EOUII Rantage!

[Maxine MagicFox]

*sigh* work seems so slow today. Time is being cruel to me. *sobs*

Edit later: I'm hyping so bad at work. It's not even funny. x_x

It's only 11am... *sigh*

[Maxine MagicFox]

GameFaqs users are reporting that the demo is out now in the shop. My day suddenly feels EVEN SLOWER!

[Sigma]

There is one nice touch in the skill menu that I absolutely love. There's an option on the bottom screen to see what further investment in the skill does without having to actually invest in the skill. Example: TP cost of the skill going down or up, power increases, etc..

[Maxine MagicFox]

... I... I want to name my hero Sigurd... for obvious reasons (if you dunno, check your norse mythology and "fafnir"... and then just look up awesome dragon stories in general)... ^_^; but I'm almost afraid that maybe that name might come up somewhere in the game. Maybe I should stay away from it. Maybe Regin or even Siegfried would be better choices... Hrrrrm...

I'm about to take a shower and FINALLY start the demo... with whatever name I decide to go with.

OH! I got it! I'm going to go with Graham. In honor of the sword Gram. This way it avoids any possible storyline paths XD while still being very intouch with the old norse mythology. Geez, I was even starting to wander into Tolkien territory to be close but still far away. Hell I was even thinking about Bard since you know *cough*Smaug=Fafnir*cough*. Might have went with Andvari but the girl's name starts with an A.

*sigh* No. Graham it is.

[sponge7325]

No, Atlus, you can't do this! I don't have the money! This demo, it'll kill me! You can't do this to me! I'm too young to dieeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Egh, I'm gonna totally download this ASAP, but I'm just kinda dreading it because I KNOW that I'm going to love it, but I just can't spare any money to actually buy it and having it hanging over my head, especially with other games that I want coming out soon, it's gonna be so dang stressful. On the other hand, EOU's demo was long enough to hold me, hopefully this one will be the same. I swear though, one day I'm bored because I don't have any games to progress in, the next day I have just too many things ta' play. RIP the idea of me sleeping tonight. :>

[Maxine MagicFox]

Has anyone figured out exactly how Break works? I've only ever seen the option available the first time I got the girl in the first battle. It was selectable as the first move. Since then I've no idea. I can't trigger it on any of the characters. I'm probably missing something obvious aren't I?

Also does the Force gauge not reset when you go to town or something. Admittedly I've not paid much attention to it, but I swear it's just suddenly filled up and I don't even feel like I did much.

[Sigma]

Another thing that I've come to love is the new addition to the bestiary entries. They now encompass
status and bind resistances instead of just both physical and elemental.

[Maxine MagicFox]

o_o Oooooh. Nevermind my question. I reached the point in the game where it finally explained. Now I feel like a doofus. LOL

[sponge7325]

Despite this being written in past tense this is for the most part being written while I'm playing the game, it's just easier to write that way for me. Anyways RAMBLING GO!
So, I booted up the demo, and even at first I had a few nitpicks (Voice acting for some characters sounded way off, changing the menu sound from something I found to be nice an iconic to a generic "DA DA DA DAAAAA" sort of thing. And yes, I know it's the victory theme and all but eh still), though nothing major. The only thing I really liked was the mention of Armoroad, but that was about it. "Etrian Odyssey really doesn't lend itself well into making it's characters for you," I had thought to myself, because up to that point both the MC (Who I also named Graham because I'm original and I couldn't get the name out'a my head) and Flavio meant nothing to me. When I normally start an EO game, I have a ton of fun coming up with the characters, everyone does this to an extent, and its more a problem with the sub-series itself which is why I hope they don't plan on taking it anywhere extremely far.
But... Going back into that dungeon felt unreal. I haven't played a true EO game, not counting Mystery Dungeon, in SUCH a long time, and hearing that music again, seeing that style again, I feel it's something deeply personal to me. I forgot everything that I had held against the game up to that point and decided I was gonna give this game a fair shot.
So I got into my first battle, the music and overall feel wasn't as exciting as I hoped, and the 'Are you sure?' before ending a turn is rather annoying, though the first problem is probably cause it's only the demo, and the second was easily fixed in the options.
Another issue I'm beginning to realize with having talking party members, it's that they have emotions. This sounds odd, but think of it, in a normal EO game, your party members don't go "Whoopie, I'm so happy!" or "Aw, I'm so sad", they have a sort of thing where you KNOW how they feel, but it doesn't detract from the the feeling that YOUR feeling, like it does when someone blurts it out in Untold games. Plus they don't stop every ten seconds to talk to each other.
Also, as soon as Wulfgar got into my party, it became perfectly viable just to auto through every battle. This is not a good way to start an EO game, in my opinion. Something similar happened in EOU but that didn't feel quite the same, because you knew it was happening, in this it's like, "Wanna have a challenge? Well here's a dog that will murder everything for you! Have fun!"
Immediately after I had done everything available to me in the Labyrinth, I saved and quit, mostly because it was quite late but partly I just didn't want to do anything else, and an EO game has NEVER made me feel like that before. So now I'm worried.
I appreciate what EOU2 is trying to do for the series, but this game doesn't feel like Etrian Odyssey. Maybe I'm not remembering it correctly, but even EOU still FELT Etrian.
With my feelings on the game being basically "I want this game because it's an Etrian Odyssey game, but dislike everything else they added to it so far" I'm at a crossroads. When I buy this game, should I just get Story Mode over with so I can actually do EVERYTHING and hope it gets better, then switch to classic, like I did with EOU, just go right to Classic and not look back, or should I just skip this entirely and go buy the original Etrian Odyssey 2? Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

EDIT: Just to note, I wrote this whole thing at 3 in the morning so if it's incredibly confusing to understand, well, there's your reason I guess.

[Kimiko]

Yah, that's kinda my feelings about this game as well (haven't looked at the demo yet though). I'll get it just because it's EO, but what should I play?
I've already played EO2, so if I play Classic it'd just be for the new graphics. I don't care for the new version of the music (FM synth all the way for me), and the Grimoire system I don't really like either.
So should I play only Story then because it's the new thing I haven't seen yet? I'm not sure I'll like the main character and his interaction with the rest of the party, plus forced characters goes against one of the main draws of the EO series.
Probably I'll end up playing just Story so I can get the extra background on the EO-verse.
Looking forward to EO5 which will finally be a new main series game. I hope they will have ditched the Grimoire thing by then.

[Sigma]

[Maxine MagicFox]

Here's my rebuttals and my opinion so far on the game.

Wulfgar was just another extension of what EOU did for us with Ren&Tlachtga. A "hey, we know you have no healer, not even a full party, let's give you something." I'll be completely honest, by the time i reached Wulfgar I was so screwed and in need of a healer that I practically cried THANK YOU. It felt like that moment in the original Shin Megami Tensei game for the SNES when your mom dies and you talk to your dog and choose for him to come with you and fuse him and suddenly HE'S FUCKING CERBERUS at LEVEL 43!

Yeah, it was that moment for me.

I turned off voices (because even in the first one I did this - I just don't like the voice interruption). I also turned down the System sound. Agreed I also felt it was a bit off. I wonder if it's a demo thing. They do warn that the music is off when you start the game or something. Meh, it seems fine now. I also turned off "confirm battle" but left on "confirm auto battle" because I wish I had a dime for every motherf-ing time I accidentally hit the wrong shoulder button to look up enemy stats.

I love the new monster compendium and all the stats (someone else has already mentioned this). I actually love the characters for what they are for the story. XD Some of the options it has given me for the hero has been "omg, you seriously gave me that option?!" A few responses have been on the level of


:O I also love what they do with the icons. At first I was worried they were going to be too much like PQ. I both hated the shortcut icon and loved it because it made it too easy, but I liked that it did help. In this game I still have the choice of setting my own icons and now ^_^ it just lights up once it's been unlocked. Also the treasure chest markings are awesome. Those are going to be wonderful so if you get a game over you know which ones you have to go grab again. The lighting up of the Gathering Points is awesome too.

One of things that I'm absolutely going to love is that there are multiple save files. So that way when I feel like playing the story mode - I can, but when I don't and I want that classic EO feel I'll be able to switch to that. Because I agree. As wonderful as the stories are, they aren't my EO games. They aren't me imagining up my own ideas and characters and stories. But at the same time I do enjoy the stories from the Untold versions but... uggg, SUCH A HARD CHOICE!

Anyways, I'm thinking of switching the team up. They have Arianna in the front and I'm thinking... wouldn't it be better to have her in the back and give her like a crossbow or something and then stick Flavio in the front. He's the agile "you can't hit me" one. I feel he's somewhat wasted in the back since most enemies aim for the front first. I'm already having an issue with Arianna being a glass cannon. Hrrrm....


Edit:
Also, let's just put something in perspective here. How do you guys feel that this is the same game as EO2? Granted, I know it has that title but other than the name of the classes being the same with similar abilities... isn't everything else changed. And when you get right down to it, isn't that what every other EO game does when it's released? The sceneries have been updated, we have new map layouts, classes have been given altered abilities so that even though they may say the same name it's altogether very different than in the original. Apart from knowing the stratums and the gist of the story isn't it kinda different? And since we've all made it clear that we aren't playing for the story...

So what's your argument with not playing through Classic mode again? ^_^

[Maxine MagicFox]

[Sigma]

[Maxine MagicFox]

A glitch? I always mapped my staircases first and then unlocked. I never saw that glitch (and believe me, I received PLENTY of game overs). Huh, weird.

I'm thinking of doing Classic first as well or side-by-side runs. I just know as interesting as the first Untold game was for me for story mode, I got bored with it and popped in EOIV. And then later erased it which I've regretted ever since, but then again I didn't remember the story mode anymore.