Etrian Odyssey

So I was recently playing the demo for Etrian Odyssey IV: Lengends of the Titan on my 3DS and I thought it was a pretty cool game despite never playing any of the Etrian Odyssey games. It reminded me of The Quest series for iOS, the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series among other things, and the Dragon Quest series among other things. You even get to transfer your save file from the demo to the full version when you get it. I gave it some though and I've decided that I was going to preorder it, which would give me an exclusive launch edition with an exclusive soundtrack and art book.

Have you heard of the game? Have you tried it out? What are your thoughts on this game? Do you plan on preordering or buying it?

I'd like to hear your opinions about this game o 3o Or you could just turn this into a discussion thread for the Etrian Odyssey series of games.

I have the first one for DS but I haven't had a chance to play it yet.

I've played the third one and it was fun (albeit pretty difficult), but one of my friends is a huge fan of the series and he's really excited for the next one. I might try it out sometime to get a feel for the mechanics, but I'm unsure as to whether I'll buy it yet.

The game was just released today (well it's still the 26th for me) and I picked up my copy earlier today. I absolutely love the dungeon crawler aspect of the game and enjoy filling in the map by exploring and drawing in details myself. I feel there is a large amount of content contained within that will entertain me for a good amount of time.

Also, I pre-ordered it so I got the soundtrack and art book with it. I'm a bit of a collector so I took the game out and put everything back into the box and back into the shrink wrap it came in.

I have the Japanese version of the fourth game! Having a Japanese 3DS has its benefits sometimes.

EO4 is so visually appealing! The graphics are improved from previous games and the animations look amazing. But of course, we don't just play this game for graphics do we...

FOEs have their own sprites in the dungeon, and I've heard people say that the orange/red/whatever furballs are better because they take away mystery and suspense - to put an example, I've seen people say that there's a chance that you might encounter a party killer instead when you were expecting another FOE you've met and beaten already. Sucks, but I myself don't mind. There's still the fact that FOEs will kill you if you're not careful with exploring.

And the skill point system is pretty convenient too! Players will know that instead of a drop-down list, they have a skill tree (?), which makes it easier for people to know what skills they unlocked when the characters learn/upgrade a skill. It's unfortunate they added Novice, Veteran and Master tiers. That means Medics can't revive anyone until they're level 20. Buying nectars and healing at the inn are so expensive, mang!

This is getting a bit too long, so I'll just end this with the 'casual mode' feature, which I've tried on the demo. What it really changes is that you receive less damage in battle; your warp wires isn't consumed when you use them, meaning you pretty much can warp back whenever you want; and you get sent back to town when your party is wiped instead of a game over. It's pretty much a free, permanent ticket to less frustration and time wasted because frankly, you die a LOT in Normal mode. Though I never use this mode, because it's part of the challenge :]

So yeah, this is my two cents on the game as of now. I'm right at the end of the 2nd stratum in IV as of this post.