By its very nature, Etrian Odyssey has always been something of an  acquired taste. Dungeon crawlers are a notoriously demanding strain of  RPGs, and Atlus’ series has done its best to live up to that reputation  with its crushing difficulty. With Etrian Odyssey IV, however, the  developer has decided to cut back on some of the series’ more sadistic  tendencies without diluting its gameplay, resulting in the most  accessible Etrian Odyssey game to date. It’s also one of the finest  role-playing experiences on the 3DS.
The game begins with your arrival in Tharsis, a bustling city built  in the shadow of the fabled Yggdrasil. Like other would-be explorers,  you have been drawn to the settlement by tales of the untold wonders  that sleep within the mythical tree, and resolve to take up the  challenge issued by the Count of Tharsis to explore its winding innards  and uncover its secrets. After a brief chat with the townsfolk, you  round up a party of adventurers, stock up on supplies, and set out on  your quest for the legendary tree.
For a role-playing game, the story in Etrian Odyssey IV is decidedly  light, but the appeal of the series has always come more from the sense  of adventure it instills through its gameplay than the narrative it  weaves. Etrian Odyssey IV is certainly no different. You’ll spend the  better part of the game exploring its many labyrinths with your guild of  personalized adventurers, battling the monsters (including the  infamously overpowered FOEs) that lurk within and mapping out their  twisting layouts on the 3DS touch screen. This is just as enjoyable now  as when the series first debuted, and you genuinely do feel like an  adventurer each time you reach a previously unexplored area or stumble  upon a rare item.
There are also a handful of changes, particularly to the game’s  presentation, that help keep the experience fresh for returning fans.  Enemy characters have been fully rendered this time around, giving some  much-needed life to the battle sequences, and the new orchestrated  soundtrack features some of the best compositions in the entire series.  These tweaks extend beyond just the cosmetic as well; the game is now  divided up into six different lands, which are strung together by an  overworld that you navigate via your airship. This adds another layer of  exploration to the gameplay, and it gives players plenty to see and do  in between dungeon diving and farming for materials.
In fact, all of this can seem a little overwhelming at first,  particularly if you’ve never played an Etrian Odyssey game before.  Fortunately, Etrian Odyssey IV introduces a new casual setting to help  alleviate some of this strain, making it the perfect starting point for  those who have been put off by the series’ trademark difficulty. In this  mode, Ariadne Threads, an item that can instantaneously warp you back  to the safety of town, are now reusable rather than being depleted on  use, and your party retains any experience it’s gained should you happen  to fall in battle, making exploration much less punishing. Best of all,  players can switch between the two settings at any point in the game  simply by accessing the menu, ensuring that its challenges never become  insurmountable.
That’s not to say the game is easy, though; even on casual mode,  Etrian Odyssey IV will still test your mettle like few other 3DS titles.  Progress is entirely incremental; you’ll claw your way through a couple  of rooms before you’re forced to retreat to town to patch up your  wounds and sell off any spoils you’ve accumulated, only to repeat the  process again until you’ve plumbed the deepest parts of the natural maze  standing before you. The game demands patience and careful planning,  but the sense of satisfaction you feel as you gradually delve deeper  into the heart of a labyrinth, besting foes (and FOEs) that once  decimated your party, makes the experience highly enjoyable. And thanks  to the cartography system, you have a clear measure of your progress  right on the bottom screen. Charting out dungeons as you explore them  continues to be one of the most rewarding aspects of the series, and  you’ll find yourself looking forward to each trip you take just so you  can fill out more of your map.
Still, while these elements help make Legends of the Titan the best  Etrian Odyssey game to date, there are a few instances where the title  stumbles. For all its emphasis on customization, it’s a bit  disappointing to see the game retain the generic character portraits  used in earlier installments, especially now that other areas of the  presentation, like enemy characters, have been improved. This is more a  quibble than a real strike against the title, but your heroes never  truly feel like your own creations (as they do in, say, Dragon Quest IX)  because of their set appearances, which slightly undermines all of the  freedom you have in determining their builds.
More bothersome is the high encounter rate, which guarantees you’ll  be beset by monsters very frequently while exploring. This in itself  wouldn’t normally be an issue, but encounters in Etrian Odyssey are  notoriously difficult to run from, effectively forcing you to see each  one through. Seasoned explorers will no doubt already expect this when  they first set foot in the game’s labyrinths, but it’s nevertheless  frustrating to see every member of your party fail to escape from a  battle multiple times over before finally fleeing, which makes retracing  your steps through a dungeon all the more tedious.
That said, these complaints are fairly trivial in light of the game’s  strengths, and they shouldn’t deter anyone–especially those with a  predilection for RPGs–from picking up a copy of Etrian Odyssey IV. The  game offers enough tweaks to the Etrian Odyssey formula to keep the  experience fresh for series veterans, while the new casual setting  ensures that even novice adventurers will be able to conquer its  sprawling labyrinths with a little grit and determination. Dungeon  crawlers may still be something of an acquired taste for most gamers,  but Atlus has done its best to make Etrian Odyssey IV more palatable for  a wider audience.



No comments:
Post a Comment