Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection Reviews
Three old school JRPGs that are so perversely old-fashioned they force you to draw your own map - and yet they're surprisingly captivating and fully deserving of this welcome remaster collection.
There may not be any real new features to speak of in Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, apart from a difficulty selection and a lick of paint, but there is still a huge amount of very enjoyable gameplay.
I love these RPGs. I’m psyched that they’ve come to the Nintendo Switch, and I’m overjoyed that they’ve been improved upon. But still, I recognize that these are difficult, imposing, extremely retro games. To say they’re not for everybody is a slight understatement. Even so, if you’ve always wanted to check out the Etrian Odyssey franchise, this is a perfect opportunity. With a little patience, and an open mind, you might find your new favorite series.
Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection is an excellent collection of three titles that have made the history of their genre.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection feels like an odd release to recommend, but we'd be doing you a disservice to suggest you pass on it. On one hand, the three games are undeniably solid DRPGs that are worth your time and attention. On the other, the cost at launch feels astronomical for what are essentially straight, no-frills HD ports of decade-old portable titles. This collection is worthwhile because this series is and always has been great, but the collection itself feels subpar given the rather lackluster effort that has gone into bringing them to modern hardware. We'd still give Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection a recommendation, but with the caveat that you're probably better off either waiting for a deep sale or just buying one of the games-we would recommend Etrian Odyssey III the most out of these three. Etrian Origins Collection may not be the 'definitive' re-release that many hoped it would be, but these games are well-respected in the DRPG space for good reason and it's great to see them on Switch.
The HD versions of Etrian Odyssey and Etrian Odyssey II in the Origins Collection are faithful to a fault, but miss the mark on delivering a definitive experience for a pair of already revisited classics.
The Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection from Atlus is so much better than expected, but not without its flaws. The dungeon-crawling and exploration experiences are primo, as is the need to build a map out and put it on the player to keep track of their surroundings. While the beginning of the game may force some players to question if they’re up for the task of traversing the Etrian Odyssey worlds, as well as some of the gameplay design decisions that can be archaic and restrictive, the collection’s payoff seems much greater by the end than the amount of effort it took to get there.
Despite the cartography being less enjoyable than on DS, this remaster is still the best way to experience once of the best Etrian Odyssey games...as long as you play in handheld mode!
Etrian Odyssey is a great dungeon RPG series, and its transition to PC & Switch is an admirable one, but some interface oddities and a hefty pricepoint raise eyebrows.
Atlus gave DS series fans more of what they enjoyed with this entry. Now, thanks to SEGA's publishing, additional players can experience what all the fuss was about. It's unnecessary for me to extend this review any further with nostalgic gushing or flirts with spoilers. To conclude, while newcomers might prefer starting with the first game to determine if its repetition becomes addictive, existing fans might find Etrian Odyssey III HD is the installment they want.
Etrian Odyssey II HD follows a nearly identical path to its prequel while boasting some features that embellish the fun of the original. It pairs a very similar storyline and gameplay with equally refreshed graphics and music to celebrate its port to the Switch.
You can tell Etrian Odyssey isn't a game that is particularly optimised for the Switch but, despite its age, it is still a lot of fun, with a unique cartography feature that makes it stand out from other dungeon-crawlers and well worth preserving.
If you're a fan who's been waiting to get the Etrian Odyssey games on a modern console, it's worth grabbing one– the one with your favourite classes, or simply the third one for its added sea exploration. But unless you're well-acquainted with the grinding and mapping, or have just forgotten how stagnant the gameplay can be, you'll likely be disappointed by how sparse the excitement is.
Like the single games when they were first released, the Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection is not a product for the masses: it's pricey (too much so), hard and very lenghty, but these are exactly the reasons why some old timer fan wil appreciate it.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Overall Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection is a solid, if overpriced, collection of some excellent dungeon crawlers. The same core gameplay remains strong to this day, but series vets might be annoyed at the lack of Untold's features. Any of the games is an excellent game on its own and provides gameplay for quite a while. If not for the price tag, this is an incredibly easy game to recommend, with or without Untold features. Even the most hardcore of Etrian Odyssey fans may want to stick to one game or wait for a sale.
Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection is a wonderful repackaging of three of the best RPGs on the Nintendo DS, maintaining nearly all the benefits of dual screens while offering players respectable quality-of-life features. What Etrian Odyssey lacks in conventional narrative, the series makes up for with its emphasis on player-driven pacing and highly customisable party building. Although the price point is certainly steep, there's no getting around the fact that these are the definitive versions of the first three Etrian Odysseys. Visually crisp with great audio and some of the best dungeon-crawling the genre has seen, all three titles offer RPG fans hundreds of hours of dense dungeon-crawling all on their own. Together, the collection offers audiences a high-class trilogy that'll realistically last them the rest of 2023 - if not even longer. Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection is frankly a steal at $80.
I’m torn on these remakes. On the one hand, I don’t think they work on Switch. Not in recreating the original vision of Etrian Odyssey, at any rate. The best way to play these is to jettison the mapping feature that was so core to the experience on the DS and 3DS. This truly is disappointing. On the other hand, even as a stock-standard set of dungeon crawlers, the three Etrian Odyssey titles bundled up here are beautifully elegant, ethereal, and artful. They’re challenging and fundamentally enjoyable, classic dungeon crawlers. If these new releases help a new legion of people discover Atlus’ dungeon-crawling genius for the first time, then I’m ultimately very glad they exist.
While all three titles are a welcome addition to the Switch's growing stable of turn-based affairs, they don't feel quite as at home as they did on two-screens. Mapping out your way through the 20-plus floors of EO3 was just better with a stylus in hand and a single screen dedicated to map-making; the HD shine of this re-release on Switch doesn't quite do enough to push this third game into must-play territory. That said, if you're already an Etrian fan and never played EO3 (especially since it didn't get a 3DS Untold release like the first two titles), then the multiple endings, varied character classes, and nautical theming are more than enough to warrant a look.
I'm thrilled that Etrian Odyssey exists beyond the DS and 3DS, but what we got doesn't hit the highs of the series. Atlus admirably tried to make it work on Switch, but the controls for drawing your map aren't as natural as they were on DS and 3DS. Etrian Odyssey II is still a great video game, with a really good progression through each stratum and a lot of depth and synergies between the classes and abilities. My hope is that if Etrian Odyssey survives beyond this dungeon crawl, the next release will be more future-focused than porting over the past.
With the focus on game preservation that we've seen in recent years, I never imagined that the Etrian Odyssey series would be preserved anywhere close to its original form. The fact that they thought it worth bringing to Switch is amazing, and though it didn't come over entirely clean, it's still worth bringing back Fight, Heal, and the rest of the crew for one more dungeon dive.