Genre: RPG
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus

Etrian Odyssey IV features a combination of hand-drawn character portraits and polygonal stage and enemy designs. On the hand-drawn front, while the backgrounds are extraordinarily detailed, the characters look like they're meant to appeal to people who frequent maid cafes. The polygonal enemies are well done, but the direction misses the mark, as the Pokemon-like baddies lack the intimidation factor that is nice to see in a game of this kind. The stages are phenomenal, with a sort of pseudo-3d, layered look reminiscent of 32-bit titles, such as the 3DO's Guardian War.

The soundtrack was supplied by none other than 16-bit legend Yuzo Koshiro. Some of the tracks, such as the bar and first dungeon songs, are monumentally atmospheric and feature the kinds of ground-breaking, experimental instrumentation that Koshiro is known for. The rest of the soundtrack unfortunately falls prey to too many Japanese RPG tropes to be particularly memorable. Sound effects-- which are basically limited to menu chimes and generic slash sound effects-- are minimal but get the job done.

Etrian Odyssey IV's characters-- from their names to their classes to their appearances-- are defined by the player. The game focuses on gameplay over story, like the famous first-person, tile-based dungeon crawlers of yore. Surprisingly, the game also has one foot in the World of Warcraft vein, with equipment creation driven by some, albeit light, grinding of loot items from both pre-set areas of the stages, and from the bodies of fallen enemies. The elaborate and sophisticated skill trees, and the flexibility given to the player, score big marks from a mechanical standpoint.

Superficially, Etrian Odyssey IV checks all of the requisite first-person dungeon crawler boxes; massive labyrinths? Check. Challenging bosses? Check. Graph paper-friendly layouts? Heck, the game supplies the graph paper on the bottom touch screen. Yet there is something missing, that something which makes the player want to forge ahead; stylistically the game lacks the dark hopelessness that has worked so well for the genre in the past. And something about the pacing is a bit off as well, with genuinely interesting events spaced too far apart. To a certain crowd that is willing to sacrifice ambience for pure, mechanical competence, this game is probably a dream come true. Those that truly want to role play a descent into a black, inky pit, Dungeons & Dragons style, will find the game to be lacking in the essentials.