Info about Etrian Odyssey II HD:

Official game description:
Etrian Odyssey II HD rebirths the timeless adventure of the mysterious floating castle.  
When civilization sunk beneath the seven seas, deep forests spread across the five remaining islands.  
Only the chosen ones escaped the waters in their castle stronghold. Eventually, the waves overtook even the last five islands...And the castle was all that remained. After the passing of ages, the people of the floating castle have chosen to descend upon their mother soil.  
Build your own party from twelve different classes of heroes and climb through the Yggdrasil tree to reach the clouds and uncover the truth of High Lagaard.  
Etrian Odyssey II HD Features:  
*   Newly remastered graphics, remastered soundtrack and quality of life improvements, including difficulty selection and save slots  
*   Easy access to the Monstrous Codex, quest log and skill tree  
*   Maximize your adventuring by optimizing your party, and choose the character classes that work for your playstyle

Release date: 14 Jun, 2023

Categories: First-Person Dungeon Crawler, Exploration, Turn-based Combat, Strategic Combat, Party-based Combat, Character Customization, Character Progression, Map Drawing


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Significant Improvement Over Predecessor (weight 0.69): Players generally agree that this installment is a significant improvement over the first game, offering a more fleshed-out story, better world-building, and enhanced gameplay mechanics. It's considered a more pleasant and enjoyable experience overall.
- Balanced and Accessible Difficulty (weight 0.48): The game offers a well-balanced difficulty, with new options like 'Picnic' and 'Simple' making it more accessible for newcomers, while 'Expert' retains the original challenge. Players appreciate the sense of achievement from overcoming difficult encounters and the strategic depth required.
- High-Quality HD Remaster (weight 0.47): The HD remaster is highly praised for its quality-of-life improvements, enhanced visuals, and optimized UI. It successfully updates a classic DRPG for modern players, making it more accessible and enjoyable while preserving its core charm.
- Engaging Core Gameplay Loop (weight 0.4): The game offers a unique and engaging gameplay loop that keeps players invested from start to finish. Its blend of classic adventure, free exploration, and rich professions provides a fresh and interesting experience.
- Improved Class Balance and Diversity (weight 0.34): Significant effort was put into refining class skill trees and adding new skills, leading to more balanced and diverse class combinations. This allows players greater freedom in team composition and enhances replayability.
- Outstanding Music and Art (weight 0.26): The game's soundtrack and overall artistic direction are consistently praised. Players highlight the phenomenal OST, beautiful art, and immersive atmosphere as key strengths.
- Engaging Map Drawing Mechanic (weight 0.22): The manual map drawing feature is a core element that players find highly enjoyable and satisfying. It contributes to a sense of achievement and enhances the exploration experience.
- Rewarding Combat and Content (weight 0.2): The game provides substantial content, including challenging boss battles and hidden dungeons, offering long playtimes. Specific class skills, like the Dark Hunter's, are noted for their effectiveness and contribution to satisfying combat encounters.
- Excellent PC Controls and UI (weight 0.18): The PC version features excellent keyboard and mouse optimization, making navigation, mapping, and UI interactions smooth and comfortable. This enhances the overall playability on modern systems.

Common complaints:
- Excessive Difficulty & Tedium (weight 0.83): Players found the game's overall difficulty significantly higher and more frustrating than its predecessor, Etrian Odyssey 1. This includes increased combat difficulty, more tedious encounters, and a general feeling of being overly harsh, leading to a less enjoyable experience.
- Poor Design & Balance (weight 0.78): The game suffers from numerous design flaws, including poor balancing, clunky mechanics, and a lack of quality-of-life features present in later titles. Many changes from the first game were perceived as regressions, making the experience frustrating and unpolished.
- Vague & Tedious Quests (weight 0.43): Quests are frequently criticized for providing insufficient information, requiring players to guess objectives or consult external guides. This leads to tedious backtracking, aimless wandering, and a general feeling of unrewarding effort, especially for side missions.
- Unfair Ambush Mechanics (weight 0.38): Players frequently encounter frustrating and unfair surprise attacks, especially during gathering activities. These ambushes often result in instant party wipes or significant setbacks, making resource collection and exploration unnecessarily punishing.
- FOEs Grant No EXP (weight 0.34): A major point of contention is that FOEs (Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens) do not grant experience points upon defeat. This design choice makes battling them feel unrewarding and often leads players to avoid them, despite their role in the game world.
- Clunky Map Drawing (weight 0.22): The manual map drawing system is cumbersome, particularly for PC players without a stylus or using a controller. Issues include sluggish movement, limited field of view in local mode, and overall unwieldy controls, detracting from the core exploration experience.
- Punishing Skill Resets (weight 0.16): The system for resetting skill points is punitive, causing players to lose multiple levels. This, combined with poor skill balancing and a painful level cap increase method, can lead to excessive grinding and a frustrating progression loop.
- Weak Story Elements (weight 0.12): The game's story is perceived as thin and largely non-existent, lacking significant cutscenes or a gripping plot. This results in a less immersive narrative experience compared to other titles.
- Forced Town Returns (weight 0.11): The game frequently forces players to return to town, interrupting dungeon exploration. This leads to repetitive backtracking through cleared areas and monotonous battles, hindering the flow of gameplay and making expeditions feel less efficient.
- Excessive Postgame Grind (weight 0.11): The postgame content, particularly the superboss, is described as unreasonably difficult and requires an extensive grind to prepare a viable team. This leads to a demanding and time-consuming endgame experience.
- Uninspired Dungeon Design (weight 0.11): Dungeon design in the latter half of the game is criticized for uninspired indoor scenery and troublesome layouts. Additionally, one-time dungeon events often provide minimal positive effects while frequently imposing negative ones, making them feel pointless.
- Inefficient Force System (weight 0.1): The Force Skill gauge resets upon leaving the labyrinth, making it difficult to build up and utilize effectively. Players feel forced to purposefully charge it before boss battles, which can prolong combat and make the system feel underutilized until late game.
- Limited Item Inventory (weight 0.1): The limited item possession capacity (60 slots) is a significant hindrance, especially given the high volume of items acquired during combat. This forces frequent returns to town or difficult inventory management, disrupting exploration.

Gameplay feedback:
- Expanded Classes & Rebalancing (weight 0.74): The game significantly expands on its predecessor by introducing more classes, bringing the total to 14, including new additions like Gunner, War Magus, and Pet. Class skills have been rebalanced, and some previously hidden classes are now available from the start, enhancing team composition possibilities and replayability.
- Deep Dungeon Exploration & Mapping (weight 0.64): The game is primarily a first-person 3D dungeon crawler with a strong emphasis on exploration and manual map drawing. Players navigate complex labyrinths, encountering monsters, traps, and treasures, with the core loop revolving around repeated dungeon delves and map completion.
- Adjustable Combat Difficulty (weight 0.3): The game offers varied difficulty settings, from the very easy 'Picnic' mode to the challenging 'Expert' difficulty, which was the default in the original DS version. Expert mode provides close, strategic battles, requiring careful party composition and skill allocation.
- Material-Based Progression (weight 0.21): The game's progression loop involves defeating monsters to acquire materials, which are then sold to unlock new equipment blueprints. Drop rates for items have been improved, and the 'Scavenger' skill is impactful for material acquisition.
- Quality of Life Improvements (weight 0.2): New quality-of-life features include an auto-drawing function for maps, which can be toggled for different player preferences, and a 'Picnic' difficulty mode that simplifies gameplay and removes item consumption for a more casual experience.
- Engaging Lore & Story (weight 0.16): The game's narrative centers around the mysterious 'High Lagaard Duchy' and the exploration of a giant labyrinth connected to the World Tree. Players form an expedition guild to uncover the truth behind the legend of a floating city.
- Strategic Turn-Based Combat (weight 0.14): Combat is a deep, turn-based system that heavily emphasizes strategy, character stats, and party composition. Players must carefully manage their team to overcome tough bosses and avoid powerful FOEs (Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens) through tactical movement and skill use.
- Challenging FOE Encounters (weight 0.14): FOEs are strong, mobile enemies that serve as significant obstacles within the labyrinth. The game introduces new FOE types and mechanics, such as visible movement patterns on the map, allowing players to strategically avoid or engage them.
- High Longevity & Replayability (weight 0.13): The game offers significant longevity, with late-game content potentially requiring hundreds of hours. It retains the high-difficulty FOE and labyrinth designs that appeal to hardcore players, ensuring extended playtime.
- Character Retirement System (weight 0.11): A unique retirement system allows players to retire max-level characters to create new ones with an increased level cap, repeatable multiple times. This system enables characters to reach level 99 and encourages guild management.
- Extensive Quest System (weight 0.08): The game features a robust quest system, with new quests becoming available as players ascend floors. There are also class-limited quests that offer higher rewards based on class levels, encouraging diverse party compositions.
- HD Remaster & PC Optimization (weight 0.08): This is an HD remaster of the 2008 Nintendo DS game, optimized for modern platforms. The original touch-screen map drawing system is now operable with a mouse on PC, maintaining the series' signature mechanic.
- Crucial Party Composition (weight 0.08): Party composition is crucial, especially on higher difficulties, as players form teams of up to five members. Careful selection of classes, skill allocation, and character positioning are essential for success in combat.
- Random Encounter Radar (weight 0.08): Random encounters are managed by a radar warning mechanism that changes from green to red, indicating the proximity of a battle. This system, combined with visible FOEs, dictates how players engage with enemies.

Performance notes:
- Enhanced HD Graphics (weight 0.23): Players consistently praise the significant graphical overhaul, noting the game's high-definition visuals, improved textures, and overall enhanced fidelity compared to the original. The visual upgrade is a major highlight.
- Improved Performance & Stability (weight 0.1): Reviewers appreciate the removal of bugs and performance issues that plagued the original game. This includes the absence of crashes and the elimination of significant lag, leading to a smoother experience.
- Faster Loading Times (weight 0.07): The remake features noticeably faster loading times, which players find contributes to a more comfortable and seamless gameplay experience.
- Good Performance Despite Denuvo (weight 0.04): Despite the presence of Denuvo, players report that the game runs extremely well, indicating that the anti-tamper technology does not negatively impact performance.

Recommendations:
- Mixed reception, consider EO3 (weight 0.83): Player opinions on this game's standing within the series are mixed, with some finding it enjoyable and others considering it the weakest entry. Many suggest playing Etrian Odyssey 3 first or instead, or recommend it only to existing fans of the series.
- Use Picnic difficulty for casual play (weight 0.2): For a more relaxed experience, players are encouraged to utilize the 'Picnic' difficulty setting. This allows for a focus on story and exploration rather than intense grinding, making the game more accessible.
- Not for series newcomers (weight 0.2): The game is generally not recommended for newcomers to the series due to its difficulty or specific mechanics. However, some believe newcomers can still find enjoyment, especially if they are open to the genre.
- Strategic party composition advised (weight 0.19): Specific class recommendations are provided for optimal party composition, such as including Alchemist, Dark Hunter, Medic, or War Magus. These choices are suggested for efficient map progression, special item drops, and resource management.
- Consistent core gameplay for fans (weight 0.17): The game maintains the core gameplay mechanics consistent with the series, appealing to long-time fans. It's recommended for DRPG enthusiasts or those who enjoyed the first Etrian Odyssey game.
- Buy on sale or in bundle (weight 0.12): Many players advise purchasing the game during a sale or as part of a bundle, suggesting that the standalone price might be too high for its value.
- 3DS remake is superior (weight 0.09): Some players consider this port of the original DS version to be inferior, specifically recommending the 3DS remake (Etrian Odyssey Untold 2) due to its significant rebalancing and fixes.
- More Atlus PC ports desired (weight 0.08): Players express a desire for Atlus to continue porting more of their games to PC and hope for improved PC optimization in future releases.
- Frequent temporary saves recommended (weight 0.03): Players are advised to frequently use the temporary save function, suggesting the game can be punishing and requires careful progress management.
- Use external guides for completion (weight 0.03): For players aiming to complete the full in-game compendium, consulting external resources like the Japanese Wiki is highly recommended.

Other player notes:
- Mixed reception for remaster (weight 0.54): Players have mixed feelings about Etrian Odyssey 2 HD Remaster, often comparing it to other entries in the series. Some view it as a classic DRPG and a good remaster, while others consider it the 'black sheep' or an experimental title, preferring other games in the series. There's also a sentiment that this remaster might be a test for future series installments.
- Significant playtime for completion (weight 0.27): Players report varying completion times, ranging from 30 hours for the main story to 60 hours for 100% completion, especially on Expert difficulty. Many players dedicated significant time to achieve all in-game accomplishments.
- Player strategies and tips (weight 0.13): Players shared tips for managing the game's challenges, such as using specific party compositions for gathering, managing exploration and combat carefully, and utilizing the auto-mapping feature to reduce tedium.
- Map design and controls (weight 0.12): A common point of feedback is that the game's map design feels very similar to the first installment, almost like an expansion pack. Additionally, the controller mapping controls for the map are noted as unwieldy, likely due to the original DS design.
- High difficulty and frequent wipes (weight 0.1): Players frequently experienced game overs and party wipes, even on Basic difficulty, indicating a challenging combat experience. The difficulty curve, particularly around the 3rd stratum boss, was noted as a significant hurdle.
- Need for difficulty balance (weight 0.04): There is a clear desire for an intermediate difficulty setting between the very easy 'PICNIC' and the standard 'BASIC' modes. This suggests a gap in the current difficulty options for some players.
- Robust base gameplay (weight 0.04): Despite some criticisms, there's an acknowledgment that the core gameplay mechanics of the game are solid and well-designed.
- Few other issues (weight 0.04): One reviewer noted that aside from specific issues they mentioned, the game generally performs well without other significant problems.
- Desire for varied equipment (weight 0.04): One player expressed a desire for equipment with random sub-options to drop from enemies. This suggests an interest in more varied loot and character customization options.
- Player moved to EO3 (weight 0.03): One player decided to temporarily stop playing this game and try Etrian Odyssey III instead, indicating a preference or a search for a different experience within the series.
- Reviewer self-identification (weight 0.03): This cluster contains a self-identification by a content creator, which is not relevant to game feedback.

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.27): Players experienced significant frustration due to hostile game design choices, including unbalanced difficulty, problematic class mechanics, and unrewarding gameplay loops. Specific issues like guaranteed ambushes during gathering, FOEs not granting experience, and inconvenient quest designs contributed to a tedious and grindy experience. The game's high difficulty, combined with a lack of in-game information and poor save systems, often led to frequent game overs and a feeling of being unfairly challenged.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.22): Satisfaction stemmed from intuitive labyrinth navigation, strategic combat, and effective class combinations that allowed players to overcome challenges. Improvements over the previous game, such as enhanced convenience, new classes, and quality-of-life features in the remaster, significantly contributed to overall enjoyment. The ability to achieve powerful builds and the engaging map-drawing mechanic also provided a sense of accomplishment and fun.
- Disappointment (weight 0.2): Disappointment arose from unrewarding quests, a punishing skill point reset system, and a perceived lack of build variety. Many players felt the game, as a port, did not live up to the enjoyment of its predecessor or failed to introduce significant evolution. Reused content, persistent bugs, and balance issues, particularly with classes and FOE experience, contributed to a feeling that the remaster lacked substantial improvements or was overpriced for what it offered.
- Appreciation (weight 0.07): Players appreciated the game's unique art style, improved battle music, and well-realized setting with memorable NPCs. The diligence in floor design, combined with quality-of-life features like warp points and improved game performance in the remaster, enhanced the overall experience. The game's foundational role in the series, its sharp balance, and increased party composition variety were also highly valued.
- Excitement (weight 0.04): Excitement was generated by the engaging progression loop, even amidst high difficulty, and the desire to play future installments. Players found the boss mechanics engaging, leading to a sense of mastery upon defeating them. The fast-paced, offensive combat style also contributed to an addictive and thrilling gameplay experience.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy was primarily derived from achieving powerful combat feats, such as one-shotting enemies or quickly defeating hidden bosses. Overall enjoyment of the game, often surpassing the first installment, and the satisfaction of earning achievements, coupled with fantastic music, contributed to this positive emotion.
- Neutral (weight 0.02): A neutral stance was observed due to a lack of freshness, particularly when the game was released as part of a trilogy, leading to a sense of familiarity. Players found the game interesting but noted caveats, often making general observations about the series' progression and adherence to its established formula.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.02): Players expressed enjoyment from the overall gameplay experience, despite its difficulty, and appreciated the introduction of new classes and pets. The challenging boss battles, exploration, and map-making aspects were consistently highlighted as fun. The game's replay value also contributed to a sustained positive experience.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom arose from divisive game elements and high difficulty, which sometimes led to players resorting to easier modes like 'Picnic'. The repetition of questlines and the cumulative effect of playing too much of the same game type, particularly with mapping becoming tiresome, also contributed to this feeling.
- Acceptance (weight 0.01): Players showed acceptance towards the challenging post-game grind, viewing it as an inherent part of the series' experience. The manageable difficulty, especially when compared to other titles, also contributed to a sense of acceptance regarding the game's design choices.
- Skepticism (weight 0.01): Skepticism was expressed regarding the game's quality as a sequel, with some questioning if it truly improved upon its predecessor. Concerns about the high price for an older game and the remaster not fully meeting expectations also fueled this doubt.
- Relief (weight 0.01): Relief was felt when significant bugs were removed from the game, improving the overall stability and playability. The inclusion of a suspend save feature, which prevented players from having to quit due to unforeseen circumstances, also contributed to a more relaxed gaming experience.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement stemmed from unexpected positive outcomes, such as receiving a special boss drop on the first encounter. Changes in the HD version and the discovery of methods to easily manage Expert difficulty also provided a source of entertainment.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.01): Nostalgia was a factor for players reflecting on their childhood gaming experiences and comparing them to current ones. This sentiment was particularly strong among long-time fans of the DRPG genre, who appreciated the game's adherence to classic elements.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arose from unclear quest objectives, which made progression difficult without external guidance. Players also expressed confusion regarding optimal team composition and certain aspects of the map drawing design, indicating a lack of clarity in game mechanics.
- Gratitude (weight 0.01): Gratitude was expressed for the existence and quality of the remaster, allowing players to experience the game on modern platforms. Appreciation was also shown for external resources like the Japanese Wiki, which provided crucial information and guidance.
- Anger (weight 0): Anger was a direct response to perceived poor game design and balancing issues. This strong negative emotion indicates a significant dissatisfaction with fundamental aspects of the game's mechanics and fairness.
- Relaxation (weight 0): Relaxation was experienced when the gameplay offered a stress-free environment. This suggests that despite challenging elements, there were aspects of the game that allowed players to unwind and enjoy the experience without undue pressure.
- Anticipation (weight 0): Anticipation was driven by a strong desire for more games in the series, indicating a positive overall experience and a wish for future installments. This suggests that the game successfully engaged players and left them wanting more.
- Shock (weight 0): Shock was a sudden, intense reaction to unexpected and negative in-game events, specifically being ambushed by powerful enemies like Dinogators and subsequently losing party members. This highlights moments of extreme difficulty and surprise.}