EO games all share the same fundamentals, more or less (much of which is detailed in the OP, read it!). The first one you play will seem like the hardest (probably) because you will be learning how the series works, how the flow of battles goes, how various skills work, etc. However, once you've learned how to play an Etrian Odyssey game, you will have a much easier time playing more of them.
Basically they're hard if you don't know what you're doing and they're easy if you do know what you're doing and learning what to do is half the fun. EO doesn't hold your hand very much, it expects you to want to play the game for the game's sake.
I think their reputation for being very difficult is exaggerated by people who are bad at or dislike the games whining about them. They're not
short games, though. So if you're defining "hard" as "take a long time to finish" then yeah these are not little 20 hour games you can just rush through.
And like tuffy mentioned, there are several ways to break each game over your knee with the right kind of party planning and setup. That's also a lot of fun.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
It probably means less new people wandering by, which is bad, but it means we're official in the community side now, instead of a dead thread, which is good.
