Etrian has always been a bit of a grind and on the difficult side, but this is the first time that I felt like my characters were simply failing to thrive. However, the thing that was even more bothersome than a lack of innovation is that the speed at which characters earn experience feels glacially slow. Past games usually had at least one or two features that made it stand apart from the rest, but Beyond The Myth here feels like the devs skipped the brainstorming phase and went with the safest, most predictable product possible. Also gone are neat features like sailing the seas or exploring a vast overworld in an airship. I grant that story’s never been a focus for Etrian, but this feels like it’s on autopilot. Additionally, the characters and setting are franchise boilerplate, with no surprises. While all of this sounds great - and it is – this is all stuff that the series has had nailed down for years and delivered many, many times before. There are tons of combinations and each character class can be spec’d out in different ways, so for people who like to dig into systems and customize characters, Etrian V is top class. At the same time, my Necromancer was busy raising and resurrecting meat shields while the Botanist would poison foes when she wasn’t patching up wounds. In my favorite composition, my Dragoon would keep a shield up to protect the front row while my Masurao (think samurai) and Pugilist would be dispensing the hurt. However, I’ve found that the best approach is to have as many bases covered as possible. Want to bravely quest with five healers? Nothing stopping it. Etrian V offers a wide variety of classes, and the player is free to choose whatever they wish. The turn-based encounters are all about developing intricate character classes which work well with their teammates and ultimately create a unified group that builds off of each one’s strengths. While it may seem like a tedious thing to ask a player to do, I’ve always found this exercise in cartography to be a purely enjoyable, relaxing diversion that helps break up the frequency of combat. The devs have made this less labor-intensive over the years and some auto-mapping is available, but this DIY element is still the heart of the series. On the bottom screen is the map – it’s what this series is probably most famous for.ĭuring a dungeon run, players must ‘draw’ the hallways, rooms and features of each level with the stylus and a series of premade icons that can be placed as needed. On the top screen, players navigate a series of labyrinths and battle colorful, well-animated monsters. It’s still polished and still mechanically excellent, but it seems to have been designed without a real hook and the experience is lesser for it.įirst things first - for those unfamiliar with the series, Etrian is a first-person dungeon crawler native to Nintendo’s 3DS. While the Etrian games are still (and have always been) at the absolute top of the dungeon crawler genre, I was puzzled and disappointed to see that Beyond The Myth feels largely like an unwarranted back-to-basics. I keep coming back because I’ve always been impressed with how smartly the developers have been able to iterate – the latest one is always better than the one before, and after the fantastic EO4: Legends of the Titan, I genuinely wondered how they were going to top themselves. WTF …A piece of add-on content that boosts EXP? Ugh…Īs a longtime fan, I’ve played every game in the Etrian Odyssey series, and I do mean all of ‘em. LOW Feels like more of a grind than ever without… HIGH The Pugilist and Necromancer are great classes.
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