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Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City LP - Part 1
If you've known me for five seconds, you either know I'm obsessed with horrible, disgusting sea creatures, or you know I'm obsessed with Etrian Odyssey.
Thankfully, Etrian Odyssey III has both of these things!
Etrian Odyssey is the third title in the series, obviously, and is the most polished of the three games that came out for the original Nintendo DS. Etrian Odyssey had difficulties with balancing its skills, Etrian Odyssey II had an absolutely insane postgame level-up system that made everyone angry and wasted everyone's time, and...well, Etrian Odyssey III threw out all the classes and conventions from EO1 and EO2 and made its own. And that was a very wise decision.
The later entries in the series, beginning with Etrian Odyssey IV and moving into the more polished remakes of EO1 and EO2, are good, and certainly the menus and skill trees are designed better than EO3's, but the issue of balance remains in all of these games. I feel that Etrian Odyssey III is the most balanced Etrian Odyssey game to date; it is so good, in fact, that I would be satisfied if it did not receive an update.
It's an extremely important game to me, and I want to share the story with everyone, since the gameplay is definitely not the most user-accessible. The Etrian Odyssey series is notorious for its difficulty and grind-heavy nature. So I'll be suffering in your stead! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
The story of Etrian Odyssey III begins in Armoroad, a city in the southern tropics, surrounded by blue sea and skies...
The game opens with some background on the city of Armoroad itself. It's fallen on hard times, and relies on its Labyrinth to attract explorers who will hopefully spend their money on supplies, armor, and weapons. The exact nature of the Labyrinth is unknown, so many explorers long to be the first to discover its secrets. We are one such explorer, and we are seeking fame and fortune by unearthing everything the Labyrinth is hiding.
The only place we can go is the Explorers Guild, so let's go!
This is the Guildmaster, responsible for overseeing new guilds. He hands us a Guild Certificate, upon which we can engrave a worthy name for our own group of adventurers, and some scrolls, which I'll explain a bit later.
So, what kind of name should we pick? This is a name that will certainly be known throughout history, the guild that shook the very foundations of Armoroad itself, the first explorers to reach the truth of the Labyrinth!
That looks about right.
After the Guildmaster compliments us on our exquisite taste in guild names, he tells us we need to recruit some people to go adventuring with. I took the first five characters given to me on Plurk, so we have...quite an interesting party.
This is the character creation screen! You choose the name first, which is why it says "Hitomi" in the corner up there. (Or, at least, it should, but theemulator device I'm using has issues displaying the letters I and L, and the font is a little wonky to begin with.) There are a description of all the classes and what they can do, but since we'll be using five, I'll only go into detail on those. Guest characters of other classes are introduced, so using them as examples, I can extrapolate on the roads not taken.
You're given four portraits to choose from: two men, and two women. This is the case with all of the classes, though some of the male characters are androgynous enough to be mistaken for women.
If those color palettes just don't do it for you, you can press Y to go to the alternate color palettes, bringing the choice of portraits up to 8.
We'll go with this one here. Hitomi is our first recruit, so I suppose you can think of her as the leader of the group. She is a Farmer. What kind of class is a Farmer? Well, according to the class description...
Farmer: These farmers seek to apply their wisdom to navigating the Labyrinth despite their clumsiness in battle. Exploration specialists of the back line.
That doesn't sound very good for combat! She'll need some strong, defensive people to protect her. How about a pure defensive class?
This is Sagaris, our Hoplite.
Hoplite: Their golden armor gives them unequalled defense, while their spears provide a strong offense. Defense specialists on either line.
While it's true that Hoplites do have attacking skills to some extent, they get most of their utility from their raw defense and their fantastic defensive skills. For example, they can greatly reduce and eventually nullify elemental damage, which is something we'll need more and more the further we go into the Labyrinth.
Chelly is our Princess. This class was renamed to the gender-neutral Sovereign in Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, but since this isn't an EOU2 run, we're sticking with Princess.
Princess: Those of royal blood from kingdoms large and small. Their orders raise morale to turn the tide. Supporting combatants on either line.
The Princess is one of my favorite classes in the series. They are buff specialists, capable of raising your party's attack and defense and getting rid of an enemy's buffs. They can also choose to dispel the buffs they give in order to heal the party or do damage to enemies. It's a very versatile class, and one that I absolutely love using.
Our sole male party member is Edgardo, a Monk.
Monk: With the power of qi, they can both heal and inflict wounds. Their bare hands are stronger than weapons. Healing specialists of either line.
While normally used as a healing class, I'll be taking an offensive route with Edgardo. It'll be difficult, especially as the need for healing goes up, but hopefully Chelly will be able to pick up that slack when we unlock a certain ability. This party is sorely lacking in damage dealers, so I have to have someone doing damage - and Edgardo will be one of those someones.
The other someone in charge of damage is Elita. She is a Zodiac.
Zodiac: Scientific magicians who manipulate the etheric energy of the stars. Highly valuable in battle. Elemental attackers of the back line.
In other words, they're the mages of the game, and very valuable. They have elemental attacks, and a passive that increases the amount of damage they do when they use an element the enemy is weak to, among many other useful skills. Their only downside is they are slow to get going, and are very expensive, TP-wise, at the beginning of the game.
That means, for now, Edgardo is our main muscle. The single defender of his cute granddaughters.
Now that we've got our party built, we need to arrange it. Rows are very important in Etrian Odyssey: the front row usually takes the brunt of the damage, while the back row is dealt less damage if attacked directly in addition to being uncommon targets. Conversely, the front row deals more damage than the back row, unless the class in the back row is capable of using ranged attacks or weapons. Ranged attacks deal full damage no matter where the target is, making them valuable. Edgardo isn't good with ranged attacks, but Elita specializes in them, so it's a good balance to have.
Sagaris, Chelly, and Edgardo will be taking the front. Sagaris and Chelly are from very beefy classes, so they'll be able to take a lot of hits, and while Edgardo is a little more fragile he'll still certainly have more defense than Hitomi and Elita. Besides, we need him in the front row to make the most of his offensive capabilities.
There are a couple of other options on the menu: Organize, and Talk. Organize allows you to get rid of party members, rest them, or retire them. I'll go into detail about resting and retiring when it becomes relevant, because knowing how I play this game, it will become relevant. Talk just gives you an opportunity to speak to the NPCs, but it's not particularly important or interesting. Mostly, they give advice on how to play the game, but since I'm explaining that for you, I'll leave the Talk choice alone most of the time.
The Guildmaster brings our attention to the scripts he gave us, while simultaneously throwing shade at us. This guy is impressive.
What he's given us are scrolls that allow us to use skills as a group called Limit skills. For now, we've got three: the Cross Script, the Resolve Script, and the Offense Script. In order to use a Limit skill, you assign each person a slot in that skill. Some of them only require one person to activate, but others take multiple party members, and they must all be alive. These are activated in addition to your normal turn - so you can attack and use a Limit in the same turn. A Limit skill is usable once the Limit meter is full, and it drains after you use it, requiring you to build it back up again through battle.
Some of them aren't very impressive, but others can be genuine life-savers.
Taking the Guildmaster's advice about the scripts to heart, we depart to meet with the Senatus.
Almost immediately, more shade is thrown at us. It isn't mentioned at this point in time, but her name is Flowdia, and she is the head of the government in Armoroad. She is responsible for issuing licenses to guilds that have proven themselves worthy of one; therefore, we need to speak to her and fulfill her request before we can truly begin the game.
Her test is simple: map the first floor of the Labyrinth. Sounds easy enough, right?
She even gives us a parchment to use for a map.
Upon receiving the map, the bottom screen displays it. It seems a few of the squares have already been drawn in for us. Thanks, Flowdia!
Now that the rest of the town is available to visit, let's check everything out before we head into the forest.
The most important facility is Aman's Inn. This is where you come to have your HP healed, and to revive your dead or petrified party members if you have no skills or items that can do that for you. You can also store any items you don't need at the time. All of these cost money, but we only have 500 en, so we're not going to waste any by spending the night when we're perfectly fine.
The one free feature in Aman's Inn is the ability to save. This is the only save point in town.
Next, we decide to visit Napier's Firm. It's a business run by a vaguely shady woman who tries her best to eke out every cent you have - so, basically, I always end up associating her with Reimu Hakurei.
The Reimu-alike explains that in her shop, the customers are like God, as long as they are willing to compensate her excellent services with money. She will also rely on us to bring in new materials that she can make items out of, and she will reward us for our hard work by taking all of our money.
You purchase all of your items, weapons, and armor from this store. We don't have enough ental (the Etrian Odyssey series' currency of choice) to upgrade everyone just yet, so we'll hold off for now. Let's see what items we can purchase...
Only Medicas are available. These heal a small amount of HP, and are pretty useful for the early game. They're also cheap as hell, so we'll purchase some of them later. Though the only thing we have to do is draw a map, the Labyrinth is purported to be a dangerous place, so we should always have some sort of healing items on-hand, especially since it will take a while to get Chelly to where she needs to be when it comes to restoring HP.
The next stop is the Butterfly Bistro, home of the sidequests. Missy, the owner, can't give anything out to newbies, however; we must first prove ourselves worthy of the title of Armoroad explorers.
Missy speaks in an unidentified accent, and her English isn't the best, so sometimes she ends up saying things like this. It's pretty cute. There's usually at least one character who speaks strangely in every town, and in EO3's case, it's Missy.
She suggested we talk to the other patrons of the bar, so let's do just that! I didn't get a screencap of it, but there's a "Gather information" option at the Bistro, and there's only one person here. He's a troubadour by the name of Wolfram, and he offers to sing us some songs.
(As a note, Troubadours are a class from Etrian Odyssey I and II, and he mentions he comes from the north, where High Lagaard is located - so he probably comes from the town that Etrian Odyssey II takes place in. No doubt here for a tropical vacation after those harsh northern winds.)
Our options are to hear about Armoroad itself, something called the "Calamity," and the Princess of Armoroad.
We decide to hear about the city first, because by knowing more about where we are we can make more informed decisions in and about it.
Wolfram tells us of the downfall of the royal family of Armoroad, and informs us that Flowdia pretty much runs the place. He doesn't seem to like her much, referring to her as a "fearsome old crone," and elaborates that there's more to the royal family than the barebones explanation he's given - but he'll save that story for another time.
Slightly frustrated with him for giving us next to no information, we ask about the Calamity next.
Given the state Armoroad is in, it seems impossible, but it was once a technological paradise, home to such advanced technology that everyone desired a trade route to it. However, about 100 years ago, the center of the city suddenly sunk into the ocean, vanishing without a trace.
Not only that, but since the city's disappearance, natural disasters have wreaked havoc among the people who live there, and all diplomatic and trade negotiations died with Armoroad's technology. Since then, it's been a struggle just to get back to where it's been, but Armoroad is still desperately poor, and desperately in need of the economy that can be provided by a healthy wave of incoming explorers.
On the bright side, the center of the city sinking revealed a Labyrinth, which Armoroad has used to entice said explorers into showing up and spending there money. That said, it's still a long road ahead of them if they ever want to get back to their former glory.
It is a bad situation, but hopefully, Guild Kickbutt will be able to make discoveries so amazing it drags Armoroad out of the muck.
Finally, we decide to ask about the Princess. If there's a Princess, why is Flowdia in charge?
Apparently, there's a princess named Gutrune, who is more of a figurehead these days, but she is referred to as the Princess of Porcelain for her amazingly pale, flawless skin, and her beautiful singing voice. Though Wolfram has never laid eyes on her himself, she is described in songs and stories as impossibly beautiful, on par with true goddesses.
That's all the information he has to offer, and with that, there's one stop left before we embark on our journey.
Heading to Inver Port gets us nowhere. This guy won't even talk to us until we've returned with a completed map in our hands, but he mentions something about ships...well, this is a city surrounded by water, so it's only natural they'd have things like that.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that our options are limited until we fulfill Flowdia's request, so we approach the entrance to the Labyrinth, swallow our fear, and take our first steps...
To be continued in Part 2
Thankfully, Etrian Odyssey III has both of these things!
Etrian Odyssey is the third title in the series, obviously, and is the most polished of the three games that came out for the original Nintendo DS. Etrian Odyssey had difficulties with balancing its skills, Etrian Odyssey II had an absolutely insane postgame level-up system that made everyone angry and wasted everyone's time, and...well, Etrian Odyssey III threw out all the classes and conventions from EO1 and EO2 and made its own. And that was a very wise decision.
The later entries in the series, beginning with Etrian Odyssey IV and moving into the more polished remakes of EO1 and EO2, are good, and certainly the menus and skill trees are designed better than EO3's, but the issue of balance remains in all of these games. I feel that Etrian Odyssey III is the most balanced Etrian Odyssey game to date; it is so good, in fact, that I would be satisfied if it did not receive an update.
It's an extremely important game to me, and I want to share the story with everyone, since the gameplay is definitely not the most user-accessible. The Etrian Odyssey series is notorious for its difficulty and grind-heavy nature. So I'll be suffering in your stead! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
The story of Etrian Odyssey III begins in Armoroad, a city in the southern tropics, surrounded by blue sea and skies...
The game opens with some background on the city of Armoroad itself. It's fallen on hard times, and relies on its Labyrinth to attract explorers who will hopefully spend their money on supplies, armor, and weapons. The exact nature of the Labyrinth is unknown, so many explorers long to be the first to discover its secrets. We are one such explorer, and we are seeking fame and fortune by unearthing everything the Labyrinth is hiding.
The only place we can go is the Explorers Guild, so let's go!
This is the Guildmaster, responsible for overseeing new guilds. He hands us a Guild Certificate, upon which we can engrave a worthy name for our own group of adventurers, and some scrolls, which I'll explain a bit later.
So, what kind of name should we pick? This is a name that will certainly be known throughout history, the guild that shook the very foundations of Armoroad itself, the first explorers to reach the truth of the Labyrinth!
That looks about right.
After the Guildmaster compliments us on our exquisite taste in guild names, he tells us we need to recruit some people to go adventuring with. I took the first five characters given to me on Plurk, so we have...quite an interesting party.
This is the character creation screen! You choose the name first, which is why it says "Hitomi" in the corner up there. (Or, at least, it should, but the
You're given four portraits to choose from: two men, and two women. This is the case with all of the classes, though some of the male characters are androgynous enough to be mistaken for women.
If those color palettes just don't do it for you, you can press Y to go to the alternate color palettes, bringing the choice of portraits up to 8.
We'll go with this one here. Hitomi is our first recruit, so I suppose you can think of her as the leader of the group. She is a Farmer. What kind of class is a Farmer? Well, according to the class description...
Farmer: These farmers seek to apply their wisdom to navigating the Labyrinth despite their clumsiness in battle. Exploration specialists of the back line.
That doesn't sound very good for combat! She'll need some strong, defensive people to protect her. How about a pure defensive class?
This is Sagaris, our Hoplite.
Hoplite: Their golden armor gives them unequalled defense, while their spears provide a strong offense. Defense specialists on either line.
While it's true that Hoplites do have attacking skills to some extent, they get most of their utility from their raw defense and their fantastic defensive skills. For example, they can greatly reduce and eventually nullify elemental damage, which is something we'll need more and more the further we go into the Labyrinth.
Chelly is our Princess. This class was renamed to the gender-neutral Sovereign in Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, but since this isn't an EOU2 run, we're sticking with Princess.
Princess: Those of royal blood from kingdoms large and small. Their orders raise morale to turn the tide. Supporting combatants on either line.
The Princess is one of my favorite classes in the series. They are buff specialists, capable of raising your party's attack and defense and getting rid of an enemy's buffs. They can also choose to dispel the buffs they give in order to heal the party or do damage to enemies. It's a very versatile class, and one that I absolutely love using.
Our sole male party member is Edgardo, a Monk.
Monk: With the power of qi, they can both heal and inflict wounds. Their bare hands are stronger than weapons. Healing specialists of either line.
While normally used as a healing class, I'll be taking an offensive route with Edgardo. It'll be difficult, especially as the need for healing goes up, but hopefully Chelly will be able to pick up that slack when we unlock a certain ability. This party is sorely lacking in damage dealers, so I have to have someone doing damage - and Edgardo will be one of those someones.
The other someone in charge of damage is Elita. She is a Zodiac.
Zodiac: Scientific magicians who manipulate the etheric energy of the stars. Highly valuable in battle. Elemental attackers of the back line.
In other words, they're the mages of the game, and very valuable. They have elemental attacks, and a passive that increases the amount of damage they do when they use an element the enemy is weak to, among many other useful skills. Their only downside is they are slow to get going, and are very expensive, TP-wise, at the beginning of the game.
That means, for now, Edgardo is our main muscle. The single defender of his cute granddaughters.
Now that we've got our party built, we need to arrange it. Rows are very important in Etrian Odyssey: the front row usually takes the brunt of the damage, while the back row is dealt less damage if attacked directly in addition to being uncommon targets. Conversely, the front row deals more damage than the back row, unless the class in the back row is capable of using ranged attacks or weapons. Ranged attacks deal full damage no matter where the target is, making them valuable. Edgardo isn't good with ranged attacks, but Elita specializes in them, so it's a good balance to have.
Sagaris, Chelly, and Edgardo will be taking the front. Sagaris and Chelly are from very beefy classes, so they'll be able to take a lot of hits, and while Edgardo is a little more fragile he'll still certainly have more defense than Hitomi and Elita. Besides, we need him in the front row to make the most of his offensive capabilities.
There are a couple of other options on the menu: Organize, and Talk. Organize allows you to get rid of party members, rest them, or retire them. I'll go into detail about resting and retiring when it becomes relevant, because knowing how I play this game, it will become relevant. Talk just gives you an opportunity to speak to the NPCs, but it's not particularly important or interesting. Mostly, they give advice on how to play the game, but since I'm explaining that for you, I'll leave the Talk choice alone most of the time.
The Guildmaster brings our attention to the scripts he gave us, while simultaneously throwing shade at us. This guy is impressive.
What he's given us are scrolls that allow us to use skills as a group called Limit skills. For now, we've got three: the Cross Script, the Resolve Script, and the Offense Script. In order to use a Limit skill, you assign each person a slot in that skill. Some of them only require one person to activate, but others take multiple party members, and they must all be alive. These are activated in addition to your normal turn - so you can attack and use a Limit in the same turn. A Limit skill is usable once the Limit meter is full, and it drains after you use it, requiring you to build it back up again through battle.
Some of them aren't very impressive, but others can be genuine life-savers.
Taking the Guildmaster's advice about the scripts to heart, we depart to meet with the Senatus.
Almost immediately, more shade is thrown at us. It isn't mentioned at this point in time, but her name is Flowdia, and she is the head of the government in Armoroad. She is responsible for issuing licenses to guilds that have proven themselves worthy of one; therefore, we need to speak to her and fulfill her request before we can truly begin the game.
Her test is simple: map the first floor of the Labyrinth. Sounds easy enough, right?
She even gives us a parchment to use for a map.
Upon receiving the map, the bottom screen displays it. It seems a few of the squares have already been drawn in for us. Thanks, Flowdia!
Now that the rest of the town is available to visit, let's check everything out before we head into the forest.
The most important facility is Aman's Inn. This is where you come to have your HP healed, and to revive your dead or petrified party members if you have no skills or items that can do that for you. You can also store any items you don't need at the time. All of these cost money, but we only have 500 en, so we're not going to waste any by spending the night when we're perfectly fine.
The one free feature in Aman's Inn is the ability to save. This is the only save point in town.
Next, we decide to visit Napier's Firm. It's a business run by a vaguely shady woman who tries her best to eke out every cent you have - so, basically, I always end up associating her with Reimu Hakurei.
The Reimu-alike explains that in her shop, the customers are like God, as long as they are willing to compensate her excellent services with money. She will also rely on us to bring in new materials that she can make items out of, and she will reward us for our hard work by taking all of our money.
You purchase all of your items, weapons, and armor from this store. We don't have enough ental (the Etrian Odyssey series' currency of choice) to upgrade everyone just yet, so we'll hold off for now. Let's see what items we can purchase...
Only Medicas are available. These heal a small amount of HP, and are pretty useful for the early game. They're also cheap as hell, so we'll purchase some of them later. Though the only thing we have to do is draw a map, the Labyrinth is purported to be a dangerous place, so we should always have some sort of healing items on-hand, especially since it will take a while to get Chelly to where she needs to be when it comes to restoring HP.
The next stop is the Butterfly Bistro, home of the sidequests. Missy, the owner, can't give anything out to newbies, however; we must first prove ourselves worthy of the title of Armoroad explorers.
Missy speaks in an unidentified accent, and her English isn't the best, so sometimes she ends up saying things like this. It's pretty cute. There's usually at least one character who speaks strangely in every town, and in EO3's case, it's Missy.
She suggested we talk to the other patrons of the bar, so let's do just that! I didn't get a screencap of it, but there's a "Gather information" option at the Bistro, and there's only one person here. He's a troubadour by the name of Wolfram, and he offers to sing us some songs.
(As a note, Troubadours are a class from Etrian Odyssey I and II, and he mentions he comes from the north, where High Lagaard is located - so he probably comes from the town that Etrian Odyssey II takes place in. No doubt here for a tropical vacation after those harsh northern winds.)
Our options are to hear about Armoroad itself, something called the "Calamity," and the Princess of Armoroad.
We decide to hear about the city first, because by knowing more about where we are we can make more informed decisions in and about it.
Wolfram tells us of the downfall of the royal family of Armoroad, and informs us that Flowdia pretty much runs the place. He doesn't seem to like her much, referring to her as a "fearsome old crone," and elaborates that there's more to the royal family than the barebones explanation he's given - but he'll save that story for another time.
Slightly frustrated with him for giving us next to no information, we ask about the Calamity next.
Given the state Armoroad is in, it seems impossible, but it was once a technological paradise, home to such advanced technology that everyone desired a trade route to it. However, about 100 years ago, the center of the city suddenly sunk into the ocean, vanishing without a trace.
Not only that, but since the city's disappearance, natural disasters have wreaked havoc among the people who live there, and all diplomatic and trade negotiations died with Armoroad's technology. Since then, it's been a struggle just to get back to where it's been, but Armoroad is still desperately poor, and desperately in need of the economy that can be provided by a healthy wave of incoming explorers.
On the bright side, the center of the city sinking revealed a Labyrinth, which Armoroad has used to entice said explorers into showing up and spending there money. That said, it's still a long road ahead of them if they ever want to get back to their former glory.
It is a bad situation, but hopefully, Guild Kickbutt will be able to make discoveries so amazing it drags Armoroad out of the muck.
Finally, we decide to ask about the Princess. If there's a Princess, why is Flowdia in charge?
Apparently, there's a princess named Gutrune, who is more of a figurehead these days, but she is referred to as the Princess of Porcelain for her amazingly pale, flawless skin, and her beautiful singing voice. Though Wolfram has never laid eyes on her himself, she is described in songs and stories as impossibly beautiful, on par with true goddesses.
That's all the information he has to offer, and with that, there's one stop left before we embark on our journey.
Heading to Inver Port gets us nowhere. This guy won't even talk to us until we've returned with a completed map in our hands, but he mentions something about ships...well, this is a city surrounded by water, so it's only natural they'd have things like that.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that our options are limited until we fulfill Flowdia's request, so we approach the entrance to the Labyrinth, swallow our fear, and take our first steps...
To be continued in Part 2