Etrian Odyssey is here! Another great classic Atlus RPG.

I had played this when it originally came out on the DS. At this time, Atlus was also pumping out gems for the handheld left and right. Etrian Odyssey was probably one of the most cherished among handheld RPG fans at the time. It made great use of the DS touch screen, and also offered one hell of a challenge in its combat. In fact, it might have been a bit too much of a challenge for some people. Luckily Atlus decided to open up the gameplay a bit on this version by adding in 2 extra difficulty modes, where the easiest is called Picnic, and the hardest difficulty is essentially the difficulty that was in the original version of this game. So if you had trouble the first time around, this might be the ideal time to grab this and give it another go.

For newcomers, Etrian Odyssey is a first person grid based dungeon crawl RPG where you build a party of different characters from different classes and explore various locations, and of course get into battles. The battle system is your traditional turn based combat system, so its not too difficult to grasp.

One of the really cool features of Etrian Odyssey is its map system. In a lot of RPGs you uncover the maps by just exploring, and in some they are outright given to you. In Etrian Odyssey you do the entire map yourself. You lay down the paths you've explored, make walls, and more such as placing markers for various areas of importance you might need to come back to, and other objects of interest. It makes things a lot easier when navigating and puts you in control. The easy part is not really just the fact that you have a map, but how you control making the map. You can do it simple or get wildly creative with how you place the markers. It really goes back to the old days where you literally had a pen and pad laid out to make your own maps. And don't worry about the transition from touch screen to not having one. Having tried out the first area of the game as of writing this up, the controls seem excellent and making the map is a breeze. Also if this sounds like a bit much, they do have map building assistance in the options with the automap feature.

Anyway, the game is playing fine without any issues so far, and it looks like a great update too. The environments look fantastic, portraits, enemies and text look super clean too.

Hope to see Atlus bring us some more of their interesting RPGs in the future. Hows about some Dark Spire next time?!

Etrian Odyssey is here! Another great classic Atlus RPG. I had played this when it originally came out on the DS. At this time, Atlus was also pumping out gems for the handheld left and right. Etrian Odyssey was probably one of the most cherished among handheld RPG fans at the time. It made great use of the DS touch screen, and also offered one hell of a challenge in its combat. In fact, it might have been a bit too much of a challenge for some people. Luckily Atlus decided to open up the gameplay a bit on this version by adding in 2 extra difficulty modes, where the easiest is called Picnic, and the hardest difficulty is essentially the difficulty that was in the original version of this game. So if you had trouble the first time around, this might be the ideal time to grab this and give it another go. For newcomers, Etrian Odyssey is a first person grid based dungeon crawl RPG where you build a party of different characters from different classes and explore various locations, and of course get into battles. The battle system is your traditional turn based combat system, so its not too difficult to grasp. One of the really cool features of Etrian Odyssey is its map system. In a lot of RPGs you uncover the maps by just exploring, and in some they are outright given to you. In Etrian Odyssey you do the entire map yourself. You lay down the paths you've explored, make walls, and more such as placing markers for various areas of importance you might need to come back to, and other objects of interest. It makes things a lot easier when navigating and puts you in control. The easy part is not really just the fact that you have a map, but how you control making the map. You can do it simple or get wildly creative with how you place the markers. It really goes back to the old days where you literally had a pen and pad laid out to make your own maps. And don't worry about the transition from touch screen to not having one. Having tried out the first area of the game as of writing this up, the controls seem excellent and making the map is a breeze. Also if this sounds like a bit much, they do have map building assistance in the options with the automap feature. Anyway, the game is playing fine without any issues so far, and it looks like a great update too. The environments look fantastic, portraits, enemies and text look super clean too. Hope to see Atlus bring us some more of their interesting RPGs in the future. Hows about some Dark Spire next time?!