This post is an entry for the Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard MEGA-Contest, sponsored by Atlus and Destructoid. It's kind of last minute, as I only discovered this contest a few minutes ago, but I just had to enter. Etrian Odyssey is the best RPG on the DS that I've played, so I couldn't resist. So obviously I've created this Destructoid account for this contest...never heard of it before now, but its an interesting idea to bring all the game bloggers together. Anyway, the contest asks its participants to tell a story about their experiences with Etrian Odyssey, so I'll be doing that here.

My story is not about my many battles with the FOEs found throughout the Yggdrasil labyrinth, nor any of my characters (though I love them all), nor is it about the one time I fell through a trap door and ended up exploring nearly the entire floor before finding the stairs back up in the second stratum. No, this entry is about an enemy far worse than any FOE that Yggdrasil has to offer.

Let me start at the beginning. For some reason Etrian Odyssey just appealed to me. I saw the commercials on websites, and went to the official site, counting down the days until it came out. Something about the straight forward old school play style, and the vibrant character and enemy designs, I just knew I would love playing the game. So when it came out I went out to the nearest game store and purchased myself a copy.

I'm a thoughtful player, and I knew that Etrian Odyssey was not a game to take lightly from the beginning. I carefully crafted my party of a Landsknecht, Protector, Survivalist, Medic, and Alchemist. As I played through each layer of the labyrinth, I carefully explored everywhere, figured out each enemy's weakness, and completed all the quests I was given. My party grew in levels, and truly they became forces to be reckoned with.

I thoroughly immersed myself in the game. But, after a few weeks of playing it, I decided to give it a break and play some other games for a little while. This is a common habit of mine, spending a couple weeks with a game and then going onto another one for a little while, only to come back with renewed interest. It was when I finally came back that I discovered the horror.

No, it was not that my data was lost, nor that I had forgotten some important detail in Etrian Odyssey's unforgiving story. No, as I returned to Etria I found that my entire party, save my Alchemist, were all dead, and I hadn't an en to raise them. How could this travesty have happened!? Were my eyes deceiving me!? Unfortunately, it was all too real.

I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how it happened. What could have caused something like this? Then I remembered. While visiting a few relatives I let them play with my DS. Could it be that they had spent all my en, gone out and killed most of the party, and then decided it would be a good idea to save? Eventually I did discover that my ten year old cousin had indeed performed this heinous act.

How did I recover? I sold everything I could, within reason, and pulled a level 20 ronin I had trained up for a quest from the guild reserves. Then I simply went out and earned the en I needed. All of my party members were around 30 by then, so the price tag was pretty high. But as I slowly raised each of them it became easier, and I did get a fair amount of en from selling what my cousin had bought.

In the end, I recovered fairly well. The effort to recover everything helped me familiarize myself with the game again, which is a very good thing for a game like Etrian Odyssey. I also learned a very valuable lesson: never trust anyone with hormonal problems.