RPGFan:
Etrian Mystery Dungeon is a combination that sounds crazy but just might work. The Etrian Odyssey games are hardcore first-person dungeon crawlers that recall the days of games like Wizardry or even Phantasy Star, in which we went through reams upon reams of graph paper mapping out labyrinthine dungeons with fixed layouts. The Mystery Dungeon games are "Roguelike" games with third-person randomly generated dungeons, such as the Shiren the Wanderer and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series. Etrian Mystery Dungeon wants to show that the combination of Wizardry and Rogue can work, but a slew of iffy design choices prevent this promising game from reaching its full potential.
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.
With Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon out on the Nintendo 3DS last year and Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate gracing Vitas two weeks ago, you may have developed a taste for tough-as-nails dungeon-crawlers. Roguelikes are on the rise. But then, when it comes to these Spike Chunsoft joints, they always have been.
Charlotte Buckingham writes:
"Etrian Odyssey is the latest series to receive the Mystery Dungeon treatment via Spike Chunsoft. How well did the two mesh together?"
