I already cleared out the demo. Only thing I couldn't do was fighting the kangaroo FOEs (And thus no sneaking past them to get to the western half of the first area D:). Did successfully defeat the other two kinds of FOEs present however.
There's a lot of differences to note
-As stated, there's more than just the standard labyrinth this time. First, you have to find each 'stratum' - which are now separate dungeons you have to complete. You find them by flying to them. Unlike EO3's sea charting, which was more like a puzzle, flying to different stratums is like crossing its own area (with their own gigantic FOEs!) and things to find and collect. Making a trip to a dungeon manually lets you hunt some food on the way which you can cook to give a stat boost until you return to town/sell for cash. You can also find adventures that aren't just the major dungeons - there's smaller single-floor "Caves" to be found!
-Skills got a major overhauling. In addition to actually being shown as a skill tree now (letting you see at a glance what you need), access is also semi-restricted by your level - new sets of skills open up at level 20 and 40. Skill point maximums have been adjusted again heavily (Noticably, the class-specific 'innate' skills have been rebalanced to be awesome and ALSO only take up to 3 points, with one point each tier). Also, progression has been changed - for instance, levelling up skills may not necessarily increase the TP cost anymore if it's just a small effectiveness boost; generally, it's more friendly.
(It might sound bad that it 'locks off' later parts of the skill tree, but this makes it so much more manageable early on and lets you focus on the short term. Using the Rest command to reset skill points also is only a
two level penalty now, not the usual five! For once, you actually can focus on short-term skill development!)
-Speaking of which, there's no more Mine/Chop/Take skill eating up your skill points (
FINALLY). Material points can now be visited x times per day, on individual counters instead of shared ones, and the only related skills are one-point-only skills which raise the chance of getting rare/extra drops from them.
-Everything's like 100x more pretty,
especially the music.Things NOT covered in the demo:
-Subclassing from EO3
does return later. Unlike EO3's subclassing, however, you can
only raise subclass skills to half the normal max value - meaning which class is your lead class and which is your subclass affects a lot more this time around.
-If the first three classes seem kind of plain and familiar (excluding Dancer's weird troubadour-prince-swordsman mix), the unlockable classes are anything but.
even on 3DS FOE
