I'm in love with the way EO leverages the DS to digitize manual mapping. absolutely wonderful, beautiful stuff that captures the spirit of the genre a billion million zillion times better than any automap ever could. in a perfect world this would've heralded imitative ports of every drpg under the sun, and all of them would've been strong contenders for the best versions by default. unfortunately we live in the eternal piss and shit dimension so I'm doomed to pout about the missed opportunity for the rest of my life

as for the rest: game's like one of those images where either you see the old crone or the smokin hot babe; the lamp or the smoking hot babe; the white and gold dress or the smokin hot babe. you know?

from what I gather if you're coming at it from an EO perspective this thing feels like it was coded straight into zhoukoudian limestone by the peking man. folks act like it's the dustiest, crustiest, most satanic verses ass antipathetic crawler ever made. they're out here throwing blankets over their ds at night like a furby to stop it from talking backwards and shit

but if you're coming at it from a broader drpg ("blobbers" if ya nasty) perspective it's almost the complete opposite: decidedly modern, breezy, and accommodating; its push toward transparency, telegraphs, and convenience at odds with the core tension loop pre-bradley wizardry clones fundamentally rely on

I fall into the second category and found most of this to be pretty dry. by the time I hit the 5th Stratum I was approaching vegetative status, zoning out and mashing A with one hand while reading scandalous celebrity gossip on my phone in the other. hovering out of body, well above the dungeon rather than being subsumed by it; existing outside of stress, anxiety, and uneasy decision making. EO just doesn't got the stomach to wrench your guts around, put you on the perpetual backstep, or fill the role of derelict steward the way the most successful clones do

which is fine! I like most of the experimentation here in isolation; there's a dialogue happening that's a lot more interesting than reheating 1980-1988 endlessly. the deterministic angle opens up a lot of unique design avenues; character building could easily swerve toward embracing shortform tactics over longform attrition; and moments like B20F show that FOEs can be more than softball fodder goin woop woop woop in a 3x3 grid. there's a lot to be excited about, it just needs to be contextualized in ways that flatter rather than compromise

more than anything EO needs to stop being uncomfortable in borrowed skin and start being comfortable in its own. no reason to be another mediocre wizardry when it could be a great etrian odyssey 🌈 ⭐❤️

1. I played the 'Untold' 3DS remake first, which informed how I approached the game. I was liberal with guides, feeling "well, I've already done all this, so it's okay". I hope I didn't damage the intended difficulty, which I thought was as challenging my Untold playthrough on 'Standard'.

2. My favourite part of Etrian Odyssey - any version - is drawing the map, no contest. It's beyond satisfying seeing an empty map grow into a full one, and empowering to use what you've drawn as a resource in exploration. A fun part of going backwards to this version, though, was how much more limited your mapping tools are! There's only a couple icons, and you can't paint the floor tiles different colours, or draw paths to auto-walk down. I say 'fun' because I found this a fun challenge! I used the limited tool set to communicate the floor's specific mechanics in more creative and concise ways. Ironically, the restrictions made my maps more personal!

3. The lack of 'Floor Jump' was the biggest change coming from 'Untold'. (You enter the dungeon at any floor you've explored instead of a checkpoint every five floors.) I like the game more without it! Clambering down to where I was last made the labyrinth bigger, fighting to get there felt stressful, and learning what paths to take made it more familiar. Fast travel makes for a less interesting experience.

4. Respect having the items you need for pub side quests so painfully scarce. Farming them typically gets a level up, so I never needed to grind them out. It's pretty elegant - though frustrating in the moment.

5. Having to think about how my characters react to the story was fun - a lot different from Untold, which has a premade cast and cutscenes. My imagination never ran that wild, but getting to think up little scenarios for my fellows was cute. That said, I did regret basing them on my actual friends. I was always worried about them acting out of character...

Played this for years up until I was able to beat it, just for the HD collection to drop. The game is old, yes, but it's one of the best and most straight-foward dungeon crawler games out there. I am probably its only fan in a 100km radius and that's fine, the game is not for everyone, yet its art and narrative-free story kept me hooked, curiosity (which definitely killed the cat more than a couple of times) leading the way.

Is it hard? Yes, but it's fair.
Everytime you'll die, you'll figure it was something you hadn't planned for, your resources weren't managed carefully, sometimes it's just dumb luck saving or dooming your party. That's why you always take two Ariadne Threads with you! One for usage, the other just in case you forgot to replace the other you bought. It can be obtuse at times and the other games have a lot of things to offer, but I still come back to the first game's soul.

First game, so it's VERY rough around the edges (and I feel some of it is intended). But the music, the atmosphere, the dungeon crawling, it's all that matters.

My main complaint is how you kinda have to hard commit to a character build or team comp that might just suck, and resetting skill points or creating a new character puts a lot of grind on your plate. This is a complaint I have with most if not all Etrian games, but it's at its worst here.

The dungeons are super fun though, but you might have to be a masochist to enjoy this (If you aren't, consider playing the remake, or using recommended builds). It's a lot of fun to fight FOEs, draw your map while navigating your way, and getting your party to work better as you get new skills. Combat might be a little simple, but this is definitely something that changed in the series over time, although the simplicity here can also be a strength.

I should also dedicate a paragraph solely to talk about the music. Yuzo Koshiro is a genius, and once again he proves that with this OST. It's probably what got me hooked into this series the most. It really gets you in the mood for each area, and each battle.

Overall, EO1 is a fun experience for those really into oldschool RPGs. Sometimes you just need to throw yourself into a deadly dungeon and crawl your way to the bottom. Oh, and there's also some absolutely insane post-game if you think the last dungeon didn't crush your soul enough. Have fun! (you won't :D)

It took me a goddamn while but I finally finished the first Etrian Odyssey.. in a franchise I have the benefit of hindsight of playing pretty much all the other games (outside of the original EO2, which I'll play next). So I do know the absolute BANGER of a franchise this becomes at the end of the DS era onwards but...

This is probably the worst EO game and I recommend the remake, Untold, WAYYY more. I still thought it was a solid dungeoncrawling experience all around, though! Albeit very basic and lacking in the solid class and enemy design EO3 and onwards excel in. The fun level designs and all the core design stuff is good here.

Balance is a fucking mess but at least it's pretty funny stomping things with Landsknecht's All Slash and destroying FOEs with Immunize and Multishot. 10 levels to respec is a disgrace against humanity, but this admittedly didn't become tolerable until 4 where it went from 5 to 2.. 10 is just, wow.. if you cheat to get around this I don't blame you in the slightest.

If it wasn't for the EXP curve of the first stratum being absolutely goddamn awful, basically requiring you to farm FOEs until you can beat Fenrir, I would still recommend to this to anyone into the dungeoncrawling genre. It's still the first in a series of probably the best dungeon-crawling franchise of all time. As it is, keep that in mind and I think you could still have a decent time with this one. It's a much slower paced game in a genre of already slow paced games, this is definetly more of the speed of something like Wizardry or the likes. If you can get into that, it's a pretty great take on the genre regardless.

I would've adored this one as a kid, but as it is, just play Untold. 6.5/10 (giving it 3.5 stars cuz I'm a biased ass EO fan)

I feel hurt, betrayed. What once was a new found love quickly soured in ways unimaginable at the beginning.

I may have been foolish when I began this journey, but who could blame me when it was too good to be true. A cult classic with an amazing gameplay loop that rewards patience and understanding of its systems. Each dive into the Labyrinth tested me and the Big Bois guild to push us to the limit. We had to scrounge up every little dollar we could just stay at the inn every night. Getting beyond the first floor seem like an indomitable task. New armor was a pipe dream laid out by the capitalist pigs that incentivized our journey.

Of course, then everything changed. We broke through the ceiling, got through Fenrir on the 5th floor and began to attain the recognition we deserved, along with the wealth that came with it. Soon we no longer had to escape to the surface when we explored half a floor. We could push and push and only return when we had hit the limits of our loot carrying capacity. Money became meaningless, gear came with ease. We no longer had to do quests for the townsfolk to make ends meet, the Big Bois were the foremost guild in all of Etria.

At the end of the Azure Rainforest we ran into our hardest challenge yet. Corotangrul, a guardian of the forest folk who lived below, claiming a whole floor to himself. It's understandable why the forest folk sent him to attack us, they said we were intruders who did not understand the ramifications of our actions. We thought only of the glory of the surface above and not of the lives we would affect down below. Still, Corotangul was deafeted, and we marched forward with a new stone tablet holding hidden information from us. Perhaps now was the time to learn of these people and the nature of the Labyrinth itself.

We gave the tablet to the Radha government above for them to research, and with that we carried on our mission. We explored all of floor 16 to learn more of the forest folk who lived below. While not much information was gleaned, we found that the only way forward was to use the stone tablet we retrieved before. Returning to the hall they told us they would give it to us if we accepted one final mission from them, "Annihilate the Forest Folk".

I'm not your Christopher Colombus Atlus. I'm not playing your game to live out some sick persons fantasy of genociding a group native people. You may not let me progress without it but I will not progress with it. My time here has come to an end, our relationship soiled on the eve of our wedding. One day I wish for closure, until then I stay here sickened at the thought of any member of the Big Bois guild committing mass murder.

i will never be able to speak on what playing the game like without knowing that immunize is game-breaking, maybe i would've enjoyed the game less.

but as someone who played the game knowing that immunize is game-breaking: it's a very enjoyable game. party compositions are fun to make, and there's a lot of skill/build variety to have. my biggest gripe with this system is that there's a huge lack of transparency in what skills will actually do (i.e. protector's en garde, how much medic's patch up heals, general percents for skill activations across the board, etc.) that gets rectified later in the series. there's a lot of joy in making your own map of a dungeon and finding hidden nooks and shortcuts within it. this is very much a game about the experience rather than a concrete narrative, but the narrative still has moments that stand out.

the only other complaint i can levy off the top of my head is that endgame drops from bonus bosses are miserable to farm. not necessarily because the bosses are hard (well, they are, but by endgame you're going to be fine if you know what you're doing), but because either reaching the boss just to fight them takes several minutes and/or the drops in question have extremely low odds of being obtained. again, this is something that later games in the series address and correct (god etrian odyssey III is so fucking good), but it stands out if you're a completionist like me. it's such a problem that, having played this game twice and gone for 100% both times, i've hit a huge wall on receiving a rare drop from a bonus boss, both times a different drop. it sounds very nitpicky on paper to bring this up, but it's worth mentioning.

beyond that, this is a game that i would recommend to anyone who enjoys challenge (immunize knowledge or not) and/or wants a hands-off JRPG. as a series veteran, i will maintain that this game (or whichever is your first EO game, probably) is brutally difficult for the first like.... 6-10 hours and then immediately becomes more doable, so if you do play it, please be aware that it has a learning curve to reach. but otherwise, high marks and a recommendation from me.

https://youtu.be/dB_PVPyn6n8

An amazing and beautiful dungeon crawler. Much better than Untold. A lot less padded, and the story makes sense. Not tacked on like some tumor. Music is AMAZING. Yuzo Koshiro is quite possibly the all time greatest FM music composers. A miracle that they used FM synthesis samples instead of some orchestral MIDI crap like it Strange Journey. However, the backtracking at points in the game is BRUTAL. To get to Lost Shinjuku, you have to FUCKING WALK ALLLL THE WAY BACK TO B15F TO TALK TO THAT BITCHASS RUDHA MOTHERFUCKER AND SAY “oh yeah bruvvy we beat da bos we goin to the next stratum also y’all other adventurers are dumbass cunts who can’t do shit compared to us anywho see ya” AND THEN WALK ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL THE WAY BACK TO B20F TO GO DOWN TO LOST SHINJUKU FOR REAL!!! Anyways rant over. Besides that issue, it’s a pretty good game. Clear Wizardry besides the fact there’s no magic Missile. I have almost no idea why all my r/MegaTen discord boys back in 2021 where all like “oh yeah dood you gotta play Untold if you wanna play EO1 it’s so much better og EO1 is so fucking archaic and old as my grandmother’s vacuum that’s fill of asbestos and lead fumes” even though the only real problems are the backtracking, battle speed (which can be fixed because I have Twilight Menu which can overclock the game’s CPU to around 133 MHz which is double the OG DS’ CPU), and the barebones story. Which one, I already said that. Two, I just said that. And three, Untold story was padded to shit, the new dungeon was filler and was so poorly designed it makes Shin Megami Tensei if… look like a masterpiece of dungeon design in comparison, and all of the characters were annoying as fuck. Also the music in Untold was awful. Doesn’t compare to the original. Untold did have an FM synth mode, but that was broken and wasn’t accurate to the original. Anyways, y’all r/MegaTen cunts are idiots and I hope your next SMT game is shit like the rest. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. I love the character design. Oh? The guy has a Twitter account? Oh sweet I wonder what he po—SWEET MARY MOTHER OF THE HOLY LORD AND SAVIOR AND SON OF GOD JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY HOW THE FUCK DID THEY HIRE THIS DUDE

TL;DR: Fuck Untold, Go play OG EO1

The discourse around hard games which had its mainstream nascence at the beginning of the last decade amounts to the rejection of the frictionless experience typified by the aughts-shooter in favor of games which demand mastery, which have a tutelary and transformative effect on the player. Difficulty results from the game's demand that a player acquire a skill: the ability to time out invincibility frames, or recognize patterns in AI behavior, or think a few steps ahead of the consequences of a move.

Wizardry, and the genre of roleplaying game which emerged around it, is completely out of step with this idea. Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord isn't difficult because of a learning curve, but because it explains very little, punishes failure very harshly, and makes level-grinding a precondition of success. This is not tough-but-fair difficulty, nor does it carry any promise of personal improvement. It's not rewarding. Beyond perhaps a stronger sense of patience, the difference between a player who's started the game and one who's finished is simply the fact of having had the experience.

Etrian Odyssey is not nearly as mechanically sparse as the Wizardry games, or as devoid of opportunities for strategic thinking. It is also much easier and, with a little foreknowledge about good builds and party composition, never demands conscientious grinding. What it carries on is a sense of difficulty which is forbidding rather than disciplinary, which challenges patience rather than skill. Most importantly, it draws the player forward only with the promise of seeing more. It's the first successful effort at Romanticism in a video game, a Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy for those with taste.

The fact that Etrian Odyssey lacks a conventional narrative structure and has a minimum of dialogue belies the importance of the way the game is framed. At no point is the player given a diegetic motivation to proceed, and brief interactions with other characters only emphasize that there's no practical reason to go on and every reason to stop. One's party reaches the end of the labyrinth out of the same determined curiosity which motivates the player, and the fact that the game's been remade as the story of five conventional anime characters saving the world calls to mind Joss Whedon's Stalker.

The game only works because of the incredibly lush world art, the strength of the soundtrack, and the fact that the battle system, while not terribly deep, has enough variety to hold one's interest, and each of these aspects would return in future games in the series. What's special to this game, though, the way it's in conversation with its genre and makes an effort to articulate what that genre's about, isn't something that could really persist in a best-selling JRPG franchise.

I'm also fairly certain this was the first non-eroge Himukai worked on, which is just hysterical to consider. The union of sex perverts and dungeon-crawler perverts which was effected here was the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand of our times.

The beginning of a great series of DRPG.

It has many bugs, classes are imbalanced, difficulty is through the roof, and if you aim for the 100% with best gear you're going to cry bloody tears.

But the game has a lot of content, good characters, the music is absolutely top tier, and it put the base for the rest of the series to build on.

Despite all of its problems, it's still a great game to play !