I’m a shameless fan of the Etrian Odyssey series. I have been since the mid-2000s, when I was struggling both with depression and long-term unemployment. My family was less-than-appreciative and so I turned to what was, historically, my outlet for my frustrations: Vidya. Problem was, I was constantly in and out of job placement centers and training facilities at the time. I needed something portable, and something that was legitimately different at the time. This is when Antipothis spoke up and sent me something via mail that I didn’t expect: The original Etrian Odyssey, on DS.
And thus began me becoming a fan. Etrian Odyssey was a clear callback to oldschool RPGs from when I was little – like Bard’s Tale or Wizardry – but in many ways was its own beast. The game was so influential on me and so beloved by me that I wound up buying – and playing to 100% completion – every game in the series so far. Whilst there’s one that I haven’t completed in its entirety yet, I will eventually, and I can now say, with complete assurance that it’s one of the better series of RPGs out there – and I can now safely say which games are the best in it.
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Before I begin, I want to get across: In no way am I suggesting that any of the Etrian games that are low on this list “bad.” If they were, they wouldn’t have me as a fan, nor so many others. With that in mind, let’s strap on our rose-tinted goggles and cover pretty much Etrian Odyssey Game, in order from worst to best in overall quality:
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6. Etrian Odyssey (2007)Etrian Odyssey may have been a ground-breaker at the time, noted for its unusual difficulty, unique mapping system, and setting, but it’s also a flawed masterpiece. In much the same way that the earliest Pokemon games are fun but hilariously buggy and glitch-ridden, Etrian Odyssey‘s first game is one riddled with problems. The FOE encounter system is noted for potentially making fights unescapable if your back is to a wall. The game’s difficulty spikes are numerous and anus-shattering, and the game’s plagued with a series of brain-dead design decisions and outright bugs (for example, only two major enemies in the entire game are vulnerable to electricity – the first FOE you fight and the Stratum 2 boss). The game is virtually unbeatable without a very specific party design and ability set – whilst the game is theoretically beatable without these, it’s goling to be a ridiculously uphill battle. Etrian Odyssey also has the most primitive graphics of the set and a number of bizarre choices for the overall game setup.
However, beyond all these problems, Etrian Odyssey is a game that defied covnentions in many ways. In a world where conventional wisdom was that people didn’t like oldschool JRPGs, Etrian Odyssey was a game that came out, being a game type and game style that was tacitly believed to not be successful anymore, and created a critical and commercial success. The story for Etrian Odyssey is also unique in that it establishes that EO’s universe is, in fact, our own, and the various big implications of its plot make it a worthy game in terms of fluff as well. From this humble beginning, an entire empire of niche games would flow.5. Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City (2010)I feel remiss putting Etrian III so low on my list; it’s easily the most ambitious Etrian game of its age and has one of – if not the – best overall storyline in the series, with multiple endings and one of the most robust sub-systems of the early Etrian games. However, Etrian III is a game with serious problems – almost all of them mechanical and having to do with internal balance and the game being rushed rather than more immaterial shortcomings. Class balance, in Etrian III, is atrocious, with classes ranging from concentrated godliness to utter fail, and the subclass system essentially making many choices in the game irrelevant. This lack of internal class balance absolutely ruins great swaths of the game’s overall playability, and the rushed nature of the build team for Etrian III leaks out in gurgles due to the map design; Etrian Odyssey III is a much smaller game than previous Etrian games due to slashing and burning to reach a deadline, and it shows – most of the Stratums are much shorter and harder to navigate solely to make them more of a challenge. Etrian III did add sailing mechanics and team quests, but this is a small comfort because you can’t really explore the world very much and the bulk of it’s just there to give you some new bosses to fight, many of which you’ve fought before. It also brought the forging system, an easily min-maxed system for weapon customization…. That ultimately also made the game significantly more grindy.
Where Etrian III makes up for all this is in its other areas. It has easily the best soundtrack of the original trio of games, with its boss theme, FOE theme, and final boss themes being consistently rated amongst the best of all the games. It brought us the (hilariously lopsided) early subclass system and numerous refinements to the engine and game design (even if it wound up being intensely buggy). The seafaring, though almost entirely accessory, did a lot to make the world feel more alive and expansive, and the storyline, again, is one of the darkest, most interesting, and most ominous of the set. If it weren’t for what had to be sacrificed to make it happen, and for what else was involved, Etrian III would doubtlessly be at least one slot higher in this list, if not two.
4. Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard (2008)Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard is widely considered to be one of – if not the – best of the original Etrian trilogy. It has the distinction of being remembered more fondly than its predecessors, though it’s hard to see why if you’re new to the series – Etrian III does seem to have more content – but this is only at a glance. Etrian Odyssey II is a great example of how even when you make a mis-step and screw many things up, it’s still possible to do so much good in the process that it remains a net win. Etrian II has two of the worst things ever in any Etrian game: zero experience when killing FOEs and the single worst level-cap removal system in the history of video games – but the rest of the game is so robust and handles so well that it doesn’t really matter. Building on Etrian Odyssey, Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard adds enough that it’s hard to go wrong with, fleshing out existing characters and adding multiple new options. The two new classes, though somewhat middling, are nonetheless quite interesting and offer many unique tricks all their own. For the first time, a Medic was no longer a necessity, and for the first time, neither was any class, really, offering you more flexibility. All of this was backed by Etrian Odyssey II‘s fantastic storyline, which is one of the stronger ones in terms of narrative and excellent class balance, which was far better than the previous game – and indeed the one after it – in virtually every capacity.
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Etrian II‘s biggest drawbacks were its music – which whilst excellent, was not as good a the other games in the series overall – and its progression, which was actively fairly user-hostile, demanding a player retire a character dozens of times to reach the level cap. In a game with no FOE XP. Players fought on despite this, however, and beating the true final boss at the basic level cap is hardly an unheard-of occurrence, marking Etrian II as being stronger than its shortcomings. It just edges out Etrian III on this list because of its across-the-board improvements; it falls behind Etrian Untold in this list solely because Etrian Untold is put together better.
3. Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millenium Girl (2013)Etrian Untold marks a new chapter in the series – the second of the 3DS Etrian games, Etrian Untold was a remake and added a host of new facts and information to the canon of the series. From a purely technical standpoint, Etrian Untold is an incredible achievement, implementing voice-acting, a full-fledged conventional story mode, and a host of other new features, plus an entirely new dungeon and bosses – to the existing framework of Etrian Odyssey. It also added the new lower difficulties for Etrian newcomers, whilst keeping the game challenging and brutal for the oldschoolers. The result is an overall solid game with significant promise, echoing the original game whilst at the same time being its own beast. Gone are the oft brain-dead original shortcomings of the first Etrian Odyssey – the game is smooth, polished, and relatively well-balanced. The music is fantastic and the story is excellent, deepening the story of the original Etrian Odyssey game. However, this is definitely the weakest of the three 3DS Etrian game so far, not necessarily through any one specific major issue, but through a host of smaller ones that are big enough that they cannot be ignored.
Like the first Etrian Odyssey, Etrian Untold is a game with some shortcomings. Lacking the subclassing system, Etrian Untold brings the player the Grimoire Stone system, a system that allows the player to essentially subclass in a fashion whilst potentially getting the skills of the monsters as well – but unfortunately the new system is so heavily lopsided and such an incoherent mess that the system is almost entirely luck-based, to the point of being considered tacitly unusable if it weren’t for the fact that the game has item duplication tricks for spamming Grimoire Stone-related items. Moreover, Etrian Untold has much lower experience curves and less viable farming methodologies for leveling up than in the games to follow on this list. So whilst Etrian Untold is, storyline-wise and gameplay-wise, head and shoulders above its predecessors, it’s ultimately hamstrung by some of the few areas it screws up. Some of these are the inevitable result of relying on the original game as a base; others seem to be the result of trying to do something different. Regardless, it’s a solid game, and certainly deserving of its place on this list. Whilst the weakest of the “new” Etrian games, it’s most assuredly one of the most interesting ones and worthy of a spot on this list. The refinements to the game are simply too big to ignore, even with the myriad of minor issues it has.
2. Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan (2012)To date, Etrian IV is the most successful Etrian game in terms of sales, and with good reason – it’s undeniably one of the best games in the series not only in terms of balance, but in terms of overall quality, and do accomplish all this whilst making for o
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