Dungeon-crawling and map-making is back with Atlus' stateside release of Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard for the Nintendo DS. RPGamers might find a lot of the gameplay familiar from the original title, but luckily it seems that anything that has been changed has been changed for the better. But first a little backstory for those unfamiliar with the games.
Etrian Odyssey is an Atlus-developed dungeon crawler series aimed at the more hardcore of RPG fans with wide customization and unforgiving difficulty. The original title had a pretty quiet release in North America, yet sold very well considering the small number of copies shipped. The series makes full use of the Nintendo DS capabilities. The top screen tends to handle all the action while the bottom screen contains the user-created maps. This is where the series is truly unique as it allows the player to draw their own maps of the game's in-depth labyrinth using the stylus and the provided in-game drawing tools. The game also uses simple presentation to draw focus to their old-school gameplay mechanics.
The sequel, specifically, continues these trends. Players still draw their own map of the massive labyrinth that the game is based off of, but now there are more tools with which to feed the aspiring cartographer's desire for detail. Players still choose from a large number of classes to form a team to tackle the looming depths of the maze, but now there are three more classes to choose from. Players are still able to go into town to sell their loot for better weapons and armor, except now changes to character stats are shown conveniently on the bottom screen while browsing the wares. Players are still able to fully explore the labyrinth, but now they can strafe left and right to make navigating that much easier. See a trend? Etrian Odyssey II tries to improve upon every gameplay element without sacrificing what made the original so addicting.
Back in 2007, Atlus decided to use the Nintendo DS to do something ambitious. It brought back the days of first-person RPGs with original party members you had to customize and dungeons you needed to map. Thanks to the handheld's design, the bottom screen allowed people to practice cartography as they played. Since then, 10 games have been released, each bringing something new to adventurers.
Atlus will re-release the first three titles in the Etrian Odyssey role-playing dungeon crawler series on the Nintendo DS, according to an ad posted on the NeoGAF forums.
Forum user Dwayne received the email ad from Canadian retailer Video Games Plus. Buyers will be able to pre-order Etrian Odyssey, Etrian Odyssey 2: Heroes of Lagaard and Etrian Odyssey 3: The Drowned City for $29.99 each or create a custom Etrian Oydssey DS Trilogy pre-order bundle. Those who pre-order the bundle will receive all three games at a $15 discount.
Stoked for this! I don't have the second or third games, so I plan to get those!
WhenSpamAttacks writes; "Starting off, has everyone placed their pre-orders for Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City? I’ve placed mine with Amazon so hopefully that means I am getting the art book with it, I better, damn it. My excitement is beyond measurable about the announcement of the North American release when it was announced. I love the Etrian Odyssey series as it has everything I love about RPG’s."
I remember putting in a good 5-10 hours grinding in The Legend of Dragoon, one of my first RPGs and I loved it, it was a fun game. Same can't be said with RPGs like Demon's Souls. Great game, but the constant grinding to get to certain places just killed it for me. A game like Fallout 3 however is completely different. You have a heavily focus shooter game with RPG elements and in the end I was fully leveled at about 65 hours in. Not once did I have to 'grind', I simply played the game.
That's how I feel most games should be, especially RPGs. I shouldn't have to do every sidequest and 5+ hours of grinding to beat the final boss...
For me grinding should have a few things:
-a good reward system, having the feeling the next level is just around the corner. Bad balancing can kill games like what happened with Last Remnant.
-power leveling areas, it's fun to find that secret spot in the world map which make you a lot more powerful than your expected to be, and relax for a bit during parts of the game. I found a great spot with a crab in Lost Odyssey, it was very powerful but after sneaking some wins it becomes possible to fight it steadily, I stayed like this for 2 days, and I didn’t need to power level until close to the end of the game when the ancient ruins were accessible.
-fun battle system, tales of Vesparia had the most fun battles for me, it was fun to string multiple encounters in one battle and getting critical attacks for extra exp,, this including the other 2 things I mentioned kept me playing the game for 100+ hours.
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Especially for RPGs with complex / advanced battle system.
I could do this in Final Fantasy XIII.
I love level grinding. I hate it when reviewers talk about how jrpg's are stuck in their ways and wrpg's are how it should be done. Some of us enjoy level grinding and having to save the princess/overthrow the empire in the majority of the games we play. There's nothing wrong with it!