Right in between Fire Emblem Awakening and Gunhound EX, Atlus drops the Etrian Odyssey IV demo; I usually shy away from demos, but since it's Etrian Odyssey nothing can stop me from playing it to death. Maybe the 30 launches limit and the cap of 10 levels will, but to counter that, there seems to be a lot of content.
Everything starts off like any other EO: you reach Piazza di Spagna in Rome...no, wait, the city's name is Tharsis and you are asked to register your guild and some characters before venturing in the labyrinth to meet your doom.
The demo shows three empty slots in the class selection menu, and the remaining classes are a mix between the EO 1/2 and EO 3: Landsketch (or however it's spelled), Fortress, Night Hunter, Sniper, Medic, Dancer, Rune Master. I went for a pretty standard Lands/Fortress/Medic/Rune Master/Sniper party to test waters.
First impressions is that the game is not as hard as the other three games, at least in the beginning. Yes, you are asked to find your way through FOEs but it's something series veteran are used to from the first game. After the first foray into the labyrinth you are thrown on an airship to find the second dungeon and this is the point I've reached right now.
There have been a lot of subtle changes, and the most striking is the music, incredibly easy going and catchy, especially during battles.
The interface has been reworked a bit and it's easier to navigate menus; the skill trees have been completely revamped and are much easier to read. Unlike the previous EO games, where you could "rush" to a skill, all classes have three "mastery levels", which are unlocked by level progression. Only time will tell if this was really necessary, as rushing to a certain technique could prove more dangerous than anything due to high TP expenditure. There still are subclassed (though they are locked out) and many skills, especially for classes like the Fortress, will be immediately familiar with series veterans.
Probably the biggest change is that any class can gather resources without spending any skill point, though gathering is still limited in use and all classes can improve gathering chances for one resource type if points are spent in the right skill. Does this mean no more parties built around gathering characters? Sounds great, though such parties were the biggest source of money and materials for rare items, I wonder how well will work in the end.
The airship is reminiscent of EO3's ship, though exploring is no longer limited by the ship's equipment. The airship feels like a very important element in EO4, as the city of Tharsis is actually away from the Yggdrasil (all other games had the starting city right on Yggdrasil's roots) and the airship is used to find entrance to new dungeons, and eventually to Yggdrasil.
Battles now take in account rows, I was very surprised to se my Rune Master's ice lance hit two enemies, one in the front and one in the back row, so this should add a new dimensions to battles. Class skills seem to intertwine very well and I'll probably soon move to a party centered around a Fortress/Night Hunter combo, with probably a support Sniper.
Instead of static sprites, enemies are animated 3D models, which are well done in their simplicity. When exploring the dungeon, FOEs are represented by their battle model and not with the usual giant hairy ball of orange death, which adds to an otherwise plain labyrinth representation.
So far so good, can't wait to have the full game available.
Everything starts off like any other EO: you reach Piazza di Spagna in Rome...no, wait, the city's name is Tharsis and you are asked to register your guild and some characters before venturing in the labyrinth to meet your doom.
The demo shows three empty slots in the class selection menu, and the remaining classes are a mix between the EO 1/2 and EO 3: Landsketch (or however it's spelled), Fortress, Night Hunter, Sniper, Medic, Dancer, Rune Master. I went for a pretty standard Lands/Fortress/Medic/Rune Master/Sniper party to test waters.
First impressions is that the game is not as hard as the other three games, at least in the beginning. Yes, you are asked to find your way through FOEs but it's something series veteran are used to from the first game. After the first foray into the labyrinth you are thrown on an airship to find the second dungeon and this is the point I've reached right now.
There have been a lot of subtle changes, and the most striking is the music, incredibly easy going and catchy, especially during battles.
The interface has been reworked a bit and it's easier to navigate menus; the skill trees have been completely revamped and are much easier to read. Unlike the previous EO games, where you could "rush" to a skill, all classes have three "mastery levels", which are unlocked by level progression. Only time will tell if this was really necessary, as rushing to a certain technique could prove more dangerous than anything due to high TP expenditure. There still are subclassed (though they are locked out) and many skills, especially for classes like the Fortress, will be immediately familiar with series veterans.
Probably the biggest change is that any class can gather resources without spending any skill point, though gathering is still limited in use and all classes can improve gathering chances for one resource type if points are spent in the right skill. Does this mean no more parties built around gathering characters? Sounds great, though such parties were the biggest source of money and materials for rare items, I wonder how well will work in the end.
The airship is reminiscent of EO3's ship, though exploring is no longer limited by the ship's equipment. The airship feels like a very important element in EO4, as the city of Tharsis is actually away from the Yggdrasil (all other games had the starting city right on Yggdrasil's roots) and the airship is used to find entrance to new dungeons, and eventually to Yggdrasil.
Battles now take in account rows, I was very surprised to se my Rune Master's ice lance hit two enemies, one in the front and one in the back row, so this should add a new dimensions to battles. Class skills seem to intertwine very well and I'll probably soon move to a party centered around a Fortress/Night Hunter combo, with probably a support Sniper.
Instead of static sprites, enemies are animated 3D models, which are well done in their simplicity. When exploring the dungeon, FOEs are represented by their battle model and not with the usual giant hairy ball of orange death, which adds to an otherwise plain labyrinth representation.
So far so good, can't wait to have the full game available.
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