[Review] Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of Titan

Long, long ago, I got my 3DS and Etrian Odyssey IV as one of my first games. I had not played it since. I apparently decided to devote... all of today to it. Rather against my will. It's something of a time suck.

I mentioned before how the gameplay was layered and complex, and I was looking forward to playing more. I've now played about eight hours total, and am pleased to say that gameplay remains complex, interesting, and challenging without being overwhelming. My difficulty meter ranges from Dark Souls: Prepare to Die on one end to Kirby's Epic Yarn on the other. Dark Souls had me screaming at the screen about how unfair it was. Kirby's Epic Yarn, meanwhile, is a game where you don't, necessarily, ever have to kill any enemy at all, and can pretty much stroll through any level if you really want to. Etrian Odyssey not too many difficulty levels down from Dark Souls, if you want to get down to it. However, it prevents the "screaming at the screen" difficulty by breaking time into manageable chunks, since the game is bound to an hourly system, as well as being unable to easily recover TP without resting at an inn, which will obviously eat your day away.

Like what?

You have a hub town, Thrasis, where you have an inn, a shop, an explorer's guild where you set up your party, and a pub where you get your quests. Beyond that, the local ruler's court and the wharfs where you can set up communications for multi-player. That's it. That means that there are essentially no characters, and therefore no story. You are plopped down into a fairly difficult world and have no real reason to be there other than your overall directive: explore. So the mechanics of exploring better be pretty damn awesome, right? Thankfully, they are.

EXPLORATION

As an explorer, you main task is making your own maps. Because you're exploring, and no one's mapped this area before. Can I just get a "hell yeah!" for how refreshing that is? You have a blank grid on your bottom screen and numerous tools-- various symbols you can use, different colors, and annotations. This is one of the main time sucks, since you not only are walking through the dungeon, but you're manually mapping out every detail. If you don't, you might find yourself dead.

Nintendo is supposed to be coming out with screenshot
capability for Etrian. Hopefully. Until then, bad iPod pics!

As you're mapping the dungeon, there will be random battles, as well as FOEs. FOEs are visible, wandering monsters that you can see on your map-- one of the very few helpful things the game will give you. The FOEs might chase you for quite some time, or might have specific routes or patterns, depending on how aggressive they are. You can lose them by ducking through a hidden passage or a door, but you can also get caught in a corner, certain death on your left and a wall on your right, trying frantically to figure out what to do so you don't lose all of the maps you've made, the materials you've gathered, and the XP you've gained. This is where Ariadne Thread comes into play-- and you better damn well have at least one on you at all times, or you're screwed. Ariadne Thread will bring you back to Thrasis; Pole Stones will take you to the nearest Geomagnetic Pole (a kind of save spot/fast travel location); Silver Whistles will bring you to the last-used staircase. All three things cost gold, though.

I'm sure you've been in a game where you've accumulated so much gold and you have no idea what to buy, since treasure chests and monster loot will so handily give you whatever you need. Blacksmiths? Why would one ever need to go to one when adventuring can get you what you need? ETRIAN ODYSSEY IV IS NOT THAT GAME. Monsters do not drop gold, weapons, or armor. They drop materials-- legs, hides, etc-- to provide to the blacksmith so she can make you weapons or armor. Which costs additional money, though she does pay some for the materials. You can also sell any food you've gathered from the world map upon re-entering the town. You also need a spare chunk of change at the end of day to give the inn, and if any of your party members have died, you need to revive them at the inn as well, until your Medic learns Revive. Etrian Odyssey is also not a game where you should save everything. Instead, the rule is, "sell everything." Selling unlocks new items, and gives you desperately needed gold.

Mapping becomes its own reward. It's a puzzle, a maze. You need to learn where everything is so you can avoid the dangers, find the hidden areas, and make it back to town alive to collect any reward you've managed to earn. This isn't even getting into the World Map, where there are not only FOEs, but three different levels, boundaries, flying FOEs, tornadoes, material spawn points, other explorers, guarded dungeons....

PARTY BUILDING

I've played a lot of JRPGs. A lot. Just trust me. I've even gone into a soliloquy about the nitty gritty details about how to do it right and how to do it wrong. Never have a played a game that got so many things so right.

You begin the game and are directed to the Explorer's Guild to form your party. When you open the menu, you see the classes you can start with: Landsknecht, Fortress, Nightseeker, Dancer, Sniper, Runemaster, and Medic. This provides you with seven classes and a party-limit of five. Immediately, you have a few choices to make.

Landsknecht is a fairly balanced class, intended for damage. Fortress is heavily-geared to be a tank, and provide a safe place for other characters to hide behind: they have very high defense, and all skills are geared to protecting others. Nightseeker is quick and deadly, relying strongly on status ailments. Dancers are a support class that uses magic through dances that provide effects for 3-4 turns. The last three classes are ranged-- Snipers use bows to bind their opponents; Runemasters use runes to cause elemental damage; Medics heal HP and status ailments. You also have a front row and back row. Each row can fit up to three members of your party.

There are certain stereotypes in JRPGs. Dancers don't do anything useful is one of them. They're weak and frail and why do they even exist? Somehow, though, my Dancer, Mesmer, became one of my most useful party members.

I began the game with a Landsknecht, a Fortress, a Sniper, a Runemaster, and a Medic. This is my standard JRPG lineup. I was forced to switch it up pretty quick, though. Each character begins with three free skill points, and earns one more per level. After getting everyone situated, I still couldn't manage battle flow very well, and tried a couple new combinations before I ended up switching out my Sniper (which is always my name-character) to add a Dancer to the front-line. Yes, the front, not the back, where frail little dancers belong. Dancers actually provide a very good amount of damage, probably about equal the Landsknecht, and though they have fairly low defense, they also can provide numerous status-boosting abilities to the line they're in, which is why I put Mesmer in the front line. She can use a Regen Waltz to allow health to be recovered every turn for several turns, Attack Tango to boost attack, and Counter and Chase Sambas, which allow you to counter when hit or follow up attacks by allies respectively. In between dancing these, she can attack for a decent chunk of damage. She provides support for both my main attackers and my support classes, and stands as a nice bridge between them.

Fortress and Landsknecht are also nicely done. Fortress has numerous skills she can learn to up her defense, cause enemies to attack only her, and or raise the defense of the entire party. Landsknecht has various power boosting skills, but also power breaking skills-- she can shatter the offense of your opponent with her sword. Runemaster and Medic are more linear, skill-wise, with a caveat that TP (technical points, similar to magicka or magic points) has to be very closely managed. This incentivizes either developing some kind of physical skill or extending TP in some way.

You can gain a skill level every time your level is raised, and there are various skill trees that you can follow. You can also later subclass characters. For example, I can either subclass my Dancer with a combat-oriented class to make her combat skills keener, or I can supplement her skills with a Medic subclass and get rid of my Medic, replacing the Medic with another fighter. This, of course, would mean that my Dancer wouldn't often have much opportunity to show off her fighting skills. Replacing her with another fighter would also likely mean I would have to switch her to the back line instead of the front line, which could be problematic, since she deals a fair amount of the party's damage.

(Some initial thoughts are:
Fortress --> Medic
Dancer --> Nightseeker??
Landsknecht --> Imperial or Bushi
Runemaster --> Imperial
Nightseeker --> Arcanist  or vice versa)

These are the two main game mechanics: party building and exploration. This is quite enough to take up hours of your time, considering how well-done both elements are. The game is difficult, but very satisfying and has a lot of depth. The only downside that some might find with this game is the lack of story, which hasn't so far bothered me overmuch, since it means you can easily delve back into the game. The other potential downside is what I consider a plus: highly difficult, the game punishes as much as it rewards. With numerous resources to manage, complex parties and classes, stellar dungeon mapping, and exploration, this is definitely a must-have for the 3DS!