Etrian Odyssey can be described, in its simplest form, as an old-school dungeon romp. You start out in a base town, with various shops. From there, you create a party of 5 character from 7 classes (with 2 more unlockable) and go exploring. The classes what you expect, albeit with unusual names - among the basic 7 there's 3 front-line fighters, a couple mixed front/back fighters, and two back-liners. Once you have your party, you're given a basic mission to introduce you to some gameplay elements, and let go.
Upon entering the dungeon, you get a glimpse at what to expect for the rest of the game. The game is essentially a tile-based 3D explorer, allowing you to go step-turn-step-step-etc. The top screen gives you the graphical view, which for the DS, are honestly beautiful. The bottom screen gives you the map, which is where the uniqueness lies.
As you walk, you fill in the floor of a map. But to put in details, like doors, walls, treasure chests, warps, item collection points, etc., you have to draw them yourself. Doing so is the basis of your first mission, just to give you some experience.
Combat in the game is about what you'd expect - pseudo-random encounters (there's a little meter that tells you when to expect one) that bring you to a combat interface. You queue up your actions, and then allow them to execute. Next turn you queue up again.
And this is where the game gets *hard*. The difficulty curve on combat is steep - the critters on each level are anywhere from 2-3x tougher than the ones on the level above, and it's easy to get in over your head, especially with the special combats (called FOEs) that can be ridiculously tough. In fact, when getting to level 3, they even warn you that you can (and sometimes should!) avoid FOEs entirely, because they might be too tough for you - thankfully you can see them on the map. That can be really troublesome, because when you get into combat the FOEs can move in the open map after each turn, which means you might end up with one interrupting a random encounter if you're not careful.

Difficulty aside, Entrian Odyssey is deep, challenging, and incredibly fun. It's one of those Atlus masterpieces you'll regret not picking up earlier when it becomes an impossible-to-find gem.

Chris's Score: 9/10--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

I found a fic a short while ago where Jack ends up getting custody of Luna Lovegood. Apparently he was in England during Voldie's last reign, and happened to have a one night stand with Luna's mom. (Who happened to be insane, and a Malfoy - go fig.)
Anyone know it? I'm trying to add it to my watch list.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

I'm beginning to burn out a bit on COH. So I may not be on quite so much for a little while. I want to participate in Task Forces and other events, so if you could announce those in the forums and I have a character available, I can make note and help out. But my day-to-day play won't be as intensive. You'll still see me from time to time. But not ALL the time, like it has been recently. ^_^
Re-activated my World of Warcraft account and will be playing that for awhile. If you're interested, almost all my characters are currently on Zul'jin server. Including my lvl 62 Warrior, Melita.
-Logan
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"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
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www.sunsetgames.co.jp/rpg...aidrpg.htm
"A humorous Japanese-language RPG about women cleaning the house of a master where wacky events occur. There is no physical combat system, but there is a conflict system where the loser accumulates Stress points. When a maid has greater Stress than her Spirit rating, she has a Stress Explosion. Maids also gain points of Favor from the master, which can be used to boost rolls, reduce Stress, to raise attributes, or invoke random events. There are three charts of random events for Outer Space, Modern, and Fantasy -- including many game-changing events. There are two supplements: Koi Suru Maid RPG and Yume Miru Maid RPG. Koi Soru Maid RPG has an introduction and errata, rules for playing a head maid or butler, rules for generating a master, tables for designing a mansion, rules for "romance and enticement," comforting (to reduce someone else's Stress), costume changes (a table of 36 alternate costumes, each with a Favor cost and special rules), items (in a D666 table of 216 of them!), and a total of 13 different random event tables. Yume Miru Maid RPG is mostly a scenario collection, but it also has rules for complexes and apprentices, tables for two new settings (Old West and Old Edo), a second table of costume changes (including plugsuits, Gundam uniforms, and hero suits), and a weather table.- totally no combat "

Why FrostFire is always out on bail, even when he's just been arrested.

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.

It's still in progress, but if I don't release at least a draft copy of the Writers' Guide on 23/5, the Paratheo-Anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric
will revoke my (fnord) licence.

So, here it is. Feedback welcome, but
please don't mention the crappy formatting... although if I'm taking the entire wrong approach to the formatting, please let me know now.

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Okay, this is a little complicated, but I've been watching it for a while, so let me see if I can sum it up. The US, in its zeal to crack down on offshore internet gambling, has been putting pressure on countries where it's legal, like Antigua. This is in direct violation of a WTO treaty the US signed a few years ago that (as one of its many many terms) requires it to respect overseas gambling outfits if domestic ones are allowed. Countries were allowed to exclude terms like this one before signing -- they were allowed to agree to a subset of the treaty, as long as they specified what the exclusions were beforehand.
The United States did not exclude the bit about Internet gambling. It's now claiming both a) it didn't have to, because it's the US, and b) it didn't know it could.
Riiiiight.
Antigua has been banking on net betting to partially replace tourism (which can be volatile) as a prop of their economy, but the DOJ's crusade against it has been damaging the country. It filed a proper complaint with the WTO. A couple of them apparently. The WTO ruled in Antigua's favor, and told the US either knock it off or go after its internal gambling outfits.
The US's response has been, "go screw yourself, we're the big boys and we don't need to listen to anyone telling us what to do."
So Antigua has petitioned for, and is apparently going to get, the ultimate sanction against the US -- the right to ignore US intellectual property rights. Which means, Antigua is going to be able to legally duplicate and distribute anything with a US copyright on it, without having to pay the copyright holders anything.
Register story here.
When this happens, I'm betting (with an outfit in Antigua, of course) that the RIAA and the MPAA's collective heads are going to explode. Can you just imagine the resulting collision in Washington, between the big money lobbyists who are seeing their dying profit model get shot in the head, and the Imperialist administration who won't be told what to do by anyone? It'll be violent, it'll be bloody, it'll be glorious. Mutually annihiliating hypocrisy.

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.

There are just so many funny things you can teach a Warshade to do. ((Warshade stealth+ /em crouch = pouncing lint ball of doom!))

Seen on the Daily Illuminator: David Morgan-Mar's Intelligent Design Sort
Posted here because I'm reasonably sure it'll cause some discussion. (Let me start by saying I appreciate the humour in the webpage...)

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

It's actually mentioned in the game launcher announcements section, though I was pointed to it before it went up there. Official developer poll on the CoH boards!
Vote for new Scrapper/Tanker powersets
Though of course we'll probably see some of these on Stalkers and Brutes as well.
-- Acyl