More EO-adjacents:
7th Dragon on NDS
Nora to toki no koubou
Heck yeah. I've played 7th Dragon, but Nora is news to me.
I started playing IV, my first real EO game. I tried Persona Q back when it first came out but I found the Personaness of it to actually be a hinderance to my enjoyment.
EOIV is off the charts vibe city so far. I finished the tutorial area and everything about the music, the flavor text, the grafix, love love love it.
So one thing that I didnât realize about this series is that thereâs a bunch of seriously rad flavor text that really makes you feel like youâre role playing in a new world so elegantly. I figured these had a main story or whatever and that would be it. Instead Iâm having my mind blown over how much personality this game has.
@âsabertoothalexâ#p156138 Itâs so good to read about someone discovering this game for the first time! Love how much youâre enjoying it.
I started EO3 a couple of days ago and Iâm loving it. I decided to go back to playing on Expert mode for this one after Basic on EO2 and Iâm liking it more.
I'm running two parties this time, a main one consisting of Sovereign, Hoplite and Monk on the front row and Ninja and Zodiac on the back. For the first time I've also got a farming party consisting of the other unlocked classes.
I've just about reached the first boss room on the fourth floor - surprised it's not the fifth in this game. I can reliably beat the regular FOEs so far by Provoking with the Hoplite and using Prevent Guard with the Sovereign to ward off status ailments. I feel like I'm cheating the game already, heh.
I've not done much of the sailing just yet. I've done the side quests involving the lighthouse and they were pretty fun but having to take out party members to beat them has triggered the part of my brain that likes everyone to level up evenly, dang. I do like that by beating the side quest boss with different party guests is fun.
I'm really liking this one so far. This series owns.
@âLeFishâ#p156158 sounds like youâre having far less trouble than I did!
Right now Iâm stuck on the 3rd stratum boss. When I hit a wall in these games I hit them hard hahah
Just want to say thanks to the folks in this thread, because you all inspired me to start up a fresh Etrian Odyssey V party last night. What a great game that is.
When I hit a wail in EO that lasts over two weeks, i have to resist the urge to start playing a different EO game 
@âtreefroggyâ#p156560 lol there are just so many of them! I understand this impulse completely.
@âwhatsarobotâ#p156572 starting out and going through the first 3 stratums is like nonstop fun. then the sub-class system opens (from III onward) and there's a difficulty spike and I hit a fucking wall between wanting to retool and rebuild my team from the ground up and struggling with balancing a team I like with one that is effective.
One really poignant thing jeremy quoted from a developer in the EO episode of retronauts is that rather than the traditional wizardry team of 6, you only get 5 party members, so that your team will always be *just barely* not totally prepared for anything and everything. And, while I think that is genius, I think the "easy mode" should just let you have 6 members, haha.
@âtreefroggyâ#p156587 Yes! Precisely this. Or at least let everyone hanging out back in the guild headquarters gain XP along with their buddies who are out adventuring.
@âwhatsarobotâ#p156590 I could have sworn they did that in EOV but I could be wrong
Not gonna lie, while EO1-3 didn't have a save editor, EOIV does, so I used it in stratum 3 to do just that, make a lvl 1 recruit into a lvl 37 recruit.
@âtreefroggyâ#p156602 Well I mean EOV had the memory conch, but that only gave a tiny bit of EXP to the team sitting back at home. I found it so aggravating that I didn't even want to use it. Felt like the game taunting me, with such tiny EXP gets.
@âtreefroggyâ#p156366 Iâve reached the second stratum (almost reached the third floor of it in one go oops). I managed grind out a little extra money before the first boss for a couple of weapons that had big boosts from what I was otherwise using and beat up that guy no problem. Iâm not capable of protecting against party-wide attacks on yet so I'm not able to take down the FOEs in the second stratum.
@"whatsarobot"#p156605 The bench exp varies across games if I remember rightly. In EO3 there's a skill that can be invested in for bench characters to get exp depending on how many points are invested in it. I'm using it to passively level up my farming team and they've reached a point where they can wander around the first stratum without too much worry. I haven't invested much in the way of skills because of needing to invest in exp gain but it'll kinda level out the more I go through the game. I'm going to be a farming machine by the fourth stratum.
I usually never invest much in any characters besides my main team of 5. I use my main 5 to farm. Iâve never made a farming team. I do use the ârestâ and âretireâ features though.
Iâve reached the third stratumâs third floor and had a mixed experience. The second floor sucked, being one long, path avoiding fire tiles before a mini boss fight. The third floor looks a lot better thankfully from what I've played of it - lots of little branching paths to peek into.
I don't know if it's just me but I am constantly struggling for money, even with my super farmer, and my main team rushing FOEs. Everything gets really expensive and I find myself grinding for money fairly regularly so that I can buy better armour.
I've also reached the point of adding subclasses to everyone. My Sovereign has Hoplite skills to be an elemental defender, my Ninja has Sovereign skills purely down to a skill that heals the party if the skill owner has full health at the end of a turn, and my Hoplite, Monk, and Zodiac all subclassed into Ninja for better evasion and eventual TP regeneration via evasion. I considered other classes but in the longer fights I was finding that TP was at a premium. I'm not totally convinced about my Hoplite investing in that but at least the higher evasion will make them even more defensive.
Iâm on the verge of finishing the fourth stratum now - the Abyssal Shrine. Iâve found this one to be more oppressive and it rules. The puzzles involve opening gates that then close when you pass through them, and on the later floors there are âfall through to the next floor and climb back upâ puzzles which I initially groaned at but there's only one or two actual puzzles involving that that require any brain power. The FOEs feel more threatening too because they all chase around the level and you have to trap them behind gates to progress. Cool stuff.
I've generally found it to be easier than the third stratum too barring one particular enemy that does bonkers amounts of damage even to my line-protected party members. The enemies on the third one seemed particularly bulky compared to the second stratum and some of them not any less bulky than the fourth stratum. The FOEs on the fourth floor seem to be easier for my party than the ones on the third floor.
I haven't done much more of the sailing but I've come across a series of sidequests that involve fighting Golem. I like the way that the game is presenting the optional stuff.
@âLeFishâ#p156958 [edit]: LOL I thought you were talking about EOIV from your first postâ my experience with the third stratums in both games were very similar.
~~yes dude. this stratum is beautiful at first but has the most annoying gimmick ever. It took me a month to pass. I just did it the other night..... Though at that point I had more money than I could spend, I ended the stratum with like 75k. I hit a wall with the upgrades. You don't have to upgrade every chance you get, and with the right strategies you can slide by with weaker gear.~~
~~After this stratum you unlock the best physical fighter class to subclass with so I wouldn't recommend jumping the gun and subclassing everyone, but if you really need the extra 5 skill points to beat the stratum boss go ahead. You can always rest your units after.~~
~~These are just my tips. There's no wrong way to do it, it's just a huge difficulty spike and gatekeepy section. Afterwards, I found the next area to be rewardingly smooth and beautiful.~~
I'm seeing a pattern, because this is exactly how it went for me in EOIII.
~~Very fun that you're practically in the same part of the game as I am!!~~
Here's my team in EOIV.
Before the Dancer I had a Sniper. When I completely re-tooled my team for the stratum 3 boss, I used an EOIV save editor to give myself a dancer with the same amount of experience as my sniper.
@âtreefroggyâ#p157915 My experience of the third stratum in EOIV wasn't great. It was my first EO game and I hated the gimmick leading up to the boss.
I haven't played it since way back but my team was identical in base classes to your original one and I kept the sniper. I forget the exact strategies that I used but they carried me through the three dragons and at least half of the sixth stratum. I seem to remember putting the game down after my entire party got petrified at one point. I'd happily start a new game again if Atlus rereleased it as part of a modern collection.
I played EO3 for a few hours yesterday and didn't make a lot of progress but I did get to the fourth stratum boss which seems to be bulky as heck. None of my regular strategies seem to work and I'm chipping damage off it to the point where I run out of TP to heal.
I spent the rest of my time trying to get acquire new gear but the drop rates seem to have nosedived in this stratum. I can wander around and beat up a dozen enemies and maybe get a couple of drops. I still love it though.
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