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[3DS] Etrian Odyssey Untold

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    [3DS] Etrian Odyssey Untold

    Ah, the remake of the first Etrian Odyssey.
    The demo is limited to 10 levels per character and the first few floors in the new Story mode, where you have a fixed party (Protector, Medic, Alchemist, Gunner and Highlander; the last two should be exclusive to this mode) and revolves around Frederica, a girl found in a sleeping device (aka cold sleep) in mysterious ancient ruins (aka old civililization...no, it's not spoilers as the game is pretty open about this).

    Unfortunately it's not possible to test the normal mode, but from the start of Story mode, seem that classes have retained their original skills, though only thr full game will tell if they are as in the first Etrian Odyssey (how you do, Immunize?).
    The backgrounds have been redone in 3D and look gorgeous, character sprites are the same as in the first game, albeit at an higher resolution. And the have voices. Voices in my Etrian Odyssey? Noooo, they must be muted. Done. And the OST put to classic (16 bit tunes). Whaaaat, you can't? You can in the full game. Grumble...

    The engine used is the same as EOIV, and many enemy models are the same, though they have new animations. Compared to the original EO the technical gap is quite huge, and it's even better than in the last game. Everything is still a bit pixellated, but dungeons are more varied than even before.
    Maps are the same as the first EO, including shortcuts, events and enemies. Based on how hard they hit, it looks like Expert mode has the same level of difficulty than the first EO...which is great!

    Can't wait to get my hands on the full game.
    Last edited by briareos_kerensky; 08-10-2013, 16:33.

    #2
    End of demo reached. Still have to level up everyone up to level 10 (max for the demo) and complete all quests available, but after the first room on the 3rd floor, you can't go on.

    Just like the first game, that room hold a pretty powerful FOE...that can be killed easily by Arm Snipe and Poison. Oh, it's the cheese tactic

    from EOII again! (a tactic that would later become useless, anyway).
    But the second floor was interesting.
    First, the map is completely different from the original EO, though Ragelopes (purple deers of doom) still go around that level, but parts of the map are closed by impassable rocks; and this floor again features poisonous butterflies, though they don't use their poisonous attacks that often; on the other hand, there are's an enemy capable of killing off characters (even Raquna, the Protector - tanker) with one hit.

    And the rocks? Those are FOEs. Yay danger!



    Anyway, I feel a bit disconnected from the party in story mode. Probably it's because I'm used to create my characters and have a girl medic instead of a guy...well, I don't really "feel" the party.
    The protagonist in an Highlander (unique class) that seems to work as a mix between ronin and landsketch, with the ability to sacrifice HPs for offense; he's armed with a spear, from the skills available I don't think it will work well from the rear lines but maybe the full version has more skills.
    Raquna is the Protector, with a hint of medic. She's able to restore HPs and of course use various types of guard.
    Arthur is a alchemist. Nothin much to say.
    Frederica is a Gunner, a class that probably won't be available outside story mode, and she's a jack-of-all-trades. She can inflict binds, insta-kill FOEs, and heal party members (by shooting at them. Really, that skill is called Medical Bullet).
    Simon is a medic, and a pretty straightforward at that.
    Party-wise, seems to be a very standard kill spread, with no chances to get very peculiar skills, but this where Grimoires come into play.
    Grimoires are equippable stones that grant various skills, being them from other classes or entirely new, to their users. Grimoires can be obtained when a "Grimoire Chance" flashes when a character takes his/her turn and kills an enemy; in town, you can fuse Grimoires to get more powerful ones or add skills to existing ones.
    I must say that due to the party composition, Grimoires feels more like an extra rather than a necessity to advance, but the demo doesn't really give you the opportunity to play around too much.

    I state again that I can't wait for the full game...even if I'll have to redo things from the beginning outside Story mode.

    Comment


      #3
      Full game at home!
      Started classic mode right away, with Ronin and Hexer available from the start. And so I ventured into the labyrinth with a rather fragile party of a Ronin, a Protector, a Medic, an Alchemist and a Hexer. So far so good, I have to remember how skill trees actually worked and were in the first two games to make direct comparisons, but certain skills are unlocked by just reaching their prerequisites (like the Alchemist's base formulaes) and other aren't buried behind tons of of prerequisites (like the Hexer's Revenge Curse).
      Compared to the first game, EO received 3D location backgrounds (not even EOIV had those), but character portraits are the same, albeit at an higher resolution; a bit cheap, considering how far EO's character designed came since the original EO and that Story mode has the more "modern" approach and a tons of cutscenes.
      Unfortunately there's just one save slot shared by Story and Classic mode.

      Comment


        #4
        Time to post something better written than before.

        Thoughts are based on Classic mode on Expert difficulty, certain things might change at lower difficulty levels.

        I have reached the 4th floor of the first stratum, and from what I remember, the story is playing out as the first game, no big surprises here. Maps, except for the first floor are different, as are FOEs in the number, placement and type.
        The classes I've chosen seem to play out very similar to their original counterparts, though the skill trees are handled differently: skill trees are like the first two EOs, skills can be acquired as soon as you pour points in their prerequisites (as opposed to EOIV where you had to wait a certain level for better skills), but some of them are automatically unlocked at level 1 as soon as you reach all prerequisites. This is particularly helpful with Alchemists, as they are no longer tied to a single (or maybe two) element, making them more useful.

        Gathering skills improve the number of items the party can collect at a single spot, just like EOIV, but unlike EOIV each spot can be harvested once per day. Some items are still tied to the number of drops/gathered items available, and unlike EOIII and EOIV, ingredients to create healing items like Nectars (revive fallen characters) are rare, and I've found Medics to be of absolute importance, especially with the party I'm running (Ronin, Protector, Medic, Alchemist, Hexer).
        Now, memory is not serving well, but I think that Medics had received a boost in their basic healing skills, and Revive can be obtained much easier than before, most probably thanks to the "bonus unlocks" that this new EO has.

        Party mechanics, at least in story mode, are at the same level of EO: this means that there isn't much cooperation between party members to pull off spectacular attack sequences, though the Ronin has a Chaser skill...which won't really work well in my party as right now there are just two attackes (Ronin and Alchemist). It's a bit early to have a good picture of intra-party skills, but judging from the demo (which forces Story mode), party cooperation is much better in Story mode due to the forced party members. But again, I don't feel the party in Story mode as "mine", though I certainly miss Raquna as a Protector...anyway, it seems that a lot of attention has gone toward binding the enemy, and I've found the Hexer to be incredibly useful against FOEs and normal enemies alike. It's a great thing that Ronins and Hexers are available from the start, though the former's fragility can really hinder progression at times; without points spent on improving their HPs, Ronins are a perfect example of a glass cannon, possibly even more than in the original EO and than Shoguns in EOIII. Time will tell if I should have gone for a Landsketch instead of Ronins, but I'm pretty sure the Hexer is there to stay.

        Like skill trees, Etrian Odyssey Untold reverts the Boost system to its origins, where each character has a personal metre that can be used to improve one action once full.

        I was a bit surprised when Grimoire stones made their appearance in Classic mode: this, plus the "bonus unlocks", tells me that there won't be sub-classes in Untold, something I was looking forward to, it made EOIII and EOIV incredibly interesting and flexible in character creation.
        Grimoire stones work in the same way as in Story mode: each character can equip on stone, that will grant stat boosts or skills, independent from the user's class. Stones can be fused together to group different bonuses. New Grimoire stones can be obtained during battles, when "Grimoire Chance" flashes onto the screen; getting a stone is not linked to killing an enemy or performing a special action, but the action undertaken when there are chances of a new Grimoire will affect what the stone will carry as extra bonuses.

        I think that Grimoire stones are an excuse to get Rosa, a new character, into Classic mode...which brings to an interesting point: character portraits. Etrian Odyssey's character design has gone great lengths from its origins, and in Untold all shared characters with EOI have their old portrait, albeit at an higher resolution. New characters, like Rosa, have been drawn with the "new" style, and this creates a peculiar rift between the two groups. Considering that enemies use EOIV polygonal models (with different animations), labyrinths new tiles, there's an orchestral soundtrack, and menu backgrounds have a 3D effect, not updating portraits feels rather cheap.

        Anyway, Untold plays like every other Etrian Odyssey, which for me is a definite plus. Surely I would have preferred a completely new game, but if this helps in getting more money for it (or maybe for a WiiU version...one can only hope), that's OK.
        One thing I would have realy liked, is for two separate slave slots for Classic and Story mode, I don't see myself restarting the game in either mode and lose all progression in one.

        Comment


          #5
          Time for an update.
          The most interesting thing that happened is that Shilleka, the girl running the equipment shop, posted a quest that requested to take her in the labyrinth. Fine, I guess. Stepped on the second floor, she goes: "oh, this is the second floor? The true Etrian Odyssey starts here!"
          Eh, made me laugh.
          Anyway, I've completed the first stratum by killing the boss, Fenrir. It wasn't a particularly easy fight as my party right now lacks endurance and damage output, so I had to resort ot Bravants (increases strenght) and Blaze Oil (fire effect to weapons) to increase the Ronin's damage while the Hexer kept Fenrir weakened and bound, the Alchemist used a mix of Analysis (increased damage by hitting an enemy's weakness) and Fire spells, and the Medic and the Protector alternated Flash Bombs (stuns nearby FOEs, as lesser FOEs will come to Fenrir's help) and Sonic Bombs (to stop Fenrir from calling extra support).

          The second Stratum is a jungle, filled with venomous oozes and insects. The party is coming along fine, the Ronin and the Alchemist are starting to allocate goo amounts of damage (though both go through their TPs way too fast), the Hexer and the Medic are always useful, and the Protector...well, I'm keeping her because I know I'll need elemental guards later in the game, but so far she's the class I'm more unhappy with.

          I haven't been paying too much attentions to Grimoires: they are useful, but getting new ones is based on luck, and getting good skills with good values is even more random. The interface for mixing them isn't the friendliest thing in EOU, and so far I have used the extra skills they grant only few times. I was also thinking of speeding up the game a bit by decreasing the difficulty from expert to normal...I still have fun in playing EOU, but as the whole system is closer to the first EO than EOIV, and that I already know what I'm going to get through, I'm not fully committed of finishing the game 100% once again, especially if the final boss is as random and as in the original version.

          Thinking about EOIII and EOIV, I've always complained about the diminishing number of floors per stratum, but after getting back to five, I realised that the lower number helped the game move at a faster pace, with less repetition. EOU adds a feature that allows to jump between floors once the stairs to the next have been discovered, which is helpful in cutting down aimless walking, although it partially removes the need of Ariadne Threads and removes one of the most tension-filled part of the game, where your party had to survive through various floors low on HP, TP, and items...because you forgot to buy an Ariadne Thread.
          I still like the game, but after EOIV, Untold feels like a step back, rather than the constant improvement the series has seen since its inception. If Atlus are ever going to do a remake of the second game (the third hardly needs one), I hope they fully update the system (gentler introduction curve, class rebalancing, two save slots if they're gonna include a story mode), rather than providing mostly cosmetic changes.

          Comment


            #6
            Down into the third stratum.

            I went from Expert to Normal difficulty as previously wrote, and now exploration is much more fluid, though boss battles could have used a more hardships at this level, the second stratum boss went down without any problem whatsoever, and unlike during the first stratum, I never had all FOEs blue (you party overlevels the FOEs).
            While I still find pleasant to go through Etrian Odyssey Untold's labyrinths, it doesn't feel as "fresh" as a brand new EO game, and this is due to a number of factors.
            First, it's a remake; floors might be different but they have the same traps as the first EO, the same environments, the same enemies.
            Second, being a remake with just rebalances, the system feels old: the boost system is barely useful to give you a basic boost for a turn, classes aren't as entertwined as in EOIII and IV, you know what to get/what not to get as a level up. Grimoire stones have their usefulness, but they are hardly worth the time spent in mix and matching them to get what you want, which is usually more TPs and a stat improvement.
            Third, some quests show unbalances like in the first EO: I've got two pending quests from the second stratum based on luck of what you mine; whoever thought that quests like "spend X days on a single floor" are fun, should be hanged, along whoever thought that it would be great to have them back in Etrian Odyssey Untold.
            Fourth, labyrinths do not feel particularly inspired: except for the 8th and 9th floors, they just seem to be endless twisting corridors, with no real purpose...again, EOIII and EOIV raised the bar so much that getting back to the first EO without a serious redesign, the game feels stale.

            Untold surely is better than the original, thanks to an improved technical side, some rebalances, and other random tweaks, but it's not the step in the right direction, and had me doubt if I would ever buy a remake of the second game, if that will ever come to light.
            This is not to say that EOU is a bad game, I think it's superior to many other recent dungeon crawlers, but even as a remake, it falls flat, with not even nostalgia able to fill in the many gaps this game has.
            I think that Untold is great for people that haven't played any of the other Etrian Odyssey before; if someone played EOIV (even without tapping into the endgame content), Untold immediately becomes too shallow to keep the interest up. Fans of the series will still find the game acceptable, but only that, and nothing more.

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