Etrian Odyssey 4 is a thing

[Henroid]

So while it's going to be nonsensical to link a YouTube video with zero english in it aside from class names, here:

For people who don't know, EO is a dungeon-crawling RPG series on the Nintendo DS that goes back to the oldschool RPG design of being brutal as fuck, and that's on top of the level-grinding nature of RPGs from that time. It may actually be appropriate to quote Idle Thumbs here: "It'll rape you through a hole."

So part 4 was announced as being a 3DS title when the 3DS itself was announced, but now there's actual things about the game! First off, it looks like the class choices are really condensed compared to even the first game, and the designs / types of characters portrayed are brought back a few steps from the sort of zany, "not take itself seriously" stuff from the previous games. Second biggest change is that the enemies are animated in this one. Third change: FOE clouds are gone, with actual enemies on your dungeon-crawling screen. Last thing I noticed from that video above is that apparently in battles there is a front row / back row system that applies to the enemies you're up against.

If you don't mind grindy RPGs, I really do recommend this series. But I have to say, start with the first game. Because if you play the games out of order at the moment (especially if you start with part 3), the previous games will seem like broken messes due to all the fixing that has gone on throughout. Not broken in the way of being unplayable, I just mean streamlining things.

Edit - By the way the games have, what I find to be, incredible soundtracks. Like

from EO3. And

(which is a beaut!). Edited March 14, 2012 by Henroid

[Thyroid]

  Henroid said:

Like

from EO3.

That is a good tune.

The games look interesting, I guess. It's too bad they're DS-only, since I won't be owning a DS any time soon.

[TheLastBaron]

I played and really liked the first one, haven't played the second one yet, and didn't realize that there was also even a third one.

[Henroid]

  TheLastBaron said:

I played and really liked the first one, haven't played the second one yet, and didn't realize that there was also even a third one.

The second one is more or less version 2.0 of the first game - yes I know this sounds silly to say, but hear me out.

It's the same classes, with the three new ones obviously, and all their skills persist. But they're tuned up and refined to be more balanced, stronger in some areas, and weaker (and thus less overpowered) in others. So when I say 2.0, it's like in the context of an MMO or whatever.

That's probably a bad way to describe it. Bottom line is, you'll like part two. Part three will kinda change your view on a lot of shit though. They perfected the art of synergies between classes in part 3, which kinda has two layers happening with that because you can subclass after a certain point.

[Roderick]

I know people who love this. For my tastes, EO is a little too grindy and too much about random battles, but conceptually I can only give this game a big thumbs up for its balls-out hardcoreness and willingness to alienate a big chunk of audience just to super please another.

[dibs]

I have EO3. It's sooo hard:( I think I'm on floor 11 or something. I can't get halfway to the next door. i have to go up and down a lot.

[Henroid]

  dibs said:

I have EO3. It's sooo hard:( I think I'm on floor 11 or something. I can't get halfway to the next door. i have to go up and down a lot.

You're in the fiery (3rd) stratum right? I always thought of it as being a bit easier than the 2nd stratum.

[dibs]

I'll have to check when i get home. i do enjoy the game, but i have to leave it be for long stretches where i play less nasty games!

[Boris Stoke]

I'm sold on EO4. I loved the first game, but never beat it before 2 came out and then before I knew it there was a 3! I'll gladly skip those to get to 4. A lot of the improvements sound great.

[Henroid]

Yeah for as much as I love this series, I haven't beaten any of the games. I got to the last bosses of parts 1 and 3 (well, "last bosses" for the narrative; in all the games there's post-story content). Part 2 I got to the third stratum, which was snow-filled, but I fell away from it. I really need to pick it back up.

[Henroid]

First among some new info I was reading is the Japanese site putting up the first random-battle music, which obviously is now on YouTube.

Now that I've gotten myself all pumped up, changes I just read in this game are as follows:

- You don't have to name a character before picking their class and portrait now. Minor annoyance, that was.

- Items in the shop are categorized by type, rather than just a single long list grouped by type.

- Mineral gathering is no longer have-skill-only in the dungeon, but you can still increase how much you can gather via skills. Nice middleground.

- The ship sequence in EO3 is now an air-ship and doesn't have a limited number of moves. Also, resource points refresh once a day.

- The monster book is now accessible in-battle. Though you still need to kill things before you can know their information.

[ItsMeYourFriend]

i ended up trying the demo for this game on a whim. I haven't played any of the previous versions, but the next day after downloading it i ended up buying the game from the eshop. i can't believe how enjoyable this game is! 

 

it's able to evoke this great sense of exploration and discovery. The whole cartography aspect of the game is fantastic and makes you feel like you're the first adventurers to go through an area.

The regular enemies are also really really interesting and have unique behaviors besides the typical weakness/resist and those are communicated subtly, sometimes by very small visual changes. For example, there's a plant enemy in the second land that starts off as a flower bud and frequently tries to put a member of your party to sleep. After it's hit by any attack, the bud blooms and it's then able to do a party-wide sleep spell. It's fairly harmless on it's own, but if you run into one of those guys and another enemy that hits hard you can easily be helpless. 

 

And then there's the FOE enemies that appear on your map and you need to avoid until you get much stronger. They make the world feel dangerous and that you can't just explore everything immediately. 

 

there's so many other great elements to this game, it's so good!!! 

[Sno]

I've been playing this too, I had posted some thoughts in the 3DS thread.

I had never played an Etrian Odyssey game before either, and hadn't played a game like it in a very, very long time, but was really surprised how much i ended up enjoying it.

[tberton]

I'm in the second land right now and loving this game, although I already knew I would since I'm a big EO fan. I'm really excited to be able to get back into it once I'm done with school.

[ItsMeYourFriend]

yeah sno, i don't really quite get the "it's a grind" complaint that i've seen online in several places either. I feel like the entire point of the game is to enjoy the process of discovery and they applied that all over the game (discovering new areas in the overhead map, discovering the layouts of caves/labyrinths, discovering the ways in which enemies fight or how FOEs aggro or react, discovering how new weapons are made, there are more as well!). I think that's even one of the reasons the story has been reduced to something simple and acceptable, so the focus can be more on discovery and exploration of the game and what it's systems allow. If you don't enjoy those aspects then the game isn't a grind, it's just not an experience you enjoy. 

 

I know my experience is different than others because i haven't played any of the other etrian odyssey games, but it feels so fresh and well thought out. 

[ItsMeYourFriend]

(also the music is really good and i love the vibrant, lush art design in this game. those things make me like the game that much more)

[tberton]

Mr. SEX, I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

That's a very odd sentence to type.

[lumberbaron]

I love the feeling of exploration and map making are wonderful and I really enjoy the fact that I feel ownership of it.  I went online because I got stuck and noticed that they used different notations then I did and it felt weird. The game does a ton of stuff that I think make this kind of game really accessible as opposed to the others; although the first time that I hit a wall in my play it basically resulted in me putting the game down (Monster Hunter coming out didn't help).