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[Sentenza]

I tried Etrian Odyssey for few hours since it was included in the most recent Humble Bundle.

I can't honestly say I'm getting a good first impression. So far it's one of the dullest, most repetitive and tedious titles in the genre I've ever spent some time with and almost every part of its design (the amount of casual encounter, the way progression scales in the early game, "draw your own map", "can't save in the dungeon", "reloading means starting from your main hub", etc, etc.) seems to be purposefully aimed at boring the player out of his mind.

At cost of sounding casually racist, my first impression so far was something amount the line of "Yeah, this is the kind of dungeon crawler you can appreciate only if you played just on Nintendo consoles all your life and you lack a better reference point".

That said, I'm not giving up on it YET, but I swear I'm THIS close to uninstall it and forget about it.

 

[Plague Doctor]

This is legit my favorite topic on this forum. Always excited to see new posts. None of this is sarcasm. I know, wild for me.

Anyways, enough of the glaizing.

I posted this in the NextFest thread but this is something worth keeping an eye on.

The demo was decent and the dev seems like they are ambitious for feedback and refining the concept

 

[ReyBrujo]

I tried Etrian Odyssey for few hours since it was included in the most recent Humble Bundle.

I can't honestly say I'm getting a good first impression. So far it's one of the dullest, most repetitive and tedious titles in the genre I've ever spent some time with and almost every part of its design (the amount of casual encounter, the way progression scales in the early game, "draw your own map", "can't save in the dungeon", "reloading means starting from your main hub", etc, etc.) seems to be purposefully aimed at boring the player out of his mind.

At cost of sounding casually racist, my first impression so far was something amount the line of "Yeah, this is the kind of dungeon crawler you can appreciate only if you played just on Nintendo consoles all your life and you lack a better reference point".

That said, I'm not giving up on it YET, but I swear I'm THIS close to uninstall it and forget about it.

I finished Etrian Odyssey 1 on Switch earlier this year (and currently playing 2) and compared to my original session on DS, it's not as charming because the game is like ~15 years old by now and some things (like the amount of random encounters, the midi music, the drawing) didn't age correctly. Drawing on the DS was much funnier, plus back then I would buy one game maybe every 4 or 5 months so I wouldn't have a +200 game backlog as nowadays when I want to finish them and continue with the next one. I don't mind not being able to save in the dungeon, that's still standard, rarely you are able to save anywhere (Legends of Amberland is the only one I remember right now you can save anywhere). Everyone says 3 is the best with the best soundtrack, unfortunately it was released after I stopped playing on DS so I never bought it.

I agree that it can become repetitive quickly. To continue with my experience, I played Labyrinth of Galleria and then went with Etrian HD 1 and it was like a huge downgrade, especially in the music and random encounters (the other doesn't have random encounters). But I loved both games back in the day and even though I completely missed the 3DS era I bought myself a few 3DS and now buying the 3DS Etrians to play them for the first time. Back in 2007-2008 Nintendo has had a huge amount of dungeon crawlers btw, I still got Arcana, Wizardry V, Might and Magic 3, Eye of the Beholder and Drakkhen for SNES plus there were many others that I couldn't get like Dungeon Masters. And in this playthrough I had my party wiped 4 times before I found the stairs to the second floor, I was kind of surprising because I didn't remember it being that hard (and playing it in Basic/Normal mode).

 

[SpokkX]

This is legit my favorite topic on this forum. Always excited to see new posts. None of this is sarcasm. I know, wild for me.

Anyways, enough of the glaizing.

I posted this in the NextFest thread but this is something worth keeping an eye on.

The demo was decent and the dev seems like they are ambitious for feedback and refining the concept

Thanks

And yes this is also my favoriye thread. Always excited to see what pops up here

Like this game

 

[Minsc]

I finished Etrian Odyssey 1 on Switch earlier this year (and currently playing 2) and compared to my original session on DS, it's not as charming because the game is like ~15 years old by now and some things (like the amount of random encounters, the midi music, the drawing) didn't age correctly. Drawing on the DS was much funnier, plus back then I would buy one game maybe every 4 or 5 months so I wouldn't have a +200 game backlog as nowadays when I want to finish them and continue with the next one. I don't mind not being able to save in the dungeon, that's still standard, rarely you are able to save anywhere (Legends of Amberland is the only one I remember right now you can save anywhere). Everyone says 3 is the best with the best soundtrack, unfortunately it was released after I stopped playing on DS so I never bought it.

I agree that it can become repetitive quickly. To continue with my experience, I played Labyrinth of Galleria and then went with Etrian HD 1 and it was like a huge downgrade, especially in the music and random encounters (the other doesn't have random encounters). But I loved both games back in the day and even though I completely missed the 3DS era I bought myself a few 3DS and now buying the 3DS Etrians to play them for the first time. Back in 2007-2008 Nintendo has had a huge amount of dungeon crawlers btw, I still got Arcana, Wizardry V, Might and Magic 3, Eye of the Beholder and Drakkhen for SNES plus there were many others that I couldn't get like Dungeon Masters. And in this playthrough I had my party wiped 4 times before I found the stairs to the second floor, I was kind of surprising because I didn't remember it being that hard (and playing it in Basic/Normal mode).

I don't think age is a great excuse, because Lands of Lore is way older, and IMO (having only dabbled in Etrian Oddysey), Lands >>> Etrian in charm, even to this day I feel the CD version of Lands of Lore is a dungeon crawler that is nearly unrivaled in charm and little touches of detail in every corner of that game.

The added personality the infrequent VA added from the CD, and all the hand drawn pixel art animations and UI effects are one of a kind still IMO. And the way you can uncover so many hidden lines of dialog by mixing items with each other or by clicking on super small sections of different screens/shops, even the way you buy items and weapons by actually picking them from a drawing is amazing.

Lands of Lore IMO is one of the GOATs of dungeon crawlers, easily in my top 3.

 

[ReyBrujo]

I don't think age is a great excuse, because Lands of Lore is way older, and IMO (having only dabbled in Etrian Oddysey), Lands >>> Etrian in charm, even to this day I feel the CD version of Lands of Lore is a dungeon crawler that is nearly unrivaled in charm and little touches of detail in every corner of that game.

Etrian got its own style built from scratch for the DS at a time when quirky games were all the rage (Osu Ouendan, Phoenix Wright, Lost in Blue, Dusk Hotel, Trauma Center, etc). It's not for everyone but wasn't for everyone back when it launched neither. Also It was never meant to compete with PC variants but test the waters, it was a dungeon crawling "lite" experience.

Personally I don't feel comfortable comparing console and PC games because PC ones usually have much larger scope, better controls, possibilities for configuring or modding, They can include hundreds or thousands of branching paths in conversations where you can feel you are making a difference. Console games are usually much more straightforward (especially in handhelds and especially the differences between consoles and computers was much noticeable). When I said it didn't age well I said that comparing it to console alternatives, otherwise as you said it wasn't even near to the best PC crawlers of that era.

 

[SpokkX]

I still find new dungeon crawlers on Steam that look kind of decent

Like this

Has anyone tried it?

 

[Plague Doctor]

Heads up this is releasing on November 10, Demo is there if you want to test it out.