Etrian Odyssey Untold 2: The Fafnir Knight

Genre: First-Person Dungeon Crawler / Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1, StreetPass Support

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Review:

Etrian Odyssey Untold 2, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2015, is a remake of the second game in the Etrian Odyssey series, which came out on the original Nintendo DS in 2008. As with the prior Etrian Odyssey Untold title, this game reimagines the original game’s plot, improves the presentation, remasters the original game’s music, adds anime-style animated cutscenes, and most significantly, greatly expands on the story of the original game, giving players the option to either play as their own custom-made party, or to follow characters specifically created for this remake, with their own story. In terms of mechanics, this is still a fairly straightforward RPG with crafting mechanics and a strong focus on using the Nintendo 3DS touchscreen to chart out the dungeons you explore.

Players take the role of a leader of an investigation team sent to escort a young princess to a dangerous ruins where she is meant to go through a centennial ritual. However, this quest goes awry when your character is contacted by a mysterious entity who imbues him with powerful new abilities, along with a monstrous transformation. The group must continue to explore the ruins in search of answers for what’s really going on, and possibly a cure for the hero.

The other elements of the presentation here are pretty good, with some nice anime-style 2D artwork for the game’s characters, some nicely-detailed 3D dungeons to explore (with noticeably pop-in), and the aforementioned animated cutscenes. As with the prior Etrian Odyssey Untold game, this game adds voiced dialogue for the characters (not for every line, though), as well as a lovely instrumental remaster of the original soundtrack. Purists can also opt to play the game using the original soundtrack, though I cannot fathom why anyone would want to.

As for the gameplay… Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 adds a few minor upgrades to the series’ standard gameplay. There’s a new combat mechanic, the Burst system, which allows players to build up energy over time to briefly power-up their character later culminating in a powerful move before returning to normal. There’s a new cooking minigame to provide players with buffs, as well as an added revenue stream. And the dungeon exploring itself has had a few minor improvements, such as the ability to draw automated paths rather than having to place each tile individually.

None of these additions really drastically affects the series’ formula all that much, but they are welcome all the same, and add enough to keep this from being a completely predictable retread. And under all of this is the same great First-Person Dungeon Crawler and touchscreen-enabled map-making gameplay that made the prior games in the series so great. In short, Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 keeps what works, makes marginal improvements, and largely produces yet another great entry in the series that doesn’t do anything revolutionary, but is still one of the best RPGs on the Nintendo 3DS.

tl;dr – Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 once again combines Turn-Based RPG gameplay with First-Person Dungeon Crawling, with the Etrian series’ big hook being that players are using the touchscreen to map out the game’s dungeons as they explore. This game is actually a remake of the second Etrian Odyssey game, and adds a story about mysterious ruins that players must explore to discover the secret to their monstrous transformation. This entry in the franchise adds a few small new elements and marginal improvements to the series’ formula, but mostly this is the same strong gameplay that the series has been known for, making this once again one of the best RPGs on Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: A

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