So Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 came out a few weeks ago, and while EOU2 is a great game, this thread is about the OTHER dungeon crawling game with a 2 in the title. And that's Dungeon Travelers 2! Since the game comes out this Tuesday, I figured it was time for an info thread, since this game will probably fly under a lot of radars. For those who have never heard of this game before or haven't tried the demo on PSN yet, here's a primer:
Warning: This game contains fanservice(it was rated 17+ in Japan for a reason). I can argue about the game itself being good despite the fanservice all day, but a lot of people can't stand fanservice and honestly I don't blame them at all. Every time you beat a boss in this game, there's an obligatory fanservice scene(since most of the enemies are girls). Additionally, since the entire party is also girls and the game changes their outfits depending on class, even your party combination can be limited if you're like me and hate awful costumes. If you're not willing to look away or skip text during obligatory fanservice scenes and/or can't stand bad outfits, you may want to look into other games such as Etrian Odyssey Untold 2, Operation Babel/Abyss, Class of Heroes 1/2/3/Final, etc.
So what is this game?This is a first person dungeon crawling JRPG, similar to Etrian Odyssey, Demon Gaze, etc. etc. In terms of the character customization, it's closer to EO than Experience games like Demon Gaze/Operation Babel/etc. Though it's called Dungeon Travelers 2, it is completely unrelated to the first Dungeon Travelers and is pretty much an improvement in every way, so you can safely play this without thinking about what you missed in the first.
How does the game work?-Dungeon crawling
Dungeon crawling is in first person, and tiles can have traps(that can be nullified by certain class abilities). Luckily, there are no chest traps since there's no thief class. One way passages and invisible walls are prevalent in this game, though the walls can be revealed via a light spell or an item. Saving can be done anywhere, anytime, and there's a reason why: mobs in this game can and will randomly destroy you, especially if you encounter "special" monsters like krakens, dragons, etc. Escaping from combat in this game pushes you back to the tile you tried to move from(including doors with forced encounters on the other side), and if you've just come from a one way door, escape is impossible, so be careful!
-Character building
There's a set cast of characters, each with base classes that cannot be changed, that can "promote" up a class tree. Here are all the class trees in the game:
Valkyrie
Paladin
Fighter Samurai
Berserker
Dark Lord
Witch
Sorcerer Magical Princess
Mage Enchanter
Priestess Sage
Bishop
Diva
Bard
Maid Mistress
Dancer
Etoile
Soul Summoner
Doll Master
Spiera Papillon
Trickster
Joker
(Don't ask me what a Spiera is, I don't know!)
Each 2nd tier can only promote to two of the options in the 3rd tier. For example, a Paladin can promote to a Valkyrie or a Samurai, but not a Dark Lord.
Class skills are handled in a similar fashion to EO, every time you level up you gain points that you can invest into skills. Unlike EO though, skill points do not go up by 1, instead it's more like 1+(tens digit of level). This is because leveling skills costs more as the level goes up, probably to prevent people from getting really strong too fast. A typical class skill set looks like this:
As you promote, you retain all the skills of your previous class, so a Berserker/Samurai will play a little different from a Paladin/Samurai, for example.
-Loot and gear
Loot and gear is mostly based on random drops, which must be identified at the store for a small amount of money. Enemies can also drop usable items, but their effects are not explained by the game, so be careful about using them before you've tried it out first. Defeating many of a certain type of enemy results in you being able to make a "seal" from them, which doubles as an accessory, as shown here:
These seals can be forged onto gear later in the game, but the enemy you made a seal from must be higher level than your gear in order for it to increase in stats. The effect of the seal can also be transferred to gear, but which effects get transferred are random so there's a bit of menu manipulation you have to do(mostly just mashing confirm and cancel until you get the stuff you want).
-Combat
Unlike EO and Demon Gaze where you input commands and then the turn plays out, Dungeon Travelers 2 opts for a FFX style turn system, where everyone's turn is shown in a queue.
The most annoying oversight(?) in this game is that it does NOT tell you where your next action will place you on the queue. This is particularly disastrous for healers, since you have no idea whether your heal spell will activate before everyone dies.
-Quests
This game, like many others of its kind, has quests. There are only two kinds in this game though, killing quests and fetch quests. Handing them in grants no EXP, only the item reward that is posted with the quest prompt. However, it's still recommended to do them to increase your quest level, as it grants various perks like increased inventory or access to new dungeons.
For more reading, pictures, etc. you can try looking at the old and dead LP thread
here.
