Etrian Odyssey (aka rape in a DS cart)

[Kumubou]

To put it simply: this game hates you. It's an old-school dungeon-crawler styled like an anime version of the old Wizardry games. You even have to draw your own damn maps (but that's what the bottom screen is for, so you do not need graph paper, thankfully). Assemble a party of adventures blah blah explore the labyrinth blah blah fight monsters blah blah, it's that type of game. But you need to come correct as every enemy is a threat and nothing is ever gifted to you. There's a lot of trial and error in figuring out the rules and ways of the labyrinthine forest. How to be able to fight more than 3 fights without having to go back to town, how not to be perpetually broke, how to avoid monsters 20 levels above you, stuff like that.

One of the game's major feature points is that the game has both random encounters and wandering monsters. Err, I mean wandering bosses, as every one of them is far stronger than the random monsters you fight (which are no joke to fight). The wandering monsters move one space for every space you move or every turn in a fight, which means they can and will attack you while you are fighting something else. Not fun times.

To be fair, this is easier than some of the Wizardy games... but IV and V are two of the hardest games I have ever [censored] played.

It's basically this:



or this (can't inline the youtube as I'm not leet enough for it)

More explanation/art/promo material/blah blah at the official site.

So if you ever have a night where poker doesn't put you on enough life tilt, this is the game for you.

[toss]

Thanks, now I'll know to avoid this game. After I finish Pokemon, I'll grab Hotel Dusk and maybe that Puzzle Quest game. Ridic amount of good games on DS.

[Dire]

Well this just convinced me to pick up a DS. Thanks! Old school Bard's Tale and the Wizardry games were some of the most fun games I've ever played. Any other 'recommendations'? I'll also pick up Advance Wars obv.

[astroglide]

i'm barely into the tutorial, but i'm really digging the game so far

[HOWMANY]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks, now I'll know to avoid this game. After I finish Pokemon, I'll grab Hotel Dusk and maybe that Puzzle Quest game. Ridic amount of good games on DS.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I started Hotel Dusk but then got Pokemon and I'm probably going to be playing it for a long time because it's a great diversion from poker. I still have Puzzle Quest and Custom Robo whatever, I'll probably get Etrian Odyssey because Atlus is always awesome. Then I have a handful of other random DS/GBA games I haven't gotten to yet that are waiting for when I beat the good games and there is a drought of new stuff. For me the DS is definitely the best system there is, much like the GBA was before it.