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EON: Exploring the world's trees, 1-1
Feb. 15th, 2019 06:21 pmL1: B1 || L2: B1 / B2 / B3 || L3: B1 / B2 / B3 || L4: B1 / B2 / B3 || L5: B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / B5
So Etrian Odyssey Nexus is out. The swansong of them on the (3)DS and also a celebration of the series in how it has content from all the games. Including 19 different classes mostly pulled from a popularity poll, which is about as balanced as you'd expect. Read: one "mage" class that isn't very good, one damage mitigating class, too few back row classes.
After spending several days deciding on a party, I decide on a party! Harbinger, a debuff and ailment class (very good in this series). Sovereign, a buff class that can also passively heal effectively. Landsknecht aka Landshark, a basic damage class partially based around elemental follow-ups. Ninja, a damage class that can dabble in ailments. And Gunner, which is not an all-around superman until late in this game, and primarily focuses on ranged damage and binds (special type of ailment in this series). I'm skipping the broken Hero class since everyone and their dog is using it.
So introduced to the setting, where adventurers from around the world are called to explore. In order to do anything around city though, I need to perform quests. Stark contrast from previous games where you need to do a basic first mission to do any. The first one I do involves capturing a dangerous fish from a lake that is otherwise a good water source. With the help of a trusty fishing rod and Nina throwing a knife at it when it's thrashing around with violent force, I succeed in this. It's all dialogue in this. For the other one, I need to help protect a herd of goats. One goes missing. I check the forest, and...
...have to battle to save it! Now this party I'm running is kind of dangerous. Usually in an Etrian game you'll want a class to tank or mitigate damage. I have no such class, instead relying upon locking down the enemy. Which I'm capable of doing with this party. I also have no formal healing class, instead relying on the Sovereign's passive healing, which is at least quite sufficient to the point of being able to mostly substitute. With this plus being the first fight in the game, I don't have much trouble taking down these enemies.
Technology regressed and Miiverse is DEAD AS HELL by the way, so back to discount screenshots for this one. I mean I could get clean ones, but it'd be a pain in the ass on account of playing this on N3DS and getting at its memory stick being stupid. Maybe later.
These two quests led directly into the third: find a lost Medic. This leads into another fight, which is also not that bad. She introduces herselff as Birgitta after this, and says that her friend Laika - who is like a little sister to her - has gone missing. You know, the name of the first dog on the moon.
This leads her and the party to find some ruins. This game, while having little content from Etrian V due to it taking place on a terraformed Mars per the Japanese version's script, does have its Adventure Episodes - little skits in the dungeons - worked in. I run into two along the way. First a horrid stench that I investigate which turns out to be a couple of skunks. Then in the other direction a "pissed off" wolf (game's words) that wanted to eat the skunks, but got sprayed, that I had to fight.
I do have to backtrack out to heal due to being out of TP at one point, but eventually make it to Laika. Who is a dog as I was expecting. My party guides Birgitta out and she vows to repay us however she can some day. Reporting into HQ after reveals we were the first to set foot in those ruins, and have the honor of investigating and mapping them due to everyone else being busy.
I explored the western side the previous time, so this time I go to the north and east. As I proceed through, I find the flaw with this party so far. The Gunner is slow, often unable to get her binds off in time. So the party can often end up getting smacked for high damage before she can get them off. For example, those skunks. They use an attack to spray gas on you which poisons. You can bind their legs to prevent them from doing this, but like five times she went and binded them after they'd got it off. I might be able to mitigate this later, but for now, I'll have to put up with it. That said the party barely holds together, so removing her for the dedicated and faster bind class means I'll lose ailment healing without use of items. Still, it's capable. Just bulky enough to take hits if need be, but repeated targetting is where it might get finnicky.
One annoying rude Adventure Episode indirectly makes me reset: it effectively drains a huge chunk of your HP and TP. I messed up my map markers after it happens, so I just hit the do over button Ironically nearby there's one where you can get it restored, but even then you need to reach it.
A boss already! In the tutorial dungeon! I ran back immediately and prepared for the battle just in case it wasn't just some scrub tutorial boss. This is Etrian after all.
---
Well, the answer to that was yes and no.
My party very quickly ran out of juice in the fight against this giant plant monster, aside from the Ninja and Sovereign - the latter who got locked down with binds anyway. The boss was based around binds. At least it didn't hit very hard, and the Sovereign's healing plus binds of my own were enough to help see me through on the defensive side, if only barely.
On the other hand, it took everything I had to get through. That's kind of another weakness of this party: it is kind of lacking in a big nuke force break panic button option. You can see it was poisoned here, which was the ninja's doing and one of my few options for that. It did over 100 damage a turn, very welcome. Once my TP was gone, it was just basic attacks.
But I won in the end. All the same, I have just enough. Leaves me wondering how the party will do in the future, at least the immediate future. Guess I'll find out.
So Etrian Odyssey Nexus is out. The swansong of them on the (3)DS and also a celebration of the series in how it has content from all the games. Including 19 different classes mostly pulled from a popularity poll, which is about as balanced as you'd expect. Read: one "mage" class that isn't very good, one damage mitigating class, too few back row classes.
After spending several days deciding on a party, I decide on a party! Harbinger, a debuff and ailment class (very good in this series). Sovereign, a buff class that can also passively heal effectively. Landsknecht aka Landshark, a basic damage class partially based around elemental follow-ups. Ninja, a damage class that can dabble in ailments. And Gunner, which is not an all-around superman until late in this game, and primarily focuses on ranged damage and binds (special type of ailment in this series). I'm skipping the broken Hero class since everyone and their dog is using it.
So introduced to the setting, where adventurers from around the world are called to explore. In order to do anything around city though, I need to perform quests. Stark contrast from previous games where you need to do a basic first mission to do any. The first one I do involves capturing a dangerous fish from a lake that is otherwise a good water source. With the help of a trusty fishing rod and Nina throwing a knife at it when it's thrashing around with violent force, I succeed in this. It's all dialogue in this. For the other one, I need to help protect a herd of goats. One goes missing. I check the forest, and...
...have to battle to save it! Now this party I'm running is kind of dangerous. Usually in an Etrian game you'll want a class to tank or mitigate damage. I have no such class, instead relying upon locking down the enemy. Which I'm capable of doing with this party. I also have no formal healing class, instead relying on the Sovereign's passive healing, which is at least quite sufficient to the point of being able to mostly substitute. With this plus being the first fight in the game, I don't have much trouble taking down these enemies.
Technology regressed and Miiverse is DEAD AS HELL by the way, so back to discount screenshots for this one. I mean I could get clean ones, but it'd be a pain in the ass on account of playing this on N3DS and getting at its memory stick being stupid. Maybe later.
These two quests led directly into the third: find a lost Medic. This leads into another fight, which is also not that bad. She introduces herselff as Birgitta after this, and says that her friend Laika - who is like a little sister to her - has gone missing. You know, the name of the first dog on the moon.
This leads her and the party to find some ruins. This game, while having little content from Etrian V due to it taking place on a terraformed Mars per the Japanese version's script, does have its Adventure Episodes - little skits in the dungeons - worked in. I run into two along the way. First a horrid stench that I investigate which turns out to be a couple of skunks. Then in the other direction a "pissed off" wolf (game's words) that wanted to eat the skunks, but got sprayed, that I had to fight.
I do have to backtrack out to heal due to being out of TP at one point, but eventually make it to Laika. Who is a dog as I was expecting. My party guides Birgitta out and she vows to repay us however she can some day. Reporting into HQ after reveals we were the first to set foot in those ruins, and have the honor of investigating and mapping them due to everyone else being busy.
I explored the western side the previous time, so this time I go to the north and east. As I proceed through, I find the flaw with this party so far. The Gunner is slow, often unable to get her binds off in time. So the party can often end up getting smacked for high damage before she can get them off. For example, those skunks. They use an attack to spray gas on you which poisons. You can bind their legs to prevent them from doing this, but like five times she went and binded them after they'd got it off. I might be able to mitigate this later, but for now, I'll have to put up with it. That said the party barely holds together, so removing her for the dedicated and faster bind class means I'll lose ailment healing without use of items. Still, it's capable. Just bulky enough to take hits if need be, but repeated targetting is where it might get finnicky.
One annoying rude Adventure Episode indirectly makes me reset: it effectively drains a huge chunk of your HP and TP. I messed up my map markers after it happens, so I just hit the do over button Ironically nearby there's one where you can get it restored, but even then you need to reach it.
A boss already! In the tutorial dungeon! I ran back immediately and prepared for the battle just in case it wasn't just some scrub tutorial boss. This is Etrian after all.
---
Well, the answer to that was yes and no.
My party very quickly ran out of juice in the fight against this giant plant monster, aside from the Ninja and Sovereign - the latter who got locked down with binds anyway. The boss was based around binds. At least it didn't hit very hard, and the Sovereign's healing plus binds of my own were enough to help see me through on the defensive side, if only barely.
On the other hand, it took everything I had to get through. That's kind of another weakness of this party: it is kind of lacking in a big nuke force break panic button option. You can see it was poisoned here, which was the ninja's doing and one of my few options for that. It did over 100 damage a turn, very welcome. Once my TP was gone, it was just basic attacks.
But I won in the end. All the same, I have just enough. Leaves me wondering how the party will do in the future, at least the immediate future. Guess I'll find out.
