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> Results: Etrian Odyssey
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The ESRB Says
Blood: GamerDad saw pixelated cartoon blood while vanquishing enemies. Mild Fantasy Violence: The entire game revolves around clearing dangers out of a massive labyrinth. Mild Suggestive Themes: The tavern owner thinks the band of adventures are pretty nice and gets flirty from time to time. Once upon a time there was this little game called Wizardry, in which you had to map your own dungeons and you walked about in a first person perspective and met wandering monsters as you explored the dungeon. Time has progressed but all that was old is new again on your DS! Etrian Odyssey is a dungeon crawler that makes you draw your own maps, pay close attention to all of the members of your party, make sure you are generating adequate amounts of cash reserves on a regular basis and face monsters that will wipe you out in a single round of intense turn-based combat. Gameplay will be immediately familiar to fans of classic party-based role-playing games such as Ultima, Might & Magic and Bard's Tale, yet much of it will not be alien to those whose idea of classic RPG's begins with Final Fantasy. That is because the so-called jRPG (Japanese role playing game) sun-genre is based off of the Ultima tradition. To play you move through the world in a first person view and then meet enemies on a separate field and carry out your battles. Battles are turn-based, meaning that each player gets a turn to make an action with an order based character statistics. However, much more than with many other games you need to think of your partyas a team that works together and supports one another - because the difficulty level of the game is brutal. Is it a strange thing to call a game that will mercilessly kill you 'charming'? Perhaps it is, but that is a feeling I associate with this game. The nice graphics, draw-your-own dungeons and sweet music playing everywhere all just draw me in immediately whenever I start playing. I love the challenge, the feel of the game, and the ability to lead a party and have my choices matter. I enjoyed the characters in town, the way they change and grow. But everything comes down to the dungeons in a game like this, and that is where Etrian Odyssey shines brightest - the balance of you against your environment is perfect, and the execution of making a massive dungeon that is challenging at all levels is simply sweet perfection.  
I'm in a bit of a quandary about why this game is rated T. Perhaps it is the 'blood' that is shown during the battles? It certainly isn't the violence - the 'Mild Fantasy Violence' descriptor gets it right, as the game is turn-based and has you in unrealistic battles that are not visceral in any way. As for the 'suggestive themes', I found there to be pretty much the same level of innuendo in the recent Pixar film Ratatouille (Rated G) as there is in Etrian Odyssey. However, the punishing difficulty would not be fun for younger kids. My younger son was not amused by watching my entire party get wiped out in a single round - by my older son had a belly laugh!
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