Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl

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

Players: 1, StreetPass Support

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Review:

Etrian Odyssey Untold, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013, is a remake of the original Etrian Odyssey, which came out on the original Nintendo DS in 2007. This game reimagines the 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. This game unfortunately lacks Etrian Odyssey IV’s overworld map, but having an actual story and characters this time around is a pretty fair trade-off for the loss of that feature.

As for that story, players take the role of an adventurer summoned to a town to explore a local “labyrinth”, a wild area filled with monsters believed to be the source of worrisome earthquakes. Upon finding some strange ruins, you and your group happen upon a strange girl in those ruins suffering from amnesia. It’s a fairly standard JRPG premise, but there are a few interesting twists later into the game.

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 noticeable pop-in), and the aforementioned animated cutscenes. The sound has arguably gotten an even greater boost with the game’s addition of English voiced dialogue (not for every line, sadly, but select lines are voiced), 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… well, apart from the loss of the overworld map, this is a very similar experience to what we say in Etrian Odyssey IV. Players engage enemies in turn-based JRPG battles and then chart out more of the dungeon using the touchscreen to draw in their map. As with Etrian Odyssey IV, they can even automate some of this process, placing lanes on the map that can be turned on to automatically send you walking back top town or running in a loop to grab supplies. You can also choose to turn on an auto-battle feature to have your party automatically take out easier enemies.

As much as I can complain about the lack of any major change to the gameplay, it’s hard to complain when the gameplay is this good. Really, my biggest complaints here are that I wish there was some sort of job class-swapping system rather than having everything rigidly sorted into permanent classes – later the game adds new “Grimoire Stones” that give players a little flexibility in giving characters new abilities, but this seems pretty limited. Also… yeah, I do miss having that world map too. However, adding an actual story and characters is nevertheless a solid addition to the franchise, making this feel less like a step backwards and more like a tradeoff. As a result Etrian Odyssey Untold is more or less on par with Etrian Odyssey IV as one of the best RPGs on the Nintendo 3DS.

tl;dr – Etrian Odyssey Untold 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 first Etrian Odyssey, and as a result it loses the overworld map from Etrian Odyssey IV. On the bright side, this game gets an entirely reworked story, a cast of characters, and animated cutscenes that more or less make up for this. As a result, this game is about on par with Etrian Odyssey IV as one of the best RPGs on the Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: A

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