ETRIAN ODYSSEY
I'm in love with the way EO leverages the DS to digitize manual mapping. absolutely wonderful, beautiful stuff that captures the spirit of the genre a billion million zillion times better than any automap ever could. in a perfect world this would've heralded imitative ports of every drpg under the sun, and all of them would've been strong contenders for the best versions by default. unfortunately we live in the eternal piss dimension so I'm doomed to pout about the missed opportunity for the rest of my life
as for the rest, from what I gather if you're coming at it from an EO perspective this thing feels like it was coded straight into zhoukoudian limestone by the peking man. folks act like it's the dustiest, crustiest, most cursed ass antipathetic crawler ever made. they're out here throwing blankets over their ds at night like a furby to stop it from talking backwards
but if you're coming at it from a broader drpg perspective it's almost the complete opposite: decidedly modern, breezy, and accommodating; its push toward transparency, telegraphs, and convenience at odds with the core tension loop pre-bradley wizardry clones fundamentally rely on
I fall into the second category and found most of this to be pretty dry. by the time I hit the 5th Stratum I was approaching vegetative status, zoning out and mashing A with one hand while reading scandalous celebrity gossip on my phone in the other. hovering out of body, well above the dungeon rather than being subsumed by it. EO just doesn't got the stomach to wrench your guts around, put you on the perpetual backstep, or fill the role of derelict steward the way the most successful clones do
which is fine. I like most of the experimentation here in isolation; there's a dialogue happening that's a lot more interesting than reheating 1981-1988 endlessly. the deterministic angle opens up a lot of unique design avenues; character building could easily swerve toward embracing shortform tactics over longform attrition, and moments like B20F show that FOEs can be more than softball fodder goin woop woop woop in a 3x3 grid. there's a lot to be excited about, it just needs to be contextualized in ways that flatter rather than compromise. no reason to be another mediocre wizardry when it could be a great etrian odyssey 🌈 🌈 🌈