Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight

Written by Matt Mirkovich on 7/30/2015 for 3DS  

It feels like I just finished a review of another Etrian Odyssey game, ah yes, Mystery Dungeon. That was a fine side-trip in the Etrian franchise, but going back to Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight was a nice reminder about all the things I love about this franchise. The challenging gameplay, the engaging story, and the satisfaction that comes with taking down another massive JRPG. Although we are a bit swamped in Etrian Odyssey titles, Fafnir Knight does enough things differently that makes it a worthy entry to the franchise.

Like Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl, Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold features an all new story mode that places gamers in the shoes of the Fafnir Knight. His encounter with the Princess of Caledonia sets into motion the events that uncover the mysteries of her ceremony that takes place every hundred years. Here’s a hint, it never ends well when a ceremony is never explained to the person who is performing it. The Fafnir Knight also has a beastly form that is tied to the Princess, and the hows and whys he came to have this power will be explained as well. Or if you want to go the classic route of Etrian Odyssey 2, you can actually forsake the new story mode and play it your way, with a party of your choosing. I actually preferred taking the story route this time around, the excellent localization has some great character development and solid writing.

The bread and butter of the Etrian games is as good as it has ever been in Fafnir Knight. The map drawing system has been streamlined to allow more immediate access to icons when drawing a map, which means less digging through menus to find the right icon. Skills have been readjusted to match a skill tree that isn’t much different from a typical MMO, and thankfully each point feels like a fairly generous increase in your abilities and skills. A lot of elemental skills are unlocked at the same time, making it feel like you’re grinding a lot less to gain specific skills. Overall this time around the grind doesn’t feel as harsh as it did in previous games. Sure you’ve still go a hill to climb in order to take down the FOEs, but that’s a trend that will never change, and it’s appreciated that the challenge is there, should I want to take it later.

Combat in the Etrian games has always been strong, and in Fafnir Knight the characters all feel distinctly useful and powerful in their own ways. Arianna is able to adjust the power or defense of the entire party on the fly. Betrand can be your wall and direct enemy attacks toward him. Chloe can heal the party in unique ways that I’ve always wanted a healer to function. Her ability to heal at the start and the end of a turn opens up a battle to allow you to be a bit more flexible with keeping your party’s health up. And Flavio can direct attacks at anyone on the field, making him the perfect sharpshooter for when you have a pesky enemy in the back row that has to go quickly. I actually had a hard time when it came to choosing between what characters I wanted to run in my party as I progressed through the game. The synergy between characters is incredibly strong and the number of options for how you approach each battle is almost staggering, and that’s just within using the story mode characters. If you go in with a free party you’ll see how open ended the combat can be.

  

Etrian Odyssey games have a very distinct look to them. The art of Yuji Himukai still portrays cute and cool characters booming with power. Arianna is over the top cute, Betrand is a beefy dude, and even the Fafnir Knight just looks cool, whether in his normal or powered-up state. The in-game visuals still look great, even though there is a noticeable amount of re-used enemy models from other games that have just been slightly modified or palette swapped. Still, the world is expertly crafted and keeps at the standard set by the rest of the series. The audio is as good as ever as well. The combat music is catchy, and the voice acting is pretty solid, although Arianna exclaiming ‘My!’ as a term of surprise or excitement can get a little old.

Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight isn’t doing anything to reinvent the series, but it continues to build upon a strong foundation and make marked improvements where necessary and changes the formula in ways that are just new and interesting enough to keep players interested. It’s not going to win any awards for originality, but it delivers exactly what fans of the series are going to expect and it is going to welcome newcomers to the series. They’ve started to dial back the hard-core elements of the game just enough to make it more accessible to everyone else, but it still has a challenge available should gamers choose to have one. If you played Etrian Odyssey 2 the first time around on the DS, there is more than enough added on here to justify picking up this upgraded version. If you happened to skip out on the first release, I’d say this is a good one to pick up either to get yourself started, or to bring yourself back into the fold. The 3DS has no shortage of great JRPGs, and this is just another one to throw onto your backlog, or jump headlong into.