Dungeon crawling in a new style
Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan was a first-person dungeon crawler JRPG released for the 3DS in 2012 in Japan and 2013 in the US. It was the first 3DS Etrian Odyssey title released for the system and considered a good "starting point" for fans interested in the series. After a 58 hour long playthrough on normal, I can safely say that this is a very solid JRPG with good amounts of customization to your party, gameplay and incredibly well composed and performed music.
I'll start off by saying this game really nails the first-person dungeon gameplay well to an extent. The main mazes were interesting in design and each had very unique puzzles that made each maze different from the rest and designed well down to the specific interactions you can have in each dungeon. This is also helped by the incredible soundtrack this game has, I was honestly surprised how excellent the soundtrack for a game like this. The game nails each maze's theme with a specific ethereal and calming feel and manages to ramp up the seriousness in the final 2 mazes including a battle theme that might be in my top 10 favorite JRPG battle themes. The bread and butter of this game alongside the dungeons are the classes and the synergy you can have with the subclass system here. Each class here feels really unique in what they bring to your party included some very far out ideas that you really don't see in any other JRPG. There is a lot you can customize here with abilities and passives down to the specific dungeon skills each class has that you'll definitely need trekking through the long mazes. This game is also surprisingly difficult for it being considered "one of the easiest" in the series so really know what you're getting into here but the challenge was really satisfying to get through.
As much as I dug this game, there were some rough edges to the gameplay here in general. The general consensus for the fans of EO games have been "creating the map" by yourself and at first it was a bit tedious. I almost considered dropping the game because I found out the automap feature here only does the floor and not the walls so this is also something to keep in mind if you want to get into this game. Obtaining money was also a big problem when getting gear upgrades was getting costly for the amount of money you got in an hour of gameplay not being able to cover one piece of equipment so you really have to make each upgrade worth it. The final maze was also sorta a disappointment in the way it was structured to make the overall finale a bit more tedious than it had to be.
Despite how tedious it got, I still really enjoyed this game a lot. It had a great class/subclass system with the way you can customize your characters along with stellar soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro. If you can dig making your own map and this game kicking your ass, you'll enjoy Etrian Odyssey IV.
Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan was a first-person dungeon crawler JRPG released for the 3DS in 2012 in Japan and 2013 in the US. It was the first 3DS Etrian Odyssey title released for the system and considered a good "starting point" for fans interested in the series. After a 58 hour long playthrough on normal, I can safely say that this is a very solid JRPG with good amounts of customization to your party, gameplay and incredibly well composed and performed music.
I'll start off by saying this game really nails the first-person dungeon gameplay well to an extent. The main mazes were interesting in design and each had very unique puzzles that made each maze different from the rest and designed well down to the specific interactions you can have in each dungeon. This is also helped by the incredible soundtrack this game has, I was honestly surprised how excellent the soundtrack for a game like this. The game nails each maze's theme with a specific ethereal and calming feel and manages to ramp up the seriousness in the final 2 mazes including a battle theme that might be in my top 10 favorite JRPG battle themes. The bread and butter of this game alongside the dungeons are the classes and the synergy you can have with the subclass system here. Each class here feels really unique in what they bring to your party included some very far out ideas that you really don't see in any other JRPG. There is a lot you can customize here with abilities and passives down to the specific dungeon skills each class has that you'll definitely need trekking through the long mazes. This game is also surprisingly difficult for it being considered "one of the easiest" in the series so really know what you're getting into here but the challenge was really satisfying to get through.
As much as I dug this game, there were some rough edges to the gameplay here in general. The general consensus for the fans of EO games have been "creating the map" by yourself and at first it was a bit tedious. I almost considered dropping the game because I found out the automap feature here only does the floor and not the walls so this is also something to keep in mind if you want to get into this game. Obtaining money was also a big problem when getting gear upgrades was getting costly for the amount of money you got in an hour of gameplay not being able to cover one piece of equipment so you really have to make each upgrade worth it. The final maze was also sorta a disappointment in the way it was structured to make the overall finale a bit more tedious than it had to be.
Despite how tedious it got, I still really enjoyed this game a lot. It had a great class/subclass system with the way you can customize your characters along with stellar soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro. If you can dig making your own map and this game kicking your ass, you'll enjoy Etrian Odyssey IV.