Etrian Odyssey (USA) DS ROM

Review by LordZemus:

Etrian Odyssey is one of my all-time favourite dungeon-crawler RPGs since it makes quite a lot of things right , but first , the story :

You are an anonymous person , group , whatever … who arrives at Etria a medieval city that houses the grand Yggdrasil Labyrinth which you have to explore in order to bring prosperity to the city and glory for yourself . As you go deeper and deeper into the labyrinth , you and your group start to notice that the maze contains a number of secrets that may shake the very foundation of the society you live in , and there will be others trying to stop your progress aside from the many bloodthirsty monsters that inhabit this place.

The game

1- EO is a hardcore dungeon-crawler as you have to draw the labyrinth’s layout in the screen below with your stylus , so you have to point out interesting spots , harvest points , enemies , hazards , shortcuts…

2- Strategy beats strength ; there are many dangerous monsters out there who want to see you dead and none of them are weak , Hell , the very first monsters you encounter are rats , moles and butterflies and they can shred your team into mincemeat , and even a puma that 1-hit K.O.’s any of your team members , and all of this in the very first floor! Maybe I am overdoing this but I dare to say that this is the turn-based equivalent of Dark Souls.Monsters can also drop very special drops if you kill them in a very specific way , so go to the bar and ask around (and write them down because the game doesn’t keep record of it and it changes every so often)

3- F.O.E (Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens , which literally translates as F***ing Overpowered Enemies) , they are all over the place , and if you though the puma was overpowered , watch your entire team have a new a**hole carved of pure overkill.

4- A great variety of classes to choose from to create your team , and be careful in what you spend your skills points in , you can’t obtain or max out all skills and if you ever want to re-assign skill points , you have to give 10 LV in exchange , and they are very hard to recover.

One of the best dungeon-crawlers I have ever played , it’s very long , entertaining and unforgivable , some of the downsides are that there is little value in creating more characters other than the 5 you take into the labyrinth since getting experience is very difficult to get and it gets divided for each teammate (you can teach the team members in the bench a skill that gives them XP while your team goes exploring , but only give them 1 skill point or it will be a waste) , and the quests that you get in the bar cannot be repeated ; but aside of that , it is one of the best and challenging RPGs you can find.

For those interested , there is a 3DS remake of the game called EO : Millennium Girl that includes Classic mode ( the entire game remade) and story mode which gives you pre-made characters and story , if you complete Story mode , you will have a very pleasant surprise in Classic mode.