Etrian Odyssey

"Classic East meets Classic West"

In the late 80s and early 90s, fantasy role-playing games were a big thing on both the PC and the video console. Many gamers fondly recall titles in both camps, including the early Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games on the console and series like Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder on the PC.

Etrian Odyssey is a successful if dull mix of both.

The game's core premise is that a huge dungeon lurks in the woods, waiting to be explored by brave adventurers. Players create a team of characters who venture into the forest, kill monsters, get treasure, return to town to heal and upgrade, and then repeat the process.

While the game features a plot and a quest system, you will not find any kind of meaningful character interaction in Etrian Odyssey. The game is a pure hack-and-slash dungeon romp, just like we used to love back in the good ol' days.

Etrian Odyssey also features a relatively complex character system, in which you may pick one of several classes and manage the characters' skill points. Skill points are earned by gaining levels, and as different skills are increased, new skills can be unlocked. This can leave some players feeling a bit lost and bewildered, as it's not clear at all what the effects of raising any particular skill will be, and skill points are scarce. Still, for those that love to customize and tweak, Etrian Odyssey fully delivers.

While no crafting system exists, players will find a plethora of items in the dungeon which can be sold to the shop in town. Once enough of a certain kind of item has been sold to the shop, new items will be unlocked for purchase.

Unfortunately, the game sadled itself with some of the worse aspects of both the PC and the console style role-playing games. The usual bright, colorful, visually appealing sprite work of most Japanese RPGs is almost entirely lacking (although the few friendly characters you do encounter in the game have feature some nice art). Instead, players are greeted with blocky, undetailed 3D that can't even do justice to the old bit-mapped graphics of PC games' from 20 years ago.

Graphics alone do not make a game, of course. Sadly, the action-packed combat that veterans of Dungeon Master or Stonekeep experienced is nowhere to be found. Don't hope for an intricate JRPG style system, either - the combat system is not much different than what you'd find in the original 8-bit console role-playing games, instead of the more engaging and advanced variations of that system players of modern JRPGs have been treated with.

Add to that a boring soundtrack, and you have a fairly mediocre game. This would have been a great game in 1989, but in 2007, it's simply not up to par.

if you're a fan of classic RPGs, especially if you're a fan of both the PC and the console varieties, Etrian Odyssey is a decent buy that will provide many hours of light entertainment, and it's definitely different than anything else you'll find on the DS today. Don't expect too much out of it, and Etrian Odyssey will amuse you.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/29/07