You put some Phantasy Star in my cartography! No, you put some cartography in MAH PHANTASY STAR.

I rarely do game reviews, but this game is made of maps and win.

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ETRIAN ODYSSEY: THE REVIEW (Beware of FOE)

Etrian Oddessy
Developer: LanCarse CO. Ltd
Publisher: ATLUS

I think cartography is a very boring activity. Hours upon hours of drawing maps, it gets to you. I’m sure most of you wouldn’t want to be cartographers when you grow up. I mean, we have satellites that tak-

I’m diverging from the point here Etrian Odyssey is basically a cartography game with the explorer element thrown in. Yes, see fabulous dungeons, draw maps of said dungeons, see the world, fight exotic monsters and loot and pillage their bodies for useful bits that can be sold for money, get slaughtered by huge powerful boss-type monsters and watch helplessly as they fornicate with your remains and eat them up after the act… … …

Waitaiminute, did you say “get slaughtered by huge powerful monsters”? Well, you got that right. Inside the exotic dungeons are enemies known as FOEs (don’t ask about the lexicon, I’m not trained in this area, and it’s pretty long) who are more than happy to mow down unprepared bands of adventurers and rape the remains. Of course, that last bit was made up. But the mass slaughter is not made up. Trust me, those FOEs, they are SERIOUS BUSINESS.

The beginning of the game is pretty bleh, since you don’t have access to the last two classes at the start. But once you have them, you will be hooked. Also, the Hexer class has the cutest loli portrait

I recommend this game if you are a masochist, liked Yggdra Union (same artist), or just like something new in your RPGs. If you want instant gratification, run ‘n’ gun-type action or grew up on FF7, I suggest you get another game. Or replay FF7 and write more Cloud X Sephiroth yaoi. (Yes this game is good stuff.)