This is probably not a 10/10 game, but it was a 10/10 experience for me. It introduced me to Etrian Odyssey, a series I now love and own every game for. The music ABSOLUTELY blew me away, I was flabbergasted by how good it is, both in terms of creating a calming atmosphere as you walk around and very smoothly shifting that over to high-octane battle music. The art style is so, so nice too, both for characters and for backgrounds. The story mode was a brand new addition, but it really helped me ease into the genre, while also just keeping me engaged with loveable characters and a story that has a surprisingly effective hook, even if the story itself isn’t anything groundbreaking. Props to the voice actors too, they did a great job, and though there aren’t many of them, the anime cutscenes are just sublime.

Drawing your map, fighting monsters, selling their parts for better gear so you can explore further, constantly cutting it close with how you use your money on what equipment… it’s a constant balancing act. I even dropped the game twice because I couldn’t manage to beat a boss and didn’t feel like grinding, but I’m very glad I came back to it and managed to beat it after all. I didn’t do all the optional and post-game content, since I had my fill, but as the very first Etrian Odyssey game I ever played, this one has a special place in my heart.

This is the only game in this series I have played.

While I finished the game on story mode, there's also classic where you can create your own team from scratch. Plus NG+. I skipped all the optional secret bosses. Honestly, there's more to the game I didn't fully experience but I had my enjoyment.

It's a classic RPG: you level, there's skill trees, upgrade gear, side quests, and even draw your own dungeon maps. That's the part that intrigued me the most when I first picked up this game. I did enjoy that mechanic, pretty detail oriented. It was fun exploring the different levels of the dungeons for the first time. Every level was different and every five levels had their own game mechanics and ecosystems.

I enjoyed the music and the cutscenes were well done. The voice acting was great. The dungeons had a puzzle feel and encouraged exploring. Beating the bosses felt rewarding. The FOEs were fun to see.

The biggest negative has to be no option for subtitles in the cutscenes; which is an atrocity in an RPG where most of the talking in thru text anyways. I'm not sure why they didn't include that even as an option. The dungeons had audio cues that were EASILY missed too. You have to be very vigilant to not miss something. It's not hearing friendly.

But all in all, I did enjoy the game. Toward the end, it was getting very repetitive to me and I was itching for something new.

8/10

+
- Mon premier dungeon-crawler
- Histoire simple & prenante
- Difficulté présente & bien dosée
- Dessiner ses maps ( TOP ! )
- Arbres de talents
- Le rythme

-
- Pas vraiment de points faible
- Pour chipoter, peut-être un peu redondant (décors souvent identique,... )

CCL :
- Un plaisir à jouer

My first game in the series and it's more or less what I expected and totally fine and fun for what it is. However I don't feel obligated to finish this because looking at hltb, every game in this series seems long as hell for a minimal-story, gameplay driven series. And with my limited time I want to at least shelve this one for now because I'm honestly just more curious about the later entries based on things I hear (e.g. gameplay refinements, stronger music). I might come back to this first game eventually but for now I think I'll just try Untold 2.

So, it's been about a month since I finished playing Etrian Odyssey Untold, and I was initially going to write this review as like a subtweet to a review to the original Etrian Odyssey due to myself thinking said review is spreading misinformation. However, that's not what I want to do and so this will just be a straightforward review, though I will bring up some minor complaints I have with said review regardless.

Of course, Spoiler Warnings for Etrian Odyssey and Etrian Odyssey Untold.

I had first heard about this game when a friend of mine showed me said review for the original Etrian Odyssey. We had a laugh about how ridiculous we thought the review was, but I didn't ultimately get interested in the game until our friend Alan got to talking about it.

That's when my buddy Simon started his playthrough of the original Etrian Odyssey. The game was very intriguing due to it's nature as a dungeon crawler.

Unlike other Dungeon Crawlers I've played that automatically map for you as you go along, Etrian Odyssey requires the player to chart their own maps utilizing the touchscreen of the DS/3DS. This results in an immersive process I can only compare to how people used to play adventure games back when the Internet was far less accessible and players had to rely on drawing out their own maps to track their locations and findings.

And that was only part of the experience. For alongside navigating blind through these labyrinthian halls of forest, were creatures of pure terror and despair.

FOEs, these imposing Orange Orbs, which contained enemies far deadlier than any other, were plentiful throughout the winding paths and gaping corridors. If you want an accurate description of what FOEs are like, imagine Mr. X from the Resident Evil 2 Remake, but there's more than one and they are everywhere.

Watching Simon wander terrified with his Guild was a sight to behold, and while I was thinking of hopping on the original EO, I quickly changed my mind when I heard this.

Etrian Odyssey Untold's soundtrack, with it's pure orchestrated glory convinced me to play that version, and so I did.

I started the greatest of all the Guilds, the Alan Cock Guild. With myself as the Ronin leader, Alan as our Dark Hunter Mascot, Yuiz as our Masterful Medic, Godman as our Triumphing Troubadour, and Simon as our Helpful Hexer, we were sent out into the Yggdrasil Labyrinth to discover its many environments and venture into its very depths.

At the start, it was brutal. We were barely equipped to fight even the weakest of foes, they weren't so much battles as much as they were fights just to survive. The FOEs were the most terrifying, especially given how the remake opts to show what they actually look like, and because of the use of 3D models, could provide the most terrifying of scenarios like with these Boars shaped like Boulders that wake up when you walk in front of them.

I'd argue that Etrian Odyssey is a better horror game than most on the market. Every new FOE, every new Floor Boss is built up too steadily, and makes encountering them for the first time an absolute shock to the core.

Of course, that only made it all the more satisfying when the Alan Cock Guild grew strong enough to kill these ferocious creatures. As we continued to explore, as Forests gave way to Jungles, and Jungles gave way to Coral Reefs, we got ever stronger.

Along the way, we wind up encountering this Forest Girl who clearly does not want us there. Eventually the Radha, the people who we have been working for the entire game, demand that we do one more thing if we seek to venture further into the labyrinth: "Annihilate the Forest Folk".

So, back onto the minor complaints thing. The review that I read that initially introduced me to this game tried to make this argument that this final mission was Atlus saying that Genocide is good and acceptable. It was also at the point that the mission was introduced that they stopped playing the game.

Now, I'm not going to say Genocide isn't bad, or that the game doesn't have you partake in it. However, I do want to point out that at no point does the game actively relish in the actions.

From the very start of the mission, it is made clear how unsettling this demand is. Quinn, the Mission Giver, is clearly upset about the whole ordeal, mentioning how he "wished they would resolve this peacefully" revealing that the Radha Chieftan, Visil, has been acting strange in regards to these demands.

Throughout the entire quest, it is commented on how your guild does not want to do this, and that the whole thing is a setup by Visil to try and get you killed before you discover more about the Yggdrasil Labyrinth.

The game does not try to glorify the act of genocide, and I think claiming that Atlus was attempting to do so here is disingenuous.

Even then, I'd like to posit this argument. Why is it suddenly that when it is specifically the Forest Folk that it is this moral dilemma?

Think about what you and your party do all game.

From the very start you have been invading the habitats of the various creatures you come across, killing leagues of rats and wolves, slaughtering without end and without mercy. To come to this mission and think that your guild is innocent when they've already decimated an entire eco-system is just a bit hypocritical to be quite frank. (Also just want to say, assuming that Explorers are going to automatically be good is kind of naïve given history, most explorers have done terrible shit.)

And even then, by the end of the game you fight back against those who sent you to commit these heinous acts, and foil their plans with the Yggdrasil Tree.

If I had to make an argument about what I think the game is trying to show is that it shows the results of Capitalism on the environment.

You kill, you take in order to gain wealth and fame for your guild. The entire reason the genocide thing is set up to begin with to get your guild killed is to keep the mystery of the labyrinth going so that more explorers seeking the same fame you do will come to Etria.

More Explorers means more business, and you actively see these effects just by how the Shop's wares increase based on the drops you sell. Watching in real time as you becoming richer makes prices go up, and mercantile empires expand.

But at the end, you turn your back on that. You fight Visil in one last duel and strike him down, ending his plans, and eventually revealing the truth to everyone. Capitalism may have been what drove the guild before, but at the end, you fought to stop the cycle of destruction.

I realize that hey, this is probably an entirely subjective perspective on the whole thing... but I think this idea is interesting to me so I'm sticking with it.

The game is hard, but from the map-making, to the incredible score, to the deeper themes, to the areas themselves being absolutely beautiful, I think it is worth your time.

Also people who think this is boring haven't played enough DMC2.

Anyways this review is probably real messy but I don't think there was much of an overly coherent way of making this. Next review will be more organized.

Another spin on the odyssey that started it all

I'm starting to realize Etrian Odyssey as a series consists of the ultimate gameplay slow burn of a dungeon crawler japanese role playing game. That's not to say Etrian Odyssey as a whole is too slow of a game series but for someone like me that has the attention span of a green pea, it can be a bit taxing and easy to burn out pretty quickly but yet I keep coming back to it and I did eventually beat this entry after playing IV as my foray into the series. Untold is a great remake of the first game with the ability to actually have the original soundtrack or the remastered one which is a surprisingly lacking features in a lot of remakes and remasters that I felt like it could've prevented some friction with the original and the remake. The main appeal I feel about this series is the classes and building them, the intended challenge, the soundtrack and actually the feeling of exploration this game provides despite me using the auto-map feature.

This game actually comes with two modes in this remake. The classic experience which involves a minimal story and more straightforward likes its DS predecessor and the new story mode which adds new unique characters to play as and the semblance of an actual story. Sad to say I did not play this mode due to one big detriment is that with these unique characters that you also lose the ability to create your own customized characters and thus really limiting yourself to the numbers of classes you can actually play. The premise for Classic mode as far as I'm concerned is that you're an up and coming guild about to make a name for themselves as explorers of the labyrinth with a few moments along the way that are really barely there. There are some cool moments at the end but this is after essentially a 50 hour playthrough and did not leave me fulfilled in this front but in hindsight, I feel like expecting a good story from this series is like expecting good pizza at a broken down convenience store.

I won't really go into comparing this to my previous gameplay experience with the series as the first experience was actually a much different title compared to the rest of the series. I will also share my experiences as someone that has played the game with the Classic/Expert difficulty with a mod that adds the new classes because locking them behind completing the story mode is a poor gameplay design especially considering how long these games can be and how long they can feel. The gameplay flow consists of spending time in town, accepting quests, perusing the shops and learning what little you can about the land of Etria. You can mostly make whatever team you really want as each class feels great but almost basic to a point at times but in the case of Expert, you will most likely need a Protector, which is the tank class of the game to mitigate as much damage as you can because enemies can always two shot you on this difficulty. After being in town is where the real meat of the experience is and what people actually want from this game, exploring the labyrinth itself. Traversing the dungeon isn't really enough though as Etrian Odyssey Untold and every game before and after it utilizes the bottom screen of your 3DS as a map that you can fully fill out and customize to your whim. While I personally put auto-mapping on since I did not want to try every single line for a wall, I did actually enjoy this aspect when it comes to putting down specific stickers, markers to remember such as quest locations and gathering nodes for resources on revisits, and finding shortcuts and marking them to make the next foray much easier and able to go further itself. FOES also return as what I'm guessing as a staple and present roadblocks and very careful planning in the traversal itself which is always welcome. The mazes themselves are alright too but the final one is pretty cool honestly.

Explaining how the battles actually work sounds simple on paper, your party of five against enemies have rounds and act accordingly with a unique mechanic thrown in with the boost mechanic which is essentially just a super powered ability on use and nothing more. The thing I actually like about these games which I really haven't seen so far is how different each class plays in this game. Ronin being one of my favorite examples of this relies on using turns to take specific stances which grant him/her buffs along with the ability to unleash unique attacks that they can only do in that specific stance but that is one of the many examples. Each level up feels like a reward as it can always mean a brand new ability for one of the characters in your party along with using the said point to upgrade an existing ability and they scale up decent if you truly invest in enough of them. As I mention before, enemies will hit like a truck so if you plan on tackling this game on the max difficulty which is actually the developer intended difficulty than you'll have to be more careful with how to spend points but there's a respec system if you every truly want to change with the sacrifice being a few levels. Untold's skill progression does a decent enough job but I do sort of find it a bit lackluster at times and the additional gameplay system really doesn't help at all which are the grimoire system. The grimoire system is not a fun or rewarding system to use at all as it really feels completely random in what you can even use with them and services as the additional class customization this game offers. You really won't be able to customize these stones as much as you think and you'll mostly be stuck with ones you can't really use or feel like a waste of time to equip and I wish they made this system more customizable to use considering I feel like that's a huge appeal of the party building in this game.

The series still manages to make a banging remastered soundtrack and also includes the original soundtrack which I've mentioned before which should really be a must have in every remaster and remake that changes the music for the better or worse. Nonetheless, Yuzo Koshiro did a stellar job with the soundtrack with great battle themes and stratum themes again albeit I do feel it could've been better but probably trying to stick to the original composition.

If you want my short thoughts on this title, it's a solid customizable first person dungeon crawler albeit with the grimoire system being a huge disappointment and a decent soundtrack. Highly suggest playing this on Classic/Expert with the mod to allow Gunners/Highlanders on a first playthrough but I'm not your dad. This game really tested my patience in real life and in the game itself but overall I did actually enjoy this game and think it's a stellar addition to the multitude of 3DS JRPGs on the system. Sadly it probably won't be my favorite entry of the series but I think it sticks to the formula well enough that I had an enjoyable time with it. If anything, I'd suggest playing this game in slow chunks and mentally expect yourself to take your time with this game or else you will feel burnt out extremely quickly. If you can do that then you have a really fun and challenging dungeon crawler on your hands.

After mostly playing older SMT games as my only first person dungeon crawlers, this game awakened my third eye to the possibilities of first person dungeon crawlers and how good they can be. The FOE mechanic is fantastic, and adds an element of Pacman to first person dungeon crawling that makes exploration so much more fun and rewarding and gives you multiple options on how to deal with them. The dungeon design even outside of FOEs is very good at time. Not all the floors are interesting, but when they are good, they are incredibly interesting and fun, and mapping it out all on your own gives you a feeling of adventure and accomplishment few RPGs achieve.

The grimoire system is pretty annoying though, not the process of getting them (on normal I was never in enough of a pinch to grind for them), but the UI for the synthesis is so cumbersome and annoying, I dreaded having to create new, stronger grimoires. With some better UI this mechanic could have been a lot better.

I played Storymode and the story is serviceable. But what I heard from Classic mode / the original sounds a lot better, so ignore story mode for until you finished the original.

This game provided me with the first boss I got severely stuck on. His name was Iwaoropenelep, he was a literal giant thunder bird. I seriously cursed this bird’s name. I got stuck on him for something like a year. I even asked my friends to do it for me. No dice, until I tackled him head on again and again and got fucking lucky hanging on by a thread. Seriously, that OH MY FUCKING GOOOOOOOOD feeling I got when the death animation played was the closest I have ever been to understanding why people play Dark Souls other than severe sadomasochism.

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl is the better version of the original Etrian Odyssey. It has a more linear story mode, with well developed characters and an extra dungeon, and it tries to help new players by adding an easy mode and other qualities of life. But, if you want, you can also play the old, hardcore version of the game. So, it helps new players without ruining the fun to the old ones.
The plot is good, I really liked the story mode. I think this is, by far, one of the best games by Atlus. But maybe Etrian Odyssey V is better. I should replay that.

Played on Classic/Expert.

The core Etrian Odyssey gameplay is here and solid but the Grimoire system is so bafflingly stupid that it's almost impossible to engage with unless you exploit some glitches that make it less intolerably grindy, and it's pretty unsatisfying to get good results with it because of that. In addition, two of the classes are locked out of Classic mode until you complete Story mode, which is a completely stupid decision that, if you have the resources, you should just cheat and get a save file with them already unlocked if you're going to play Classic mode.

That previously-mentioned core EO gameplay is still solid, the map design is generally enjoyable barring a few bad apples, and the music is a Yuzo Koshiro/10. That said, despite being a remake of the first game, I don't think I would recommend this as someone's first Etrian experience unless they were really insistent on going in numbered order.

Overall it's definitely not a bad game, but it's got too many design quirks in both the Grimoire system and the general viability of several classes and builds to make this a game I'll want to revisit anytime soon. I likely won't do the postgame either because of that, but if I do I'll come back and update from "Completed" to "Mastered".

EDIT: I have since come back and done the postgame. I don't have much to add except that the postgame final boss is some absolute nonsense garbage. The final stratum is also nonsense garbage but I kind of liked that in a weird masochistic way.