Kazuya Niinou, director of the original Etrian Odyssey (as well as Trauma Center) left Atlus last year before any work began on the sequel. The design responsibilities were given to Shigeo Komori, who wrote the scenario for the first game, and who seems to understand what made it so great. 1up's Jeremy Parish interviewed Etrian Odyssey II's director about the classic style of the Etrian series and its surprising popularity.The decision to almost blank out the party's storyline (as in, they don't really speak or have backgrounds, nor do they appear) is unusual for a Japanese RPG, but not for a classic dungeon crawler. "But I thought, on the other ... There must still be those players who like classic RPGs where you create your own characters and go on an adventure," Komori said. "As a developer, I like those types of games." Despite this, the characters have become popular among fans, which Komori attributes to the art by Yuji Himukai.
Due to the mapping feature, Komori feels that the Etrian series is at home on the DS. "The foundation of this game is drawing a map on the Nintendo DS' touch screen, so if we were going to bring it to a home console, we'd have to come up with a new 'hook.'"
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-05-2008 @ 5:50PM
Kimiko said...
Aw, man. I want to play Etrian Odyssey now. Why don't eStarland have it in stock? :(
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6-05-2008 @ 7:51PM
Matt G. said...
That comment the guy made about "players using their own imagination to set up their own scenarios for their characters"...so true. I set my characters up to be a bunch of five really close friends (all guys) and two of them, my alchemist and protector, were both blonde-haired and brothers. The alchemist looked older and so I made him the older of the two. It's so awesome.
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6-05-2008 @ 10:04PM
Richie Ammons said...
From what I understand this game has litlle character development. So why does this game have some of the best character design. I think its such a waste. These characters should be used in a fully fleshed out fantasy RPG.
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6-06-2008 @ 4:25AM
Shamma said...
Some people will never understand that RPG's are not about cut-scenes. I haven't played this yet, I will have to check it out. It looks a little like the classic game Wizardry, which you probably haven't played if you are under 28 years old.
More game developers need to create games like they used to. While graphics have improved greatly over the years, it is my opinion that gameplay, and game style certainly has not.
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