Like several of the people no doubt entering this contest, I've had no experience with the game itself. In all honesty I've only had my DS for about two months, but that's not to say that I there weren't games I wanted to play. Etrian Odyssey was one of them.

By now I'm sure a lot of people have looked it up, but just so you know, one of the main features of the game is that it's a first-person dungeon exploration RPG. When I first heard about it, I was interested. I'd played games like Eye of the Beholder and Pool of Radiance so a part of me perked up when I heard about the way this game was handled.

In fact, most of the game seemed lifted from the good old SSI days. Features like creating your party and physically mapping the level were things that really attached you to the game and drew you in. Hell, they even made the mapping easier by taking out the graph paper.

The biggest problem with games like these, however, are that they typically don't get too much attention and as a result drop off the radar fairly quickly. I'll admit that I'd completely forgotten about it until I saw the article. We all won't win the contest, but please let companies know that there's still an untapped potential for games like this; help keep the genre alive.

And for God's sake, if you haven't heard of SSI get off your ass and go find some vaporware dammit!