Topic: Aw yeah! Persona Q!

@Ralizah: yes

Aww, I just finished the meat jelly quest. Theodore is sure a cutie. I really need to play the female route in P3P at some point.

Speaking of that quest, I really like the quest variation in this game. All of the quests have been meaningful in some way, and they encompass different aspects of the gameplay.

I wonder if Etrian Odyssey Untold 3 is dropping this year, or if we're getting Etrian Odyssey V instead?

@Ralizah: I wouldn't be surprised if both hit. Remember EO4 and the first Untold hit same year. I never played Untold one because it was so close to 4 and that lasted me months!

@Spoony_Tech: That'd actually work for me. I got about 50 hours into EOIII recently before dropping it, and I'll have no desire to revisit it for a while, so it'd be nice to have an entirely new one to play this year. My only fear is that EOV is going to drown in the story mode stuff. I don't mind the story mode gameplay of something like Persona Q, which isn't a pure EO game anyway, but I'd be sad if EOIV was the last main series entry to let us create our own characters and not bombard us with cutscenes. I liked the more subtle, emergent storytelling in that game.

@Ralizah: Hopefully at the very least they will provide both sets of modes to play. At least the story mode opens up the game for more people to enjoy and the old school can still play it the way they want. I also loved the story EO IV had, also gameplay was too notch and hope the overworld is here to stay.

That was a bit wordy lol. Oh well

Geez, did Teddie hit puberty in this game or something? He exhibited some level of flirtiness in P4, but he's almost constantly horny in this game. It's like he's been possessed by Ringabel or something.

@Ralizah: He gets worse before he gets better lol. They do develop the character beyond that though but it's still a long game lol

I'm trying to do all of the side quest, VN scenes, and whatnot as they come up, so my progress through the game is relatively slow. I just finished that quest battle with Elizabeth and, geez, she was a beast. She spent the entire match either paralyzing my entire party or casting instakill spells on random party members. I eventually defeated her, but I ran through my entire supply of HP and SP recovery items in the process.

My party set-up at this point, which I'm pretty satisfied with at the moment, goes like this:
Yu (P4 protag) is up front and specializes in ice attacks, with Bufula, Mabufu, Ice Boost, and Ice Wall. He also has the strong Electric attacks from his permanent Persona. Unsurprisingly, his support Persona right now is Jack Frost.

Minato (P3 protag) is my other strong guy up front. He focuses on strong fire and wind attacks for offense, and has Poison Circle, Evil Touch, and Scarecrow for status effect damage. His current support Persona is an Alp.

Yukari is in back, and I have a Xiezhai on her that gives her great debuff attacks like Kidney Smash, Sukunda, and Disarm. It's a good compliment to her normal healing abilities.

Zen and Rei are in the back and have never left my party, as they have amazing elemental attacks and support abilities across the board.

Finally, Aigis is my offensive tank in the back. Besides having her natural damage soaking abilities, I also have an Oni on her that gives her some great debuff attacks like Fang Smash and Teardrop.

So, I got to the end of the second dungeon. The boss tried to pair my MC with Akihiko. Akihiko expressed doubt about my potential to be a satisfactory wife for him. The boss was interesting, like some sort of mutated old-time pastor. The battle was pretty easy early on, but got VERY annoying near the end when he started banning multiple things IN THE MIDDLE OF MY TURN. Pretty soon, it was just a battle of attrition between two of my characters and the boss. I tried resurrecting my entire party before the final blow, so that they would all get experience from his death, but the stupid guy blasted Minato before my party landed a killing blow after making vows in the middle of my turn again.

@Ralizah: I remember having a very easy time against that boss. The vows didn't restrict me in things I needed at all. Better get ready for that third dungeon though! It's the most difficult one.

@Smitherenez: But it's the most diverse and for me fun. It did drag a bit towards the end but that was for obvious reasons.

I also had an easy go with that boss. I guess it's somewhat luck to not get something bad spammed at you while your turn is still going. I pretty much had an easy go with Elizabeth and all bosses. It was some of those FOE's that were problems but at least you could avoid them.

@Spoony_Tech: The FOEs haven't been too bad so far. They're damage sponges, for sure, but none of them have been particularly vicious.

I just realized I haven't gotten a game over yet. That's a first for me in an Etrian-style game...

@Spoony_Tech: Yeah, you are right about that. I loved the mysteries, puzzels and story bits in there. I also remember being disappointed that the dungeons after that weren't that inventive.

@Ralizah: They got hard in the 3rd area then really hard in the 4th. Just wait and see but they always yield the best gear so it's worth taking them out the first time you see them.

I'm only a couple of floors into the Evil Spirit Club so far (I always 100% a floor before moving on to the next one), but I think it's safe to say this is easily the most incredibly atmospheric and interesting dungeon I've encountered in an Atlus game thus far. This game is really setting a new standard for EO dungeon crawling, I think. Hopefully some of this same ingenuity is also directed into the dungeon designs for Persona 5.

@Ralizah: I was thinking about that level just yesterday and thought it was totally unique then I remember some of EOIV's end game and there was a dungeon similar to it. I had forgot all about it till now so it seems they expanded on that in a similar way they did the overworld of IV like the sailing of 3's. Not sure if you had played any of the end game but that section was really hard on EOIV.

Glad you're enjoying the game so far though. I couldn't stop playing till the end!

@Spoony_Tech: You mean the sixth dungeon with the scary music and chemicals? That was a pretty intricate dungeon, although I find this one more fun to play through. I really like the whole haunted house design.

I'll definitely stop playing before the end, as I can't play long Etrian games to the end in one stretch, but it is definitely holding my attention more than most of the other games in this series (although EOIV is one that held my interest until the end, I believe).

I don't get what you guys like about the third dungeon.
It is the dungeon that got me tired of playing the game.
It's meant to be a cliche hounted school and that is exactly what it is to me.
I mean bloodstains, broken windows, those bloody babys following you.
It is well done and suits the whole theme of school classes setting up strange theme rooms for the school festival, I admit that. That sais I also admit, that I am still on the first floor of that dungeon and am judging only because of what I saw there. But so far I found the Group Date Cafe dungeon to be more original.
The Alice in Wonderland one was pretty and a nice introduction. I like Alice in Wonderland, so it doesn't bother me that they pay tribute to it's ideas.

I didn't care much for the first dungeon. Maybe it's just because I'm still traumatized by trying to play the original Kingdom Hearts, but I never want to see another AiW-themed section in a video game again.

GDC was a pretty typical Etrian dungeon except for those question rooms.