Etrian Odyssey

"Good, but SO UNGODLY TEDIOUS."

The United States doesn't see many difficult Japanese RPGs, but thanks to the Japanese smash hit Etrian Odyssey being localized to the States, completionist psychos as well as RPG fans simply looking for a challenge will both be able to sate their appetite. Unfortunately, though EO remains fun for a very long while, the second half of the game grows so long and tedious that nearly the entire game gets ruined.

The story of Etrian Odyssey is pretty much useless, but the game makes a conscious effort to be nearly entirely gameplay-driven. The entire story revolves around a lone town entitled Etria, which lies on top of a giant labyrinth that is a magnet to glory-seeking adventurers. Most if not all of the adventurers die due to how dangerous the dungeon is, and to date no one has ever reached the bottom. You, of course, will be the first to do so. Eventually.

There aren't any characters in the game outside of the townspeople, and the only story at all is the moral dilemma brought up by exploring the labyrinth. If discovering all the secrets of the dungeon meant the knowing fiscal end of the town, then would going through with such an act morally bankrupt or no?

The story isn't deep, but the bulk of the game revolves around some very solid gameplay anyway. You choose a few job classes at the beginning, each of which with their own skill tree, and then you're off on your way into the big bad labyrinth. The labyrinth itself is a giant dungeon modeled after a forest, with human-sized monsters and bugs that kill most intruders on sight. Many of the normal monsters, especially early in the game, are strong enough to pose a real threat in fights. On top of random encounters, several super-monsters called FOEs walk around on the map along with you. They can typically be far stronger than the party, and require real strategy to kill. And all this comes on the heel of the game's bosses and optional bosses, which can be pure hell to an unprepared party that isn't properly built.

The game's fights can be very difficult, and a bulk of the game's fun comes from figuring out how to kill everything. The problem with this is that some of the fights are so ridiculous that the deepness of the job system ends up being a facade. Many of the abilities within jobs are completely useless, and others have descriptions that are either vague or flat-out wrong. Without outside help, many skill builds will end up being wrong, and you'll have to either retire or rest party members and go through useless level grinding to build your party properly. Since no enemies exist that give a very high amount of experience points, this renders character building very, very tedious if done incorrectly the first time --- and it will be, unless one uses a guide the first time they play through the game.

The difficulty of fighting also creates another problem, which is that unless you build an infinite survival party, there will be a ton of retreating back to health fountains or to town to heal. Etrian Odyssey being a dungeon crawler first and foremost gives it a very bad pace, and the constant healing and recovery only serves to make the pace worse.

On top of the traditional JRPG system of leveling and character building, the other bulk of Etrian Odyssey comes from exploration and mapping of the labyrinth. This facet of the game does an excellent job using the various features of the DS, and is ultimately the most fun part of the game. As you go through the game, you'll realize that the dungeon you're crawling through is huge beyond words. To make sense of it all, you're given various tools on the touch screen to map your way, including wall lines, symbols that cover nearly every new challenge you come across, memos to make notes along the way, and so forth. It's very fun to do, and gives a true feeling of exploration and discovery as you travel through the far-too-large 30 floor dungeon that makes up the game. The only flaws with the map system are that there is a set symbol limit per floor (which nearly ruins the already ridiculous sixth and final stratum of the labyrinth), and that there is no symbol for damage tiles --- which is fairly ridiculous, given the high number of damage steps as you get deeper into the dungeon.

Graphically, EO could have done far better than it did. The entire game takes place from a first person point of view, which the world showing through the top screen of the DS and the map/options on the bottom. This is a fairly good touch, but the game designers took the lazy approach with battles and slapped it with the Dragon Warrior brush. You see enemies in the middle of the screen, your characters with their HP/TP at the bottom, and text detailing the entire fight as it progresses up top. You'll see no character models, and no real action in battle outside of a few cheap slashes and spell effects. This was old 20 years ago, yet we're still seeing it in modern games? The music doesn't come across much better than graphics, though at least you'll get a few good tracks here and there to take your mind off the overall subpar quality of the work.

Etrian Odyssey is a very fun game that's worth playing for any RPG nut, and it has a certain niche appeal thanks to its being an Atlus title. But in typical Atlus fashion, random flaws and oversights prevent the game from being truly elite. The game is FAR too long, unforgiving and tedious, especially if you get stuck having to rebuild characters for the optional bosses. The appeal of the labyrinth being huge wears off by the 20th floor or so, and by the time you reach the end, playing the game feels more like a chore than fun. If you want to play this to the fullest, be prepared to invest 100 hours of time, if not more.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/08

Game Release: Etrian Odyssey (US, 05/15/07)