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.
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.