Etrian Odyssey 2 Review (Nintendo DS)
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2024
- As below, so above. This time we look at the first follow-up to Etrian Odyssey. A game that aggressively tried to shake the DRPG formula up, even if just a little. It's time to look at Etrian Odyssey 2 on the Nintendo DS.
A user named Artelind posted these two song arrangements in the comments. I wanted to share them further with anyone else interested.
► Guardians of the Sorrowful Ice: • Etrian Odyssey II: Gua...
► Cherry Tree Bridge: • Etrian Odyssey II: Her...
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Ah yes my favourite season: Pokemon heart gold
Half hour video review of a 13-year-old out of print DS game?
Yes please.
@@mohammedsea857 Emulation is not illegal. Its protected by a US supreme court ruling. If emulation was illegal virtual machines that millions rely on every day wouldn't exist.
ROMs are the things that run foul of the legal system.
That said, absolutely try to get the original EO2. Its the hardest game in the series by far, the devs really did react to the reviews of the first game and made it much harder...sadly this high difficulty is lost in the remaster, enemies got huge HP buffs in Untold 2 but the players got a broken "fafnir" class with a tactical nuke boost power that blows any boss away.
Hello from the future 😌 this game was released on the switch lol
I can't wait for the video on EO3, its honestly my favorite tied with EO5
5 is so fantastic.
This series of reviews has turned into the definitive retrospective for Etrian Odyssey.
I'm one of those types that prefers building defensive teams. My first playthrough of Nexus consisted of a protector, war magus, sovereign, arcanist and harbinger, one class from each mainline title. In combat my team had passive health regen totaling half their max HP every turn and outside of combat they recovered 10 HP per step. Enemies barely had a chance to do anything because they were constantly locked down with ailments and binds. Killing bosses took forever but doing so was unbelievably safe. Things only got tense when an enemy had an instant death ability or could one shot someone. In any case, there's just something so satisfying about building a team that just lets the enemies helplessly flail about until they get tired and die of exhaustion :D.
I tend to like beefy somewhat offense based teams with lots of passive healing and survivability.
I think my first time playing nexus I ended up using:
Hero, sovereign, pugilist,
Farmer,
And I can't really remember what my last slot was.
I think it was Gunner?
Could have been Survivalist.
Wait no I remember now, it was Night Seeker!
My front row had the heaviest/most defensive armour they could wear.
No need for a protector or healer when you have a Sovereign.
Nightseeker for status.
Pugilist for binds.
Hero for damage.
Farmer for long lasting support, TP Regen, plus healing on gathering, plus exp gains, plus help with binds, plus they're the person who uses the items, cus they use items better.
Edit:
I literally never needed to go back to town unless my inventory ran out of space from gathering on the way.
Now-a-days I have my teams split.
A) main damage team
B) main status/binds team
C) gathering team
Etrian Odyssey 2 and 4 (and all the games) hold a very special place in my heart. EO2 just had something magical about it that I can't explain. And EO4 envoked a sense of danger and exploration that I have never felt in a game before.
Yea I played 2 recently and I've played all the games in the series except for the untold remakes.
My favourite is nexus.
But oddly enough 2 is worming it's way into my second favourite.
I dunno why, 2 just did something right.
Yay! Etrian Odyssey content!
Always a good day when AboveUp posts a video.
i hope you know how much we appreciate the work you put in
Great review and I agree with your conclusion.
EOII did not make huge changes but the changes that it did make were important for the identity of the franchise going forward - faster fights, more synergy and shortcuts.
I love these EO videos, it's great to hear someone talk about one of my favourite series and see what they think since I'm a rather easy to please. Looking forward to the other ones!
This is a rare content on RUclips.
Love EO!
"it's course and rough to map." Yeah, you just gained a sub.
Love your video! I'm always looking for new Etrian Odyssey content. One of my favorite series of all time. I'm looking forward to when you do EOIII, my favorite of the series.
Thank you so much for revisting the Etrain Odyssey series. It's very hard to find reviews on the older games surprisingly enough. It's really nice to give this game a look in the spotlight.
EO2 seems to be glossed over a lot (compared to the music that is). It's a shame because while the game has some issues, it does a lot of things right in my opinion. Maybe it's not as accessible as one and 2 are, but it's rather fun. I kind of feel sad that's it's more looked upon as the neglected middle child of the OG trilogy. lol
Another amazing review!~
One of the things that really comes to mind with EO2 is that it might be hugely unbalanced. But unbalanced can often be more fun than something being perfectly balanced. Gives room for a lot of cool experimentation you don't get when things are all factored in properly. And you can definitely tell a lot of the experimentation eventually led somewhere with how good 3 is right after.
You might also want to look into "The Dark Spire". A very traditional and very hard dungeon crawler for the DS also from Atlus.
Only Masochist Play that
I like that game a lot
You planing on including "Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey" in your series on the Etrian Odyssey games?
It's not really the same kind of game, but I think they use the same engine and still share some DNA, and it's truly a game worth playing.
Maybe, I do remember liking it back in the day. Though if I'd cover an SMT on the Nintendo DS, chances are it'd be Devil Survivor.
@@Aboveup I've never played Devil Survivor myself, so I would love to know what type of game it is.
Still, would love to hear your take on Strange Journey in the future.
@@Aboveup I agree with the other commenter, I'd like to see you cover SMT: Strange Journey too. I enjoyed all the SMT games, but I could never get into Strange Journey because of its mapping system, until I learned about Etrian Odyssey and other dungeon crawlers.
Honestly, my first EO game was 2U. I immediately felt in love with the series, especially with how diverse you can build your team aside from the classic tank and healer set up.
I started playing the story mode with premade characters, but dropped it and started classic to experience the game when it first came out and I highly recommend that mode for anybody that plays it the first time. Not to mention the story is better imo.
Thanks for the EO videos. This series needed more attention!
I wish more and more people get to know and follow your channel tbh
Real squirrels would never approach a human like that.
I'll always like Etrian Odyssey videos. Thanks for this review! Hopefully you can do more EO videos later.
Honestly, Cass is my favorite Bar waifu from any Etrian Odyssey game
Highly anticipated 😎
I’ve been waiting for this 😊
IDK how but you made me want to actually give this game another chance
Didn't think that would happen ever
But here we are
Great vid! Love seeing Etrian content.
I started playing the series 2 days ago. this is perfect!
this is really entertaining, can’t believe there’s someone still talking about the ds, I still really enjoy the ds, these games are fun to just keep in my pocket and pull out whenever I’ve got time waiting.
This is a pleasant surprise
OMG! It's so nostalgic to see this game and hear this music again!
Yooo!
Aboveup upload, sweet!
I really enjoyed this game, if only because the Hexer is downright broken here and constantly using status effects that land easily was really satisfying.
I really appreciate these reviews of DS Gems. Keep up the great work dude.
Awesome 😎 I hope they bring this series to the Switch 😳😀
With EO2U being my favorite game in the series, it's bizarre seeing the DS original - everything's just slightly off in an uncanny, unsettling way. (Especially the game balance - a move that oneshots FOEs with 100% reliability? The heck?!)
The environments genuinely look better with the crunchy DS screen blending textured shapes and flat art together seamlessly than the emotionless polygons the later games got, though... I suppose sometimes less is more.
We need more videos talking about EO in general. Good review.
Thank you for this review. Playing the HD rereleases, and was looking for a review that actually talked about the differences between each game.
Etrian odyssey has a very special place in my heart, I was lucky for my first exposure of the game was EO3. Now I own every single english released copy including mystery Dungeon, awesome vid and good to see another EO vid.
Love these videos so much bro. Can't wait for EOIII and IV especially
This is the first video of yours ive seen and i love the way you do reviews! i started with 2 and it was a brutal start, though it did lead to eo to be my favorite series
One thing about the force boost break system in this game is that near the end of the game , certain items can be bought or obtained that let you increase your boost gauge , which is important because some of the post game bosses are brutal without it
Don’t forget the Muckdile-which got demoted to a (rare) *random encounter.*
Just got around to watching both of these Etrian Odyssey reviews and I really appreciate you going through these gems that people talk about, but nobody really makes videos about.
Oh hey it's Sakura from Project X Zone.
As someone who's played Untold 2 I can understand why you'd save it for later. Even without the context of the original, I could tell that some of the additions they made were definitely going to mess with the original difficulty curve.
Mainly the DLC but probably also the Story Mode like what happened to Untold 1.
Yay! Content
nice review, how do you feel now that atlus remembered about EO after so many years and are preparing some news "soon"? i just hope we get something at the tgs(even a 2022 release would be fine)
i really still love the art wish the dungeon was harsher!!
I am 150% freaking here for this content. THANK YOU!
I’m playing the first game right now and I love every second of it
I was waiting for this review!
These are great reviews. I am very excited to see the EO 3 video. I just started playing the first EO and I am loving the game.
This was my first EO and the different colored and seemingly randomly moving FOEs were terrifying
Legit nice to see some Etrian Odyssey videos being made. Enjoyed it!
gbbrbbf you pronounced Landsknecht correctly.
Also it's mostly obvious how modern EO games want to learn from EO 1-3s errors. I'm happy I played it the chronological order and could see Etrian Odyssey's odyssey hehe ^^
I have only played Etrian Odyssey 1 until the third, let's call it Floor, and I've been inspired by your EO Videos to finally play the series myself, and now it's in my top 3 RPG Series!
A little off-topic, but have you ever played Evoland 2? It's a huge love letter to JRPG's, including several different subgenres and graphic styles, and it has a genuinely good story. Took me almost 40 hours too 100% complete it, and I really loved it.
I have not, though I have played the original Evoland ages ago and enjoyed it well enough.
note: iirc, F.O.E. exp was a bug, not intentional balancing. EO/SQ2 is one of the buggiest entries, even moreso than the first - especially with some skills just straight up not working (at least in certain regional versions). that and the class nerfs from the returning classes were.. understandable, but egregious when taking into consideration that nerfing didn't do much for any other problems outside of immunization builds (i.e. hexer still being busted as hell).
but i love etrian odyssey 2, despite its flaws. it feels like a good balance of the environmental storytelling of 1 that i adore and the heavy storytelling of 3, as well as some of the NPCs being my favorite (the guildmaster marion has my heart) outside of 4. its tracks are also some of my favorites outside of 3 and 5, the same goes for the stratums.
regardless loved this vid and im glad i came to see your other vids after your EO/SQ3 video popped up in my recommended
I know that the original Japanese version was probably the most buggy etrian odyssey ds game(only in U.S patches as well) but how did F.O.E exp not get noticed.
@@aheadsounds2522 very true, iirc speedruns are even done on the japanese version because of all of the bugs LMAO
even weirder yet, with the perspective now of the origins HD collection, exp was still not fixed with foes. so maybe it was intentional after all (or theyre trying to make it seem like it was)?
@@xzura8669 Ok there is no way that foe exp is a bug. It would of been patched In non JP releases. Not only that it is incredibly noticeable and would of been patched immediately. I cannot believe how turn 1 was never fixed from the first game and how many new bugs were in this game that were not in the original like level checking quests stalling the game for half a second every step you take. This game is also unoptimized enough to lag.
Good Job On This Review! :) This looks like a fun game! :D
Thank you for this deep review!
I played only the version untold of this title.
Heya, played this as my first etrian odyssey game mostly because of your videos and because I liked the battle theme the most of the 5. I quite liked it even throughout the jank and some questionable design choices. I played as Bradicus and the Ronin meme team, commonly wasting all my money on medicas until I realized Mining is the second best skill to have next to running away better. Really looking forward to playing 3 with a more normal team.
I subbed to the channel ages ago, and I keep finding it again and again when I want to know about niche rpgs. Really good job.
This games have a strong West Marches vibe.
Oh my god, what a wonderful channel, I almost feel bad for not discovering it sooner.
All that took me a single search of Kagero Deception.
The first time I encountered the Redwood enemy in EO2 I was so weirded out by how it looked. It looked less like a monkey and more like a creepy crazy man.
26:52 thank you for this frame
EO2 was my first EO game! :D I couldn't get very far though cause it was way too difficult for kid me. Probably didn't help that it was my first dungeon crawler and I was still pretty new to video games in general ha. Still, because of that game, I was interested enough to try EO4 (didn't finish cause college...), plus I got a few of the other games in the series that I haven't tried yet. So even though I've barely played all that much of EO2, I still have fond memories of it :)
I really need to get into the series again though! Just wish I wasn't still so bad at dungeon crawlers though 😬 Oh and also, really appreciate the depth you went into for this review (and your other reviews in general!) :)
I come here after finishing Etrian Odyssey 2 on the HD collection, both to see what a review has to say about it and to see what the QoL the HD version actually added. I never had EO2 on DS (only the first game) after all.
And MAN. I resonate so much with everything about the balancing. Playing EO 2 (HD) after EO1 (HD) felt like they wanted to break every foregone conclusion you would have come to from playing the first game. For me, coming into it with the idea of continuing my guild's legacy, the beginning was a nightmare as a result. Landsknecht? Nerfed. Survivalist? Nerfed. HARD. Protector? Gets twoshot and can't properly protect the party. Nerfed into obscurity. Medic? That one's actually okay, but not being able to bonk as hard as a DPS class broke my heart lategame. (I loved Caduceus bonking in EO1). I ended up reconfiguring my party extremely often because EO2's out of whack balancing threw me off hard enough that I wasn't able to adjust without outside advice. I just know no other game that has status ailments THIS brokenly powerful and enemies this untankable. It's unique for sure, but also very stressful for me personally. I likened it to creeping around scared in a Souls game once because it can be equally as deadly. One ambush is often enough to wipe a party - which I guess is why the Survivalist still exists - but on the other hand, a party actually fit for the game can also wipe groups in one turn.
I ended up getting fatigued by the end of the game because I found my journey so stressful. But because I talked to people familiar with the series, I also learned a ton. I learned to appreciate status ailments as an actually viable strat (something the first game did not do as it just was not needed, even playing it blind without a guide or guidance) and I learned quite a few hidden mechanics, like how some status effects prevent dodging or how weapons have action speed modifiers tied to their class.
I struggle to call EO2 a pleasant experience, but it was definitely unique, which I think was actually the right call. It feels genuinely different from EO1 to me for better or worse, while building on the core features of the series. And the strangest thing is, after finishing it, having learned a lot mechanically, I feel compelled to return someday to experiment with other party setups in the harsh environment of this game.
To answer the poll way too late: I actually tend towards defense. I'm not sadistic (or masochistic) enough to draw out fights to eternity (you won't see me stall for 100 turns in Pokemon, ever) but I like seeing damage and heal ticks like poison and regen and I like trying to build walls that can protect my party setup. I want to play the series in order, but I looked a bit into EOV and the summoning row there enabling you to build extra targets to tank for you as you heal with ticks. That's the stuff I like. It's also why I enjoyed EO1 a lot, since the Troub's HP and TP regen songs allowed for exactly that while my Landy and Medic still blew enemies to next week.
3:09 Bro, that's not a Hexer...
As someone who has played both of the untold games, I recommend 2 over 1 for sure. For one it doesn’t try to drive new players towards story mode, and two, it doesn’t completely ruin the bigger plot turns like 1 did. If anything it kind of adds to the story in some ways. Plus you can class change like basically right away if you don’t like the starting setup. And also the Fanir Knight is actually cool as hell.
looking forward to you tackling Nexus and maybe the Switch ports
im gonna watch your reviews before every eo game i start (currently 100%in eo1hd)
I started with 2 and played all the way to 5. Never finished a single one of them but I still love these games haha
That themed part is AWESOME
This great review. I think it’s your best material on Etrian Odyssey
Offence is the best Defence, although in EO i always have a Defender even as i started EO4 after finishing the first 3, normally i hate Tanks since im all about speed but the Defenders are always such badasses in EO i always have them, also wanna elemental null Superbosses, also Smite anyone? Also i 100% EO2 in Spring, to the point i grinded the 30 retires till lvl99 for the entire party, month of manually grinding 1200-1400+ something lvls, biggest hell of my life, i was just dead for that month.
Also 100% EO3 as summer started, beat Abyssal God in a fair fight, i don't wanna talk about it, but Chtulhu Casino has become my favourite boss, currently at EO4 3rd Stratum but taking somewhat of a break.
(Actually i did not have a Defender in EO1 im full of shit, i had to retire i forget who to switch to a Defender the classic fuck up, because there was no way to beat the Superbosses)
#justacommentofappreciation
I started with EO4, so it's interesting to see how the previous games in the series were like.
Also, I would really have preferred to explore Auburn Thicket in Nexus, instead of the painfully generic Ancient Forest
honestly eo2 classic was disappointing
like i can't understand why foes give no exp it just makes the game a hella long grind
A lot of the weird changes can be tracked back to things players were doing in EO1, unless they're straight-up caused by bugs. In the case of FOE exp, I think it's because they realized everyone was Defender/Immunize/Relaxing on those ant FOEs to powerlevel through content at too fast a pace.
Like, I can understand the decision. But I definitely do not agree with how it was handled.
@@Aboveup foes were both pathetic (for any team) and gave tons of experience in the first game, and eo2 generally overcorrected on eo1's mistakes. they buffed foes a lot (though climax cheeses them) and made bosses exp pinatas to compensate
foes not giving exp doesn't really bother me, but they aren't guaranteed to drop and that's the part i think is actually dumb
@@antant6217 im a really bad player lol
alot of the foes gave me a tough time and I ended up losing my save file as I entered so the 5th labyrinth so idk if ill ever finish it now.
I personally liked the move over from 1 to 2, there is quite a few things that annoyed me about the first game that the 2nd one fixed. The ones that i remember is progressing through the game and then realizing that you need 1 specific class to beat certain things (aka you needed a defender otherwise the optional bosses just killed you on t2). The limited number of icons means that you ran out after marking around half of the drop downs in the post game dungeon. 😑
The big one though was the accessibility of the unlockable classes in 1 that were quite late into the game at the start of the 2nd game. they also made those classes less clunky, like how they all had setup moves, the ronin particularly had to waste a turn going into a stance before they could use the skills in that stance and i recall that the stance itself only lasted 3 turns forcing you to use it again... in 2 you now just put points in a stance and you then have access to the abilities associated with it.
Final thing, if you remember that one quest where you had to stay in the dungeon for 3 in game days, took like 20 minutes since you have to move around to progress the time, which means you get random encounters until you finish it. Annoyed me more then it should have ~.~
“Nexus isn’t a good starting point”
My dumbass who started with it and put 100 hours in: Oh so that’s why it was so hard!
Etrian 3 is still my favorite,but 2 is fun too
28:39 does anyone know the outro song? It's so good!
Etrian Odyssey 2 is probably my least favorite on the DS . The tutorial really pushed me away , and some of its mechanics are not that well balanced like the Force break .
It's not bad , and I still enjoyed it , I just have too many nitpicking things about it , and when they collectively pile up on each other , they drop this game down the rank for me .
EOU2 is probably my favorite EO
Eo2 was my first eo3 was next then I kinda got the story ones of 1 and 2 and I have 5 now which I all enjoy but being at the crystal stratum in 5 is my stuck point.
Very tough game, enemies hits really hard in this game.
.... I started with Nexus and I think it was a great start ... Oh well ...
Etrian Odyssey 1 has that iconic twist
Etrian Odyssey 3 is just a bigger,badder version of Etrain Odyssey 2
So I see why it's less remembered compared to the other two games.
😮👌
I tend towards defensive play
For some reason, despite knowing 3 is the better game, I still like 2 more.
Damn it! I had a story idea similar to the Dungeon Crawler of this one with a town surrounding a Dungeon damn it!
Some notes here:
• The unlockable class, the Beast, is…kinda mid tbh, mostly due to their class mastery forcing them to take hits, because class balance is shit here. Thankfully, they’re unlocked at the end of the 1st Stratum, so it evens out a bit.
• Despite appearances, enemy HP is lower than you think-they just have a high defense stat. Climax and Revenge ignore this, which helps explain why they’re so broken.
• Gunner makes both the Survivalist and Alchemist obsolete, due to being a combination of the two.
• Oddly enough, an alternate reading of the first game’s stratum’s I have are Forest > Jungle > Cave > Desert > City > Sewers. What this means in greater context, idk. Maybe symbolism of life slowly coming back from the brink, if we put it in reverse?
• For story reasons (One of the characters is a princess), the Sovereign is a class in the game despite debuting in 3…but they’re actually accessible in classic normally, rather than having to wait for New Game+ like the Fafnir Knight (for *completely understandable reasons*). The Highlander is also available, albeit as DLC.
• The remake’s additional dungeon is accessible in Classic! Hooray. 🥳
Hexer
*Shows Alchemist*
I didn’t realize we were integrating Sub-Class lore in the game before Drowned City, lol.
10:48 Ironic, since EOU2 bosses are damage sponges even with Story Mode's busted protagonist. (Unless you reclass party members from my experience)
Also, EO1 seemed to give me less exp from FOEs than a lot of random encounters, so it didn't seem worth from an exp standpoint either.
Certainly the 3DS version made this "chapter" a bit more interesting and different from the previous game introducing various elements and polishing the existing ideas. In particular i really loved the Juggernaut fight, don't know if it's as cool in the original. It was something a bit different from the same learning about elemental weaknesses and so on. Probably one of the most interesting bosses in the whole series.
I never made it past floor 26 and that has always annoyed me
"Hexer" *Shows picture of an alchemist*
Is it just me, or is this game waaaaaay harder than EO1? I am playing the HD remaster and I am getting rocked by enemies
wait FOES in this game have different types signalled via color?? i didnt even know that as a kid, aside from blue being flying
so
eo 2 not good?
eo2 is the buggiest etrian Odyssey somehow especially in the original Japanese version(how did they miss some of them from the original). Some classes are terrible (beast may be the stupidest and most worthless form of role compression ever) some are way too good. They actually did make some pretty cool choices of game balance though like status Resistance balance or protector not being required or tp cost changes. Walls felt terrible to map. Post game final boss and final boss are the easiest in the ds trilogy(post game final boss especially is cheesable to be killed with a level 1 team. ) . I honestly really really did not like how the game just stops your post game progression multiple times and is generally very confusing. Speaking of that 4 of the floors just contain warps for some reason. If your play on HD somehow some of the crazyness gets crazier(2 party final boss oneshot at level 8 is crazy. Rng is really badly done.) they did fix some bugs though. If your ever stuck ever just fight a few bosses and you get insane exp and money and even post game items. force skills completely break postgame bosses(intentionally and not intentionally). Nectalls and nectall 2 were the perfect way of ruining defensive playstyle by making death almost meaningless(especially with cpr. Why did they keep CPR when nectalls exist). I still like this game because etrian Odyssey is a fun game overall and some of the balancing was pretty fun to play around with.
Yeah... I've played through all Etrian Odyssey games, except for this one. I have tried it on emulator, but it plays so different from all of the other games that it's very difficult to actually play. In these kinds of games, the combat and grind is a mandatory part to get right and Etrian Odyssey 2 kind of messed that up due to the lack of better fights to pick. As you said, it doesn't make you feel stronger as you get further into a stratum.
From what I understand, it's also not just that exploration comes in shorter bursts but also that Force takes longer to actually charge up.
Funnily enough, the remake actually made almost similar mistakes in comparison to The Millenium Girl, with the main problem being that bosses end up being huge HP sponges without actual bite to them until you're out of TP.