Rather than adhering with the classic PC98 FM synth sound, 7th Dragon‘s music is a bit more of a traditional RPG soundtrack, filled with an eclectic mix of genres. Once again keeping with Etrian Odyssey, the soundtrack is composed by Yuzo Koshiro. The map making stuff from Etrian Odyssey is completely gone. The bottom screen displays a map – the overworld is always visible, although you need to find a map to view the layout of the dungeons. These all look and feel like the DS Dragon Quest remakes, complete with 2D sprite characters, all four party members walking in a line, on top of 3D backgrounds. Once you’ve gotten everything in gear, you’re free to roam around town, leave to the world map and explore dungeons. This also grants them one additional skill point. Although technically you have to name the characters, each design has their own “canon” name, which can be activated by inputting a password as their name, which can be obtained from the Japanese 7th Dragonweb site. The prime difference is that you can only have four people in the party at a time rather than five. There are a total of seven classes, many of which are similar to classes in the first Etrian Odyssey, although some of the skills have been shuffled about. It was published by Sega, and produced by Rieko Kodama, which should send fanboy shivers down the spine of anyone who’s played Phantasy Star or Skies of Arcadia.ħth Dragon opens the same way as Etrian Odyssey, letting you name your guild, and allowing you to create and name your party. Developed by imageepoch, the same folks behind other DS RPGs like Luminous Arc and Sands of Destruction, it was directed by Kazuya Ninou, the original man behind Etrian Odyssey who had defected from Atlus during the development of the second game. In hope to capture that market, 7th Dragon (not to be confused with the lousy browser based MMORPG Seventh Dragon) was born, an unabashed mixture of Etrian Odyssey‘s mechanics set in the framework of Dragon Quest III. A few other niche titles, like The Dark Spireand Class of Heroes (itself a Wizardry spinoff) followed in its footsteps, with Atlus eventually bringing Shin Megami Tensei back to its first person roots with Strange Journey.Īnd yet, for all of the improvements that all of these games made to the age-old formula, there’s still a segment of the role playing population that will never, ever enjoy first person dungeon crawlers, no matter how they’re presented. It proved to be a relative success, bringing back old hardcore fans and introducing a new generation of fans, awakening within them an affection they probably didn’t know they had. Someone at Atlus, however, must have missed these types of games, and thus birthed Etrian Odyssey for the Nintendo DS, a tribute to 80s first person dungeon crawlers, featuring an intensely detailed character upgrade system, a mapping function handled via the touch screen, and cutesy character designs to appeal to the modern Japanese gamer. It continued to maintain a bit more popularity in Japan with Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei series, but even those began to change, first with the spinoff title Persona 2, and finalized with Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne for the PS2. Although the first person dungeon crawler was an immensely popular genre in the 80s, with titles like Wizardry, The Bard’s Tale, and Might & Magic, it soon fell out of popularity, with many moving into full 3D, and latecomers like Stonekeep failing to impress much of anyone, as the RPG moved to isometric games like Baldur’s Gate and Diablo.
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