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Now that the excitement has calmed down some, and by that I mean purely my own, it's time to say a bit more about Etrian Odyssey 3! Looking back on my previous post about it, I think I spoke about it a bit too soon, seeing as I hardly knew a thing about it. Just goes to show that this blog doesn't really work as one for up to date news, unless frenzied speculation counts as news.

Anyway, one thing I was correct about is that sailing is a big part of it! I admit I'm still not exactly sure how it works, but it seems as if you sail from island to island and map those out. I assume there's some degree of linearity to this, or that there's something that has to be found on each island, otherwise it could be fairly easy to sail to someplace you're not meant to be at by that point in the game and get wiped out but creatures way beyond your ability. Oddly, that's exactly the sort of thing that appeals to me, just the mere possibility that you could encounter things that you shouldn't be, maybe even succeeding and having a boost for a little while. I love what possibilities non-linearity can provide.

One thing I honestly wasn't expecting however, is that while this has a lot more content added for a sequel than EO1 did in comparison to EO2, I didn't expect for content to be removed. In that, I'm speaking purely about what's going on with classes, partly as I previously said they were additional. It seems that this time, all previous classes have been removed, and that the ones shown at the moment are the replacements. I can understand the reasoning for this, as there were a few classes that were rather similar, but it's a bit of a shame to be lacking the Paladin and Gunner classes, as they were almost acting as mascots for the series. I'm rather eager to see how they work though, obviously my traditional team won't work this time.

Having a look around the website though, it's a delight to hear new compositions by Yuzo Koshiro, which I admit was part of the reason I originally took a look at the first game. I don't know what it is, but something always grabs my attention with his music. I can only assume it's tied into the fact that I grew up with his music in the games I played as a child. Either that or it's just good music. I'm happy with either possibility. It's also pretty awesome to hear this combined with the new character designs by Yuji Himukai, who I've praised before, in the announcement trailer! While understanding the game in Japanese is beyond me at this point, I really feel like March can't come soon enough.