Every heard of Etrian Odyssey? If your a loyal Nintendo fan, you probably have. Your a Playstation or Xbox fan? You probably haven't. So Etrian Odyssey is still under radar in America. It's probably popular in Japan though, because if it had poor sales, it could have stopped years ago.
I started playing EO since EO4. Great game. Weak story, but nice gameplay. I also played the earlier versions and let me tell you, it's not so great. 2007 games made by Nintendo was just so-so. Of course, Pokemon and Mario get a special treatment because Nintendo. LOGIC.
Anyways, the basic idea of EO is that you walk around in a labyrinth and try to find your way to the deepest part of it to ultimately defeat the final boss: simple. But its greatest feature is the map. You can actually, with your two hands (one actually), draw a map. FUN! Sounds boring, but its actually more entertaining than you think. TRUST ME. The battle system is ok. It's turn-based so there's not a lot for me to explain.
The story is pretty general. You sign-up as a explorer and then you explore the labyrinth. Along the way, the government gives you a task that will let you get more fame throughout the town and progress in the story. However, when Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl came out, the game went from nice to awesome. The backstory of the labyrinths were explained and, and, umm... well... it... became a good game.... Yeah. Well it was a good game to begin with so think of it as GREAT turned into GREAT++. Bad explanation, but whatever. I write what I want. Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Fafnir Knight was also release last year (2015). Many improvements were made and new features were introduced such as making meals and more selectable dialog. I would also like to mention that the battles in EO are so very satisfying. For example, when you beat a gym leader in Pokemon you get this tiny sense of achievement right? Well in EO, when you beat a boss you get a much better feeling. The sound effects paints a picture in your mind of your character stabbing/cutting/bashing/burning/freezing/electrocuting your opponent to its final breath. And guess what? You can fight it again, unlike scaredy-cat gym leaders that never want to fight you ever again.
If that was not enough for you, then guess what. Etrian Odyssey went from first-person dungeon crawler to top-down maze exploring by teaming up with Chunsoft (Mystery Dungeon). Though that game was not as great as I thought it would be. No offense EO, but that experiment was a fail. But don't worry because Etrian Odyssey has also done a crossover with Persona 3/4. I am currently playing it and I must say that it is a fantastic game. There are a lot interesting things you can do in the game. It is also great for new Persona fans such as myself. This experiment was a success. YAY!
Etrian Odyssey V is also coming out. Released date is still unknown. All we know about it is that its going to me a MMO game. Not sure what I feel about it though. How exactly does ATLUS turn a solely single-player game into a MMO? I plan on making a review of it when it comes out so if you're interested, please be sure to come back and read it!
Thanks for reading!
-MT
