I would like to begin with a little blurb about me, and my connection with Etrian
Odyssey. More than 8 months ago, I came across a game called Yggdra Union while
at my local GameStop. The box art peaked my interest and I decided to try the game
out. This was the first time that I picked up a game that I never heard about and start
playing it. The game was interesting and it kept me enjoyed, but when I was done with
it I looked for another game to play. When I was done playing a game had recently
came out and I had heard good reviews for it, so I decided to check out Luminous Arc.
I found Luminous Arc to be a great game, and kept me entertained for a long time.
I did research on the publishing company of Luminous Arc in search of games to play.
My search led me to play other Atlus games like Trauma Center, Izuna the Legend
of the Unemployed Ninja, Rondo of Sword, etc. And of course, my search led me to
Etrian Odyssey.

Etrian Odyssey was an amazingly entertaining game. The game play was incredible
fun and entertaining and graphics were great. I loved the character and monster design
and the 3D scenery was great, too. I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game, and I
especially liked the great character customization.

There is one thing I would like to say before I get into my experiences with the game.
I like to start playing a game before reading any manuals and instead try to play believing
that i will pick up how to play before long. but once I get the hang of the game play, I'll go
back and read the book and learn something I wouldn't get from just playing. Anyway, as
some of you might be thinking, this was not a great idea on my part resulting in numerous
failures and slaughters of my team. Also, I would like to note that I sometimes will
sometimes skip important information by accident, and my memory is not perfect so I
could be mistaking somethings.

Well, I believe that my story of failure would be much more entertaining than any
mediocre story of heroism I could weave. So lets begin with my first experience with
Etrian Odyssey.

When I started the game, I was excited about what to expect of the game. I watched
the opening screen and learned the story of the Etria. I entered the Explorers Guild and
created my characters. The first character i created was a Landsknecht name Domi.
As for the name, I always name the main character of my group Domi, mostly because I
just like the name and it is also the name of the lead character in a flash game I'm
working on. I choose some other random classes and formed my team without knowing
anything about the particular classes or their strengths and weaknesses although I did
understand which guys should be put in the front and which in the back. I mostly just
picked them because their character pictures looked cool. Now that my team was formed,
I headed over to Radha Hall because it was right underneath the Explorer's Guild. I was
assigned my first task to map the first floor of the Yggdrasil Labyrinth and I headed out to
complete. I headed in and looked around a bit before I found the Knight. I turned back
and headed to the left after I met the Knight.

I walked through the corridor and had encountered 1 mole which I had defeated fairly
easily. I arrived at a dead end and was about to turn back when I noticed that the screen
showed that their was something there. There was a boot, and I had thought I had
uncovered something of value, so I couldn't help but take it, when all of a sudden my team
was surrounded by either 3 moles. I had an easy time defeating the previous monster
before, and although my team was slightly injured I had no intention of backing own. I
sent my team to attack, but alas my team was too slow and my opponents received the
first attacks, killing off 1 of my characters in the front line and injuring another. My team
continued the attempted assault but, my opponent was too powerful and killed off the
remaining 2 front line characters. I couldn't believe what was happening, my powerful
characters were dead and all I had left was a medic and a troubadour although I had
gotten them down to 2 monsters left. I attempted to flea, but they wiped out my
troubadour before its turn and my medic failed to flea. I was trapped knowing that the
following turn I had lost, so I set my medic to flea hoping that she could survive one
attack and then the other would miss, but luck was not with me and my team had been
slaughtered at the hands of low level monsters.

If you have been paying attention there was one more mistake I made, and a crucial
one at that. I had not known how to save at the beginning, so as a result I had to restart
from the beginning, but the loss had changed how I looked at the game and wanted to play
it , I wanted my team to get stronger so that they would not lose again. Before that loss
the game had been going pretty easy and I was paying attention to it all that much which is
why i didn't read the part about Skill Points or check out the whole town to buy items and
medicine before I went into the labyrinth. I returned to the labyrinth this time without the
naiveties of my original travels and had been able to form a stronger team and utilize
them to their full potential. This game has become one of favorites and it all started with
this failure.

I hope that my first failure has entertained you somewhat, and some of my be thinking
"its pretty clear you lost because you're an idiot," and although that maybe the reason I
suffered this loss, I think this tale provided a good moral story. Also, I know its not the
most extravagant stories and I could have chosen a better one, but I think this is my most
important moment although there might have been some more exciting ones.

Okay, and once again

THANKS FOR READING,

DP192