Etrian Odyssey HD Reviews

The game that encourages you to make characters that you like and beats you across the head that they're not good people for participating in the exploration. A game I'll likely never finish, though a shame for what I've been spoiled to be one of the best stories, but a great way to get into an underrated series.

This is my second time finishing this (first time being the DS version and also dabbling in the untold version), but i am reminded why i like this style of Dungeon Crawler. Unlike Wizardry-like games that is hard wired into RNG everything (from equipment drops, to stat increases, with even chances at your map being destroyed and perma death), the mechanics of the EO games is more absolute (stats are clearly displayed, boosts are shown, there is no hidden mechanics, gear is unlocked in the shop through selling monster drops monster drops, and the classes are simple to understand). All in all it's quite new player friendly despite being very hard in the beginning and towards the end of the game, going into the post game. All you have to do is just explore and make your way down, very simple but fun concept. The map controls moving over to pc takes a little getting used to but they somehow made drawing on the map relatively painless either through the right stick on your controller + triggers to select things, or preferably just simply using the touch screen on the steam deck or mouse to draw since they worked in kb and mouse controls. Exploration and drawing out maps just becomes fun to do (6th stratum not withstanding since that's the obligatory bullshit map selection that every dungeon crawler has at least one of). Combat-wise.... since its the first game you can maybe tell the balance a little wonky and they they did not quite get it right until the 3rd game. This one heavily relies on defensive buffs to get through the latter half in the game to the point where its near impossible to fight the super bosses without a tank (though possible with some timing and rng jank) and completely impossible to beat the 6th sanctum boss. Progression-wise there is some growing pains to start which is as expected when you are going into it with a lvl 1 party and no real skills to your unit's name. Without going through spoilers, the difficulty of the first boss is actually quite interesting since you have to kill it fast or else get swarmed. Which is a mechanic you don't see much in other EOs until much later sanctums. After that one part though you'll find that progression becomes much easier as you start to unlock more hard hitting skills, and just going into encounters blind becomes easier from the 2nd sanctum going forward, to the point where you can just fight the FOEs as you come across them. Difficulty is as you'd expect from a dungeon crawler though a QoL feature added, was the ability change the difficulty whenever you want outside of the dungeon between: - Expert - The OG EO1 difficulty. I wouldn't call this difficulty fun since it forces you to over-grind and be more party specific to survive, but if you want the OG experience (or just to beat your head at the wall to get the final achievement) then have at er. - Basic - It's hard but not overly so. Highly recommend playing it on this setting since it gives you the feel of the OG EO1, but won't punish you if you aren't running a Medic/Tank through most of the game. - Picnic - Makes everything die in a couple of hits. I don't recommend progressing on this difficulty since imo it takes away the fun of the game. It is excellent however when you need to level up units since you get an exp boost, or for runs through the dungeon with a collection squad that you no longer need to keep pace with your main team to not die in the later stratum. All in all, play how you want and have fun with it, i know i did.