A damn good step in the right direction, building a solid foundation for future games. My favorite RPG series, brought back to life in a pretty neat, albeit overpriced collection.
That right there is the biggest problem with EO Origins: The price. I don't know what Atlus was thinking marking the games up this high, but it 100% guarantees that newcomers will think thrice before giving them a shot, especially people living outside the U.S.(R$400 for the bundle, anyone? :') )
Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely believe that these games are worth their price, but that's just the thing: I already love this series. I've been playing Etrian Odyssey for a long time, so I knew right away that I would be happy with the collection. Newcomers may need a bit of convincing(or a generous price drop) to take the plunge though, and that's completely understandable.
The remaster itself deserves praise. Poor font choice aside, they added a ton of QoL features to all 3 games, and they run great despite Denuvo being a thing. No crashes or any other jank cropped up, although using mods such as the font replacement mod or portrait mods will make things a bit screwy with Denuvo. The community is already working on solutions for both the up-to-date Denuvo version and the un-updated version without Denuvo implementation though. They're all very dedicated and super fun to hang out with!
Textures were redone pretty nicely, no lazy AI upscaling either from what I could tell. There's some artifacting on portraits and backgrounds, but considering these games originally came out on the DS with its 256 x 192 screen res, Origins' assets are a massive improvement. Apparently it lets you run the game at very high framerates too, although I didn't feel any need to try em out; 60 is good enough for me.
Mapping was my biggest concern, but I'm happy to say it works pretty well. On a Keyboard+Mouse setup, you don't even need to think about it; not as fast as drawing with a stylus on the bottom screen, but just as accurate, and very comfortable. Mapping far from the screen with a Controller is definitely slower, but using the Auto-Map: Full option makes the experience a lot more comfortable. Some series vets may say that Auto-Map: Full ruins the experience, but I alternated between manual mapping with a KB+M setup and Auto-Mapping on a Controller, and exploring the dungeons was really engaging on both setups.
Now, the Map window itself takes up quite a bit of screen real estate. It didn't bother me too much personally, but I can see some folks wishing they could maybe resize the Map window or have transparency settings to mess around with. Origins is very much a "testing the waters" sort of deal, to figure out how they're going to make these games work going forward, so I'm 100% sure they'll take the feedback and experience from these ports to make the next game, or a future collection, even more optimized and customizable.
Just being able to play these games again on my PC or Switch already makes me super happy, but to see that the team actually put some effort to make this a really nice remaster, is more than I could ever ask for. It's far from a "just package them together running on an emulator or smth lmao who gives a damn" sort of collection; they put in a lot of good work here.
It's not perfect, there's plenty of things that can still be improved in the future, but for a first time outside the DS family of consoles: I'm very satisfied. Here's hoping for more EO in the future.
(And here's hoping they actually take it easy on the pricing next time, too...)
That right there is the biggest problem with EO Origins: The price. I don't know what Atlus was thinking marking the games up this high, but it 100% guarantees that newcomers will think thrice before giving them a shot, especially people living outside the U.S.(R$400 for the bundle, anyone? :') )
Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely believe that these games are worth their price, but that's just the thing: I already love this series. I've been playing Etrian Odyssey for a long time, so I knew right away that I would be happy with the collection. Newcomers may need a bit of convincing(or a generous price drop) to take the plunge though, and that's completely understandable.
The remaster itself deserves praise. Poor font choice aside, they added a ton of QoL features to all 3 games, and they run great despite Denuvo being a thing. No crashes or any other jank cropped up, although using mods such as the font replacement mod or portrait mods will make things a bit screwy with Denuvo. The community is already working on solutions for both the up-to-date Denuvo version and the un-updated version without Denuvo implementation though. They're all very dedicated and super fun to hang out with!
Textures were redone pretty nicely, no lazy AI upscaling either from what I could tell. There's some artifacting on portraits and backgrounds, but considering these games originally came out on the DS with its 256 x 192 screen res, Origins' assets are a massive improvement. Apparently it lets you run the game at very high framerates too, although I didn't feel any need to try em out; 60 is good enough for me.
Mapping was my biggest concern, but I'm happy to say it works pretty well. On a Keyboard+Mouse setup, you don't even need to think about it; not as fast as drawing with a stylus on the bottom screen, but just as accurate, and very comfortable. Mapping far from the screen with a Controller is definitely slower, but using the Auto-Map: Full option makes the experience a lot more comfortable. Some series vets may say that Auto-Map: Full ruins the experience, but I alternated between manual mapping with a KB+M setup and Auto-Mapping on a Controller, and exploring the dungeons was really engaging on both setups.
Now, the Map window itself takes up quite a bit of screen real estate. It didn't bother me too much personally, but I can see some folks wishing they could maybe resize the Map window or have transparency settings to mess around with. Origins is very much a "testing the waters" sort of deal, to figure out how they're going to make these games work going forward, so I'm 100% sure they'll take the feedback and experience from these ports to make the next game, or a future collection, even more optimized and customizable.
Just being able to play these games again on my PC or Switch already makes me super happy, but to see that the team actually put some effort to make this a really nice remaster, is more than I could ever ask for. It's far from a "just package them together running on an emulator or smth lmao who gives a damn" sort of collection; they put in a lot of good work here.
It's not perfect, there's plenty of things that can still be improved in the future, but for a first time outside the DS family of consoles: I'm very satisfied. Here's hoping for more EO in the future.
(And here's hoping they actually take it easy on the pricing next time, too...)