Etrian Odyssey’s evolution may have reached uber-game levels.
Having just recently completed Etrian Odyssey III, I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to dive right back into another massive adventure. I mean, heck, I was a little worn out from all of the grinding I had been doing and wasn’t so sure I wanted to get into that again. Well, somehow I got sucked back into this mess and am I ever grateful. Atlus has taken the fourth Etrian Odyssey game through a monstrous evolutionary process to create the best balanced, most addictive, strategically engaging dungeon crawler around.
It’s all that and a bag of chips, home skillet.
Get ready to ride a time machine back to the ‘90s. A time when we thought the Internet was something completely different than the cesspool we know today; a time when JNCOs and flannel were acceptable clothing choices; a time when we raised the roof and exclaimed everything was “the bomb, yo!”; a time when Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers was intended to be released in America. For whatever reason, Sony rejected the title from release on the PlayStation and in Japan it remained. Until now, that is, when Atlus finally dusted it off and brought it into the future on the 3DS. The fact of the matter is that if Soul Hackers would’ve been released when intended, it would’ve been better than tight, it would’ve been straight phat, dawg.
And sometimes it actually makes it better
I'm kicking off a new segment where I talk about game music, and I wanted to do something special to introduce it. There's a lot of information in the YouTube description you might find interesting about the video itself, but I don't see any value in repeating that a second time here. Instead, I'll give you a little behind the scenes story about how I came up with this.
A glimpse at the importance of certain gameplay elements in Soul Hackers.
Available now for the Nintendo 3DS.
A great party never just happens.
If there’s one thing the Etrian Odyssey series requires, it’s time. Even though the games eschew the game clocks we’ve become accustomed to, most people who play through to the end (and beyond) estimate that they spend more than a hundred hours exploring the unforgiving dungeons. If you plow into a game of this scope with only the most basic of parties and expect to stay engaged for that amount of time, you’ll likely give up and walk away. Creating a party with unique tactics and strategies is pivotal to be successful and to have fun with these games since the story is minimal to the point of being a secondary concern.
A quick look at the Runemaster's abilities.
A quick look at the Sniper's abilities.