Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Beyond the Border~ => Akyu's Arcade => Topic started by: Ghaleon on August 29, 2015, 01:16:39 AM

Title: EO thread once again
Post by: Ghaleon on August 29, 2015, 01:16:39 AM
I wanted to reply in the old one but it's reaching necro age so:
https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,17673.0.html

Anyway, I got around to purchasing Etrian mystery dungeon a month ago or so, that being my first mystery dungeon game. And I'm actually having a hard time really getting into it. Though I suspect not for the reasons people think.
I've heard some people complain about the party members getting in each other's way and whatnot. But my complaints are the following:

1: Doesn't feel like a roguelike very much... feels more like a normal EO game in the sense that you kinda are stuck with your party and it levels up for dozens of hours, even in your first playthru. There's no risk of death or whatever...Simply deleting the save upon a wipe isn't really an option because the game is balanced/scaled to be done with a perma party in mind, not one where 20 hours means you pretty much endgame, but with challenge making it so simply getting that far is an accomplishment.

2: I think this is my biggest problem.. I'm trying to do a quest and I just can't get the materials. It's some quest where I have to gather 3 or 5 wood from the 2nd dungeon, I forget the wood type, timber or something? Anyway, I've done the 2nd dungeon like 8 times and I got 1.. yes one.. and yes, I've been skilling up my chopping skills, it's like 2 points away from max, and I STILL can't get the darn wood, and yes, my chopper is the one gathering it, not my herb dude or mine girl. stubborn quests happen I know, but I'm pretty much way overlevel now trying to do this one damn quest

3: Game doesn't really document stuff well. For example It's kind of hard to tell what the difference between an ordinary outpost is, and a scout outpost. I also recall the game saying that building an outpost in a dungeon "locks" it from being random, but they are still clearly random. I don't know what the heck the point is minus feeding exp to the people camping the fort. Also in EO fashion, skills don't really tell you the #s and %s...but this is a series habit so I don't hold it too against the game.

4: not the game's fault but last time I played there was virtually no information on the game via wiki or gamefaqs or anything. so if I was wondering something about the game, I was SOL.

Anyway, I still don't have EOU2, though I plan to get it. EO2 is my fave EO to date (4 was good but something about 2 clicked with me). Just curious though, Is EOU2 pretty much exactly the same to EO2 as EOU1 was to 1? Or is there something new that may interest me? I assume it has something like that gladheim dungeon? If so how is the music for the extra dungeon?
Title: Re: EO thread once again
Post by: Kilgamayan on August 29, 2015, 01:22:57 AM
EOU2 has a Gladsheim equivalent, yes. Purvis also tells me its rewrites a few plot things like what EOU1 did to EO1.

As for music, in my opinion, the atmosphere and battle songs are adequate-but-nothing-special, but the area boss music is super funky fresh and possibly the best track in the game. Unrelated to the side area, Scatter About also got a minor rework, and while purists may not like it as much, I fell in love with it instantly.
Title: Re: EO thread once again
Post by: Serela on August 29, 2015, 03:22:26 AM
EOU2's got a gladshiem and a new restaurant mini-thing. It made grimoires not stupid anymore (which is quite an accomplishment) and doesn't lock Sovereign or the new dungeon to story mode. Also the classes have all been heavily revamped and none of them are bad and all have multiple good ways to build them (this is very unusual for an eo game) so party composition is pretty fun.

For EMD, scout forts or whatnot scan a larger area of the dungeon (for DOEs and also room layout) and more importantly they have a geo pole in them so you can warp in/out of the dungeon at that point. If there is a fort, yes, the dungeon's layout does stop being random, however the game will not save your maps when you leave the floor so it doesn't matter much. (The randomness that is; the fort is important for warp points and DOEs) Also the quests do tend to be RNG droprates. There's like a quest per area that's "please bring me this very uncommon enemy drop". But yeah, it's not very roguelikey and it's not very EO-y, so it's kinda weird. The bosses tend to be chumps if you're not facing them with like no tp or no good attack/support, too. :T
Title: Re: EO thread once again
Post by: Garlyle on August 29, 2015, 09:14:37 AM
EOU2 is, generally speaking, a pretty damn good job.  There's one or two things that don't quite feel right; notably, the restaurant system feels like a lot of extra stuff attached to something that feels mostly self-contained (or on a bad day, irritating); EXP gain also feels kinda low.  On the good side though, the classes seem pretty well done, difficulty's fairly solid, the Grimoire system is like 100x more enjoyable (EOU1 got better when I just removed it from everyone and forgot about it), the new dungeon's pretty solid... yeah, you get the idea.  That they didn't make the same stupid mistakes as EOU1 in terms of limited accessibility equipment/classes/content forcing story mode, and generally made everything accessible in classic(*) helps a lot too.  Vanilla EO2 I actually didn't like too much; it just felt worse and too much like 'more of the same' from the original, but something about EOU2 has helped it actually stand as its own thing and made it more enjoyable to me.  IDK.

(*) - except Fafnir, who's not even a class you can put anyone else in, nor can his class be changed.  Also OP as fuck.

also DLC is a thing that I'm not quite happy with, but picking up the game on release I got almost all of it for free so I'm not terribly mad.  Slightly mad about the hot springs stuff
purely because if you're going to fanservice at least make it equal opportunity like... come on, if you're going to pander, pander!

Also on the subject of EMD... I have to admit I deleted it off my 3DS.  I just... didn't like it.  I did for about a day and then I just started feeling like every possibility it had was getting sucked away by the fact it was the Mystery Dungeon team putting this together and not being willing to actually break MD 'tradition' in ways it desperately needs to by now (one tile wide corridors into rooms 24/7 does not function with parties, you've had like four pokemon MDs to learn this by now)
Title: Re: EO thread once again
Post by: Kilgamayan on August 29, 2015, 12:18:19 PM
Quote from: Garlyle on August 29, 2015, 09:14:37 AM
Slightly mad about the hot springs stuff
purely because if you're going to fanservice at least make it equal opportunity like... come on, if you're going to pander, pander!

I've actually been wondering for a while now if replaying the mission multiple times fixes that issue.
Specifically, I've been wondering if beating it multiple times unlocks nude dude portraits. I admit that this is purely because I want to make Flavio run around naked when everyone else is in their proper clothes, though. If I can't do that, I'll be upset.
Title: Re: EO thread once again
Post by: Garlyle on August 30, 2015, 02:43:27 AM
Quote from: Kilgamayan on August 29, 2015, 12:18:19 PM
I've actually been wondering for a while now if replaying the mission multiple times fixes that issue.
Specifically, I've been wondering if beating it multiple times unlocks nude dude portraits. I admit that this is purely because I want to make Flavio run around naked when everyone else is in their proper clothes, though. If I can't do that, I'll be upset.
Sadly, no. 
I too would do exactly this though.  Flavio's too cute.  Maybe Fafnir too.
Title: Re: EO thread once again
Post by: theshirn on August 30, 2015, 01:40:12 PM
Fafnir's a twig.  It's kinda funny.
Title: Re: EO thread once again
Post by: Kilgamayan on November 29, 2015, 03:43:38 AM
So this happened (http://kilgamayan.tumblr.com/post/134162642771/).