sense is sort of an FF trademark. Although, FFIX's system WAS a sort of awkward half-way step between the less abstract ideas behind Espers, GFs, and Materia (which were, in a sense, different kettles of the same fish. Or something like that) and the more abstract ideas of, say, license boards and sphere grids.

Granted, I must say that I prefer more straightforward skill systems like in Fallout or something. FFV/FFT had pretty straight forward skill systems via the whole class-based gameplay thing. Pick skill tree. acquire/buy skills. Nothin' strange.

Granted, materia, GFs, and espers had the whole Pokemon/collectibility thing behind them, which is always fun.

[Eusis]

1up's put a review of the game up. Seems pretty good, and it looks like the GI review had fun poked at it.

[alonso]

Guys pls don't kill me for having posted the FFXII thread, the chaos wasn't my intention. back to the topic.

sounds intresting, keep the thread up to date. I am in Germany, and i have no chance to get a copy that fast.