When I first heard of Etrian Odyssey, I wasn't terribly blown away by what I heard about the game, given the relatively average graphics, with first-person dungeon crawling and even first-person battling, with no sign of the player's party in sight, reminiscent of the original Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior games. What more appealed to me was the old-school-style turn-based gameplay, with critics also admonishing prospective purchasers of the alleged masochistic nature of the title, and that few mainstream gamers would like it.

Despite these warnings, I decided to take a chance and purchase the game, immediately immersing myself in it and creating my party to begin the long journey through the Yggdrasil Labyrinth. The game more than met my expectations, with surprisingly quick turn-based battles, much faster than in most mainstream RPGs, since battles for me rarely exceeded more than half a minute. Granted, part of this was because enemies didn't have any animations, inanimate monsters being a relic of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, alongside the equally simplistic animations for the player's party, completely invisible in battle.

Despite the horror stories I had heard about the game's alleged difficulty, I, being a relatively seasoned RPGamer, having played more than over a hundred titles in the genre (writing reviews for all of them, no less), had a relatively smooth time with the title, even though there certainly were some difficult moments, such a few FOEs and the first boss at the end of the first stratum, where I had to attack the main wolf while its fellow lupines entered took notice and entered combat. It did take me one or two tries to triumph over this boss, although I progressed down the Yggdrasil Labyrinth, carefully mapping most corners of the dungeon while heeding the obstacles occasionally thrown my way.

I ultimately made it to the final stratum, a ruined city from the past, and came face-to-face with the last boss, which attempted to give me quite a run for my money, although I surprisingly triumphed over it in my first try. Since I was deeply in love with the game, I decided to conquer the post-game quests, completing the extra stratum alongside the occasional guild missions from town. I also sought to complete the item and enemy databases for bragging rights, and took several tries to vanquish the true final boss at the very bottom of the Yggdrasil Labyrinth, largely a matter of determining its methodical pattern of attack.

After several grueling fights with this formidable antagonist, I triumphed, despite the grave disappointment of no additional story scenes to mark my victory. Regardless, I ultimately completed the enemy and item databases, receiving an award from the mayor of Etria and seeing the credits one final time before I could put down the title at last, after over a hundred hours of addictive gameplay. What surprised me was the presence of a password feature, undoubtedly for importing data to a sequel were ever one produced. Fortunately, a sequel is indeed coming along, allowing me another lengthy quest to map labyrinths and fight whatever foes come my way.

My time with Etrian Odyssey was far from a waste, keeping my attention well as I played it at home, between classes at college, and on occasional road trips, up to when my Nintendo DS's battery died out on me on the largest trips (though luckily I fought enemies near save points when its light flashed scarlet). Ultimately, the game well surpassed my expectations, with superb old-school gameplay, although I did find the difficulty to be a little overstated, feeling that other series such as SaGa provide a far greater challenge. Regardless of this, those who haven't played Etrian Odyssey certainly haven't played RPGs on the Nintendo DS, and those who miss out on it thanks to Atlus's limited prints of games are certainly missing out on a lot.