Why I Love: Etrian Odyssey

As is the case every year, my wife and I made the trek down south to spend a week or so with her family for Thanksgiving. Also as is the case every year, I brought along a game or two to keep me occupied. This time of year usually syncs up perfectly with the release of an interesting portable game, and this year was no different: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth was set to release that week and with it being a mash up of two of my favorite games - modern Persona and Etrian Odyssey - I figured it'd be a great way to fill any down time.

In anticipation of this new game, I decided to fire up the latest Etrian Odyssey (Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan) to get back into the swing of the formula. I greatly enjoyed playing through it when it originally released and I thought it would be fun to take another crack at it with a different party.

Turns out, it was so much fun that I just played EO4 the whole vacation! I was really surprised at how much the game gripped me, especially since I've played through it once before (clearing everything short of the post-game dungeon.)

Having rediscovered my love of Etrian Odyssey, I wanted to take a look at what makes the series so appealing and endearing to me. Join me after the break for those musings.



I've been around since the beginning of Etrian Odyssey - I remember the first one being released in the now-hoary days of the original DS - but I didn't jump into the series until the second game and I didn't really start to love the series until the third entry. Several things caught my attention when I first heard about this series:

 - The use of second DS screen for manual mapping of the dungeon is a very cool facet of the game. It's one of the most interesting, practical uses I've seen for the DS' touch screen, and it ends up having a nice psychological payoff as well - it's very satisfying to look down and see that you've scoured every corner of the current floor you're on (at least as far as you can tell.) Each block mapped is won with blood and sweat, and having a completed map of the labyrinth is in some ways it's own reward.

 - It scratches a very specific "old school" gaming itch. First person, RPG, create-your-own-party-from-templates, dungeon delving games were very rare at the time (and still aren't super common now,) so if you're interested in playing a game like that Etrian Odyssey is one of the only ways you can do so.

 - They're very challenging games that require a fair amount of dedication and thinking to get through. The labyrinth floors become more and more complex the deeper you go, the enemies become more dangerous and tricky, and the game constantly introduces new FOEs (large, powerful monsters that are visible on your map and often move around the dungeon) that keep you on your toes. These kinds of games can be very frustrating when done poorly, but when they're also extremely satisfying experiences when everything clicks.

Unfortunately, at least for me, the series didn't really click until the third entry. There are a few reasons for that:

 - The first two games are damn difficult. Difficulty I'm fine with; it's actually one of the reasons I sought out the series in the first place! But the first games are almost antagonistically difficult, as if the developer is daring you to have the guts to face the rest of the game.

It's very easy in these first two games to die in one of the first encounters of the game if you draw the wrong random encounter, and don't react appropriately. These early losses teach you valuable skills that you'll use often - how to recognize when you're in over your head and how to react appropriately (run) - but they're also harsh lessons.

 - The first two games also use relatively obscure skill systems for character progression. The system itself isn't obscure - it's the same old "spend points on skills" system since the olden days of RPGs - but the information damn sure is. Abilities generally describe what they do, but you're never given hard and fast numbers or concrete information.

This skill says it raises my defense, but is that by a hard number bonus, or a percent bonus? This skill gets better the more points I put into it, but how much better is each point worth? Am I hitting diminishing returns? Is this skill straight up terrible? It's easy to feel like you're just stabbing in the dark when it comes to allocating skill points, which doesn't help when...

 - The first two games also aren't very forgiving if you want to respec your characters. The option exists, but it drains 10 levels from the character in exchange for allowing them to reallocate their skill points. That penalty would be significant in any game, but experience and levels come at a measured pace in Etrian Odyssey, so losing 10 levels hurts a lot. You can grind those levels back up, but ultimately you're faced with the hard decision of living with a skill loadout you don't like or spending valuable time replacing lost levels.

Those factors combined to make for a game that could be very interesting and fun, but had a steep price of entry. The initial going is very tough, and if you want to feel like you're building your characters effectively, you're probably best off looking for outside information (or trusting your gut and hoping.) I passed on the initial Etrian Odyssey entirely and didn't get very far into the second game before throwing in the towel.

The third entry makes some key changes that helped me stick with it long enough to see the end of the main dungeon:

 - The skill system gets a huge kick in the pants with the introduction of subjobs. Now each character can access two completely different skill sets. This allows for tons of variety and interesting builds, but much more importantly it also allows you to more easily tailor a team to your liking. Five character slots seems like a lot, but the game also presents you with a wide variety of challenges so it's fantastic to have more flexibility in how you approach those challenges. It also takes a bit of the sting out of feeling like you may have picked a "bad" class or ability; the right subjob and skills can turn almost any character into a useful member of the team.

 - The classes themselves are interesting and in many cases experimental. The first two Etrian Odyssey games give you a fairly expected set of classes to pick from - armored fighter, mage, healer, etc. Starting with EO3 the series fulfills the same archetypes but it does so using much more flamboyant class ideas. It also feels like the designers were much more comfortable with the core gameplay by the time they hit the third game, because many of the new classes introduce interesting new mechanics and/or ways to accomplish traditional tasks. The net result is a set of classes that is very interesting and exciting to experiment with. Made easier by the fact that...

 - The third game reduces the rest penalty from a horrendous 10 level deduction to a more reasonable 5 levels. It's still a solid hit to a character's development, but it's a more reasonable gap to make up (especially considering other factors I'll get to) and resting also resets your subjob so it can be more valuable if you really feel like you need it.

 - The addition of the sea as another area to explore (in addition to delving into the labyrinth) is a series changing one, and a huge improvement in many areas. At it's most basic level, the sea maps give you something to do that's a break from exploring the labyrinth. If you're sick of wherever you currently are in the labyrinth, just hop out and try to map out more of the sea! Progress is naturally gated via descending into lower strata (which usually unlocks items you need to range out further on the sea,) but you can usually count on the sea to give you a nice break from dungeon diving if you want it.

More importantly, the sea provides valuable bounty by being an alternate source of cash (via fishing) items, and experience (via sea quests.) Having these secondary sources of income takes pressure off of earning everything in the labyrinth, and the lower risk nature of sea exploration makes it easier to use as a regrouping mechanism if you find yourself short on funds. The sea quests are also a great way to earn easy experience quickly, which helps offset the resting penalty, which in turn makes it easier to experiment with character skills on your own (without feeling significantly set back if you don't like your decisions.)

The net result (fisherman joke! I like to play to my strong demographics) is that Etrian Odyssey III feels more forgiving and accessible without sacrificing it's difficulty or edge. The core experience of the game - delving ever further into the labyrinth - is still dangerous and difficult, but the addition of a secondary source of adventure and gain does a lot to make the experience more bearable and pleasant.

If Etrian Odyssey III marked a strong step forward for the series, then Etrian Odyssey IV represents refining those improvements into the best iteration in the series yet.

Highlights include:

 - A much more readable and somewhat more informative skill screen. The information about each skill is still vague, but at least now you can very clearly identify skill tree progression, and the before and after effects of spending each skill point. It's also worth mentioning that, after three games worth of iterating, the developers have managed to create skill trees that are largely full of interesting choices and are focused on what makes each class interesting. No longer do you need to have a "farm team" (which in EO3 could be a literal team of Farmers) whose only purpose was to max out gathering skills!

 - The resting penalty has been reduced from the tolerable-but-painful 5 levels down to a very-bearable-but-not-abuseable 2 levels.

 - The concept of an overworld that you can explore in addition to the labyrinth has been greatly expanded on: the game spans several different major land areas that you fly around in your airship. These areas contain many useful resources in the form of food (which can be cooked for bonuses or sold for money) and it also allows for more dungeons than just the "main" labyrinth.

These side dungeons are always relatively small - one floor as opposed to a strata of three floors (or five in the previous games - but that compactness allows for them to serve a single purpose. Each dungeon usually presents the player with a specific challenge that they need to figure out, a new FOE to deal with, and some nice treasures to pick up. They're great side ways to build up your party, and they feel very well incorporated into the game.

 - This game also introduces it's "bonus" classes in a way that's probably my favorite of all the games. In previous Etrian Odyssey games, bonus classes don't usually open up until later in the game, or in some cases until after the game is completed. EOIV feeds you the three extra classes in a steady drip throughout the game, so you get the chance to get some use out of them earlier than others in the series.

Moreover, the developers seem to have clued into the fact that giving you a level 1 character when you're partway through the game isn't particularly helpful, so they give you a couple of items that you can use to automatically level any new character up to a certain level. These items are fixed in terms of what level they bring you to and you only get a couple of them, but they're a tremendous boon for anyone that wants to incorporate one of the new classes into their party (or one of the original classes, if you've been wanting to roll one of those up.)

The biggest thing about all of those changes is that they improve the accessibility of the game. This is a bit of a double edged sword - some players were inevitably drawn to the series for it's original "hardcore old school" difficulty - but overall I love how the series has grown. It hasn't gotten any easier (I still party wipe all the time) but it feels more entertaining to play because the difficulty is less about managing quality of life issues and more about overcoming in-game challenges.

For all those reasons, I love Etrian Odyssey, IV most of all. I'm really enjoying my second play through of the game, and I'm hoping to take this group all the way through to the end of the bonus dungeon (though that might take awhile as the endgame is kind of grindy.)

After that, I have Persona Q to look forward to, which should scratch a similar gaming itch but in an interesting new way. And by the time I've finished that I'm hoping that the recently announced Etrian Odyssey V will either be out in the U.S. or at least we'll be close to it.

I hope Atlus can keep these games coming for a long time. I needs my dungeon fix.