Etrian Odyssey IV: Harper Hannighan's Crayfish-free Cooking Journal

[Rea]

What's?

Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan (JP: 世界樹の迷宮IV 伝承の巨神) is a dungeon-crawler RPG developed and published by Atlus, the company most well-known for the Persona series (and also Shin Megami Tensei, I guess). It was released in Japan on July 5th, 2012, in North America on February 26th, 2013, and in Europe on August 30th, 2013. Key staff on the project include series character designer Yuji Himukai (known, these days, for making Fire Emblem Heroes players angry), series composer Yuzo Koshiro (known for way too many game soundtracks for me to list, but Streets of Rage is a good starting point), and in the director's chair, series newcomer Daisuke Kaneda, whose prior credits include being the director of Trauma Team, as well as several roles on various Persona games. Series director Shigeo Komori was, at the time, busy with Etrian Odyssey Untold, the 3DS remake of the first game, so Kaneda was brought in to direct the series's first foray onto the 3DS.

EO4 is a peculiar game as far as the series goes. Under the hood, it's not very different from EO3: a large chunk of the internal formulas are the same, those that aren't have only minor modifications made, and the structures of internal data files are all the same. The two games, however, could not play more differently. EO4's class design is completely different from EO3's, with an emphasis placed on helping the player avoid falling for so-called "trap" skills, and guiding the player towards figuring out how to best use each class with, for the most-part, tightly-designed skill trees that make it easy to build characters who function well in combat, even for first-time players. The dungeon-crawling side of things has also been overhauled, too, with the addition of overworlds, which connect the main Yggdrasil Labyrinth strata (now referred to as "mazes") with smaller one-floor mini-dungeons with unique gimmicks (referred to as "caves").

Owing to its unique structure and player-friendly design, it's safe to call EO4 the most beloved entry in the series, with many fans citing it as either the first Etrian Odyssey game that hooked them, or their first EO game, period. The fact that it was the first EO game available via digital distribution almost certainly helped it reach more players than any of the DS games ever could've dreamed of. That's not to say the game is perfect, mind you—I have plenty to say about some of EO4's bad design decisions, as well as some bizarre decisions made with regards to enemy stats and vulnerabilities. However, it's still a fun time, and I invite you all to come and see why this game sold so many people on this very niche series!

If you wanna talk about the LP, or Etrian Odyssey in general, my Discord server is over here.

Hey, wait a minute, why do you have the three unlockable classes already?

Unlockable classes are a bad and dumb design decision, and I'm gonna break the rules by enabling them from the start without NG+. Additionally, while the first two unlockable classes can function just fine from the beginning, imperials lack actual weapons until near the end of the story. As such, I've added some early and midgame weapons for our guild's imperial to make use of. This does make the LP not fully vanilla, but I wouldn't let it bother you that much.

You can tell when commentary is coming from me, Rea, when it's got my avatar (the one wearing the multi-colored hat and sometimes outfit) next to it. If you're viewing updates on rhematic, then my commentary is also in a light blue box, for extra visual cue-ity.

I'm Kinu, and I'll be providing co-commentary. I'm one of those people who started with EO4, and it's still my favorite. As such, I'm here to provide occasionally insightful comments and maybe just giggle about the cute puppy the rest of the time.

Table of Contents

Update 1: Adventures Across the Sky
Update 2: This is Not Australia
Update 3: Elafiphobia, Not Cervidaephobia
Update 4: Wander Around the Lush Woodlands
Update 5: Drenched in Red
Update 6: The Great Leons
Boss Overview: Berserker King
Update 7: Headbangin' Grizzly (VS. Berserker King)



Update 8: Hazy Maze Cave
Update 9: Archaeology Stream
Update 10: Myst
Update 11: Arcane Incantation
Update 12: Relatively Peaceful Days
Update 13: Thanks For the Fog Wave, Grizz
Boss Overview: Hollow Queen
Update 14: Jelly Madchester (VS. Hollow Queen)



Update 15: Viaduct
Update 16: Next Time, Let's Just Sit In An Oven


Class Overviews
Landsknecht
Nightseeker
Fortress
Sniper

[Rea]

Reserved.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

Heck yeah, EO4, my favorite EO despite some notable issues like unlockable classes (although at least it's less bad this time) and porting over EO3's mechanical jank.

Somehow all this time I failed to notice the moustache on the baboons though.

[Gespenst]

having the unlockable classes from the start seems like a really strange choice, given that plot-wise they absolutely shouldn't exist outside of their respective groups. also I'm absolutely willing to argue on the "bad design" front because the three unlockable classes are weirds and fiddly and have kinda messy set-ups so they very much benefit from having the SP to get their stuff online from the get-go, and 4 is the first game to actually make getting a new character up to speed completely trivial and painless.

[Araxxor]

The game basically being EO3.5 internally made a lot of info on it much easier to dig up and extract compared to the later 3DS games where they overhauled a lot. A little magic from Citra and Cheat Engine was able to let me dig up a lot to help with the LP.

4's certainly an interesting title. Not one of my personal favorites, the flaws the game has is a bigger deal for me, though I do like some of the design decisions it made. Namely how SP is less restrictive due to how skills scale, compared to other EO titles in general where several classes can struggle to basically function until they get enough SP to start working.

having the unlockable classes from the start seems like a really strange choice, given that plot-wise they absolutely shouldn't exist outside of their respective groups. also I'm absolutely willing to argue on the "bad design" front because the three unlockable classes are weirds and fiddly and have kinda messy set-ups so they very much benefit from having the SP to get their stuff online from the get-go, and 4 is the first game to actually make getting a new character up to speed completely trivial and painless.

It's just what the LP decided to do to give them more screentime, don't worry too much about it.

I will agree that I don't think unlockable classes are an inherently bad idea. Essentially it's a skillset locked away, which some of the games do anyways even if they don't have unlockable classes.

That being said, the way EO handled unlockable classes hasn't historically been that great. In EO1 it needlessly screwed Ronin over and is one of the main reasons Hexer is an awful class in 1. In 2, I'm not even sure why they bothered given how early it happens, and that Beasts in 2 suck ass. And 3 forces you to grind up the unlockable just to use them, and if you picked Shogun chances are they don't even start with a Katana unless you went out hunting beforehand.

4's on the other hand is easily the least intrusive of the concept and fights a lot of the reasons why unlockables in the DS era were so awful.

[Gespenst]

It's just what the LP decided to do to give them more screentime, don't worry too much about it.

I will agree that I don't think unlockable classes are an inherently bad idea. Essentially it's a skillset locked away, which some of the games do anyways even if they don't have unlockable classes.

That being said, the way EO handled unlockable classes hasn't historically been that great. In EO1 it needlessly screwed Ronin over and is one of the main reasons Hexer is an awful class in 1. In 2, I'm not even sure why they bothered given how early it happens, and that Beasts in 2 suck ass. And 3 forces you to grind up the unlockable just to use them, and if you picked Shogun chances are they don't even start with a Katana unless you went out hunting beforehand.

4's on the other hand is easily the least intrusive of the concept and fights a lot of the reasons why unlockables in the DS era were so awful.

that's pretty fair, having the Imperial only turn up super late would kinda suck for narrative purposes.

I'd say that 4 is the only game with unlockable that handles them well, outside of the Yggdroids from 3 there really isn't a good reason that you can't just recruit any class from the get-go in previous games (apparently in 3, the Shoguns are more of an exclusive club than actual royalty) and skipping the early levels allows 4's unlockable classes to avoid the problematic window where they don't have the SP to actually get their kit going.
I'll certainly say that I'm looking forward to seeing how the early Bushi will be handled, given that the skill to cancel blood surge is gated behind level 20...
(also another obligatory "4 was my first Etrian, and made it one of my favorite game series")

[Rea]

having the unlockable classes from the start seems like a really strange choice, given that plot-wise they absolutely shouldn't exist outside of their respective groups. also I'm absolutely willing to argue on the "bad design" front because the three unlockable classes are weirds and fiddly and have kinda messy set-ups so they very much benefit from having the SP to get their stuff online from the get-go, and 4 is the first game to actually make getting a new character up to speed completely trivial and painless.

My personal Game Design Opinion is that I'd rather be told what I'm going to be able to use from the very beginning of the game, and for various reasons I like being able to just immediately set out with the party that I will be taking to the end of the game. EO4 definitely patches some of the issues that the previous games had with unlockable classes (namely by giving you a way to catch up new characters to a specific level threshold after unlocking a new class), but I still don't like it as far as the EO series goes. The fact that the Untolds, EO5, and EON all did away with unlockable classes (barring Vampire but that's not really an actual class so much as Mew Truck nonsense) kind of indicates to me that the EO team came to see it my way...though they did forget to give people a way to check specialization skills in EO5 before you unlock them, so, y'know, baby steps.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

I'll weakly defend some instances of unlockable classes but the reasons I'd do so don't apply to EO at all where the justification is pretty much entirely a narrative one when it could really just as easily not be so yeah, not really something that's worth keeping around given the option.

[Kacie]

I got through Land 2 and lost steam on this game. Don't know why, if maybe it was the skills system that didn't make sense, or that builds I saw suggested didn't come into their own until mid-late game, or what. Or possibly the promise of late arriving classes, that was annoying.

I'm curious to see what folks think of it, and whether I read something that encourages me to pick it back up again.

[BolticThunder]

Alright, a new EO4 LP! I've seen two of these not even make it to the first real dungeon, so I'm hyped for this.

[Rea]

Here's Update 2.

I felt it was time to retire the old hot pink with lime green text update notification. People can probably notice when I post things that are updates just fine without it.

[Araxxor]

4's shop system is easily my least favorite in the series and one of the big issues I have with 4. I wasn't happy to see that return for 5 and N.

Also I'm surprised at how many powerful tools 4 just hands you right off the bat. +5 accessories you had to wait until S4 in EO3 to get and were stuck with +3s beforehand. ATK and ELM forges as your starting forges seems rather off since those have more power than STR and TEC forges once you're out of the earlygame due to how the game's damage calculations work.

Also fun fact this is the first time in the series the game ever told you about Accumulative Resistance. You were playing 3 despite the system being introduced in that game? Yeah get screwed and wonder why your disables are no longer working in the big fights.

Burst is a pretty interesting meter mechanic. It's the first time the series used shared meter mechanics and it changes up the dynamic of how you use meter skills greatly. Like Immortal in EO3 (Full heal to the entire party) requires 3 people to cast, and anymore would... kind of make it pretty bad considering the competition for Limit skills in that game. But in 4 where anyone can cast it and only 1 person needs too, and back to back meter skill casts are possible? Yeah that equivalent skill would be broken as hell with a 3 meter cost. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more games with a shared meter system instead of an individual one since it changes how you look at the meter.

[Gespenst]

I'm going to point out part of the real sting of the way gathering works in 4, while the first two levels of Amrita kinda suck, they're what you have for TP restoration, and they require three of a gathering item each. I forget if it was the rare item or not, but it sucks. and making a gathering team basically doesn't work because of the way the gathering skills were changed. I like the gathering system, but grinding for Amritas is probably at it's worst for the entire series even compared to 2U onwards where they need a conditional drop to make.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

EO4's Great Amrita Nerf on top of actually having to keep materials stocked is a pretty big pain yeah and 5/N didn't need to bring it back after the Untolds ditched it.

Oh well, at least there aren't any gathering ambushes, on the subject of things they didn't need to bring back.

Oddly enough I didn't notice *that* Wynne line until my second playthrough.

[BolticThunder]

Bit of an update from the Something Awful forums, Rea's co-commentator Kinu has had some real bad luck these last 2 months. That's why the LP's been on a bit of a backburner. Next update will come in the next 2 weeks, though.

[Rea]

Here's Update 3.

We're back! Kinu is back from A Lot of Things, and I am back from visiting my family. It was a very pleasant trip, I definitely needed a week and change away from work—both professional and personal.

[Gespenst]

I'm going to have to hard agree that gold drops that are just "get lucky" are a crime. Heck, any non 100% drop conditional is hell just because it screws with the logic of working out how to get them. But having a gold drop just be a rare drop is basically lying to the player through established mechanics.

[Araxxor]

The RNG for the box event is rolled for the moment you open the box, so if you're desperate for Amritas (or didn't appreciate the sole thank you note) you can reset and try again.

...On hardware. On Citra the RNG is fucked because its seeds are static for some reason. Not sure what settings you have to muck around with to fix that.

Ah, imbuables. Nexus basically shoved them back into the spotlight with imbue skills giving a damage boost, and with weaknesses being standardized as at least 150% non-diminishing damage, an imbue could make an imbuable skill super strong. Not really a tactic in this game, though it is a possible option. Weaknesses start out at 125% generally, and even then the amount of strong imbuable skills isn't that much. Can be something to keep in mind, but as Rea said, conditional fetching is really the more popular use for them.

Ah Full Retreat. A very handy backup plan. Yeah the escape rates in 4 are the fucking pits, so it can be used as a great way to get out of a bad situation. There is the downside of being sent back to the entrance after use, but chances are if the situation got bad enough to force a usage of that instead of taking chances with the escape rates, you were heading back to town anyways so it's not that much of a downside. If anything the real caveat would probably be the 3 meter cost, as you aren't guaranteed to have that ready if a situation goes really bad.

[Rea]

Here's Update 4.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

Ah, 1st Labyrinth FOEs, not exactly the most intimidating things in the world compared to some other entries.

Also jeez I think that's more pookas than I've managed to catch on a single playthrough so far.

[Araxxor]

If you're wondering no, you can't actually kill the Bloodbear on your first go like with Narmer in EO3. This can easily be seen on NG+ where the thing's HP just refuses to drop below 50%. Namely cause well, there's that scripted event where it goes down the stairs. Skipping that would require editing quite a few files to account for that possibility, where in EO3 everything involving Narmer only involves 1 floor and skipping 1 event and all that's contained in 1 little file.

Through the Scorching Heat is a really good remix of Crest of a Violent Wave from EO3. Certainly makes a hell of an impression on the player when this plays for a miniboss. Though I prefer the EO3 version myself.

Also yeah Nightseeker damage is just fucked. I have no idea why their class skill sets their damage so fucking sky high. You could knock it down several places, maybe even end off their final class skill at double damage and they'd still be one of the strongest classes in the game!

Ah, 1st Labyrinth FOEs, not exactly the most intimidating things in the world compared to some other entries.

Also jeez I think that's more pookas than I've managed to catch on a single playthrough so far.

Depending on your playstyle you can actually run into a lot of Pookas if you scour the maps a lot or take things a bit slow because unlike Pasarans, the RNG isn't quite as dependent there since it's based on a step count range. Though I would really not recommend farming out books because it'll take 50 to max out one character and you'll need less than 250 Pooka kills to max out the party (assuming you get all the one-off books, and don't use any books on party members you are going to dump.)

Head binds halve an entity's TEC, which provides three main benefits: makes disables easier to inflict, reduces accuracy, and heavily reduces defense against TEC-based attacks.

This had to have been an oversight because just raw halving the TEC stats had so many knock on effects after EO3 started overbuffing TEC. And yes, head binds work as an infliction debuff in EO3 and 4, though if your main inflictor already has more than 22 ailment score than their target, this won't help them. Not only that, this affects TEC-based healing, which won't affect too many cases since most TEC-based heals use the head, but irritatingly it will severely reduce the effectiveness of the Prince/ss's Protect Order and the Dancer's Regen Waltz due to how the healing formula works in EO3 and 4.

EOU proceeded to fix this by making it so that head binds only affect the parts of TEC that are actually used in damage formulae. And then after the INT/WIS split in EO5, head binds just halve INT damage.

[Gespenst]

I'm somewhat surprised to see Blood Surge seeing use before level 20, seeing as having no way to end it without dying is a pretty hefty downside, locking Deep Breath behind level 20 is probably one of those choices that was made because an ordinary playthrough wouldn't have a Bushi that early. that said, Bushi were always on of my favourite classes since being able to manage their own TP with zero consumables is so good in a game as spiteful towards Amritas as 4.

[Rea]

Here's Update 5.

Here's the Landsknecht overview, too.

[Araxxor]

In the Valley Spring there's like a mini puzzle where you have to realize at this point that shortcuts have their walls marked, as there's one at the beginning where one side is marked and the other isn't, and you have to figure out which wall has the shortcut by looking around the dungeon. Which is why there's that weird dud shortcut that doesn't really go anywhere, to clue the player in about the mechanic at that point. Would be absolutely dreadful to go through the game without realizing shortcuts existed.

Oh boy, Landsknechts. They can be a good safe vanilla unit to slot in, like the 1 and 2 Landys or the Gladiators from 3. Hell Swift Stab is essentially the Blade Rave analogue from EO3, can't go wrong with that. But if you take the (admittedly small) effort to invest in links, hoo boy you're going to have fun times. A properly set up Link party can just deal so much damage, more than an Imperial Drive even!

That being said Links are so fucking weird mechanical wise. In technical terms they're like a summon because once that link comes out, there's no stopping it, not even the Landsknecht's death.

I find Weapon Parry to be funny purely because it just shows how fucked armor is in these games. Using up a weapon on that equipment slot would provide way more defense than armor ever could, it's silly.

Ah diminishing returns, turns out that no, that wasn't a mechanic 2U introduced. It was actually introduced in 4. Those who were familiar with the absolutely buff centric meta of EO3 can easily see why they took steps to counter that hard in 4, what with Berserker Vows being everywhere. That being said it took a few tries to nerf that properly, because for most casual players, chances are you didn't notice in 4 and U, as the effects were just kind of too small. 2U went in the complete opposite extreme, and then 5 finally settled on the additive system.

Now if you're taking the game a lot more seriously, or are trying to math out challenge runs (EO4 is a rather popular game for that sort of thing), you'll notice quite quickly how draconic this system actually is, as unlike in U and 2U, nearly everything that affects damage is tagged by it, even things you wouldn't think would be affected (The Nightseeker's Shadow Bite is one example), which can get pretty annoying to work with.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

Ah, of course the deer panicked the entire front row, there's the EO I know and love.

Landsknecht without link skills is... okay but what are you actually doing with it in boss fights, I tried it first playthrough and yeah in hindsight it felt kinda bad.

Diminishing returns in 4 and the Untolds is such a kludgy balancing mechanic that I have to think that they deliberately overlooked every other more sensible way to handle runaway buff stacking because the developers are deathly allergic to mechanical transparency or something.

[Gespenst]

Links are a lot of fun and I'd say one of the real beneficiaries of the way that dancers work, a traditional buff user would be competing with the Landy's buffs that they need to function, but a Dancer has no such problem since their buffs only take up slots on themselves

[Rea]

Here's Update 6.

And here's the boss overview! Voting has officially begun.

[Araxxor]

Another way to get past the Jig Lizard's evasion are Burst skills, they have perfect accuracy and the game tells you this later. Very important tidbit to know because any party member having access to a surefire guaranteed attack can and will save your bacon in some sticky situations. That enemy is definitely your soft introduction to the concept of evasion and how to deal with it as it's only active for 1 turn before breaking, and there's multiple ways to get past a given obstacle if you think about your tools. Which is important for a game like this. Especially since the game will throw you into the deep end on that front soon.

And another example of multiple tools to get past the obstacle is in that boss writeup. Dealing damage is one way to deal with Delay Charge, but also disables can completely save you if your damage output is lacking. Or toss in a burst skill for some extra bit of damage to cross that threshold. Lots of ways in these games to get past a potential brick wall if you look around. Generally. There are some unfortunate exceptions, especially in the older titles.

It is pretty interesting to see how the series got more advanced at crafting enemies and formations because 3 started the trend more, though not to the extent 4 does it. And 1 and 2 generally has a bunch of unnotables with a few notorious enemies here and there within a stratum.

(Already voted on the other site.)

[Rea]

I'll be closing voting in a few hours. Here's where things stand:

Harper: 12
Shelly: 11
Ace: 9
Xiaohu: 7
Ray: 7
Waylon: 6
Merula: 6
Naijou: 4
Eine: 1

[Rea]

Voting is closed.

Harper: 13
Shelly: 11
Ace: 10
Xiaohu: 7
Ray: 7
Merula: 7
Waylon: 6
Naijou: 4
Eine: 1

By way of random.org, the three-way tie was broken in Merula's favor, meaning that Shelly, Merula, Marlin, Ace, and Harper will be taking the Berserker King on.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

Aw crud, missed the vote. Oh well, not like my choices would've changed anything.

TBH I completely forgot the critical hammer even existed.

[Rea]

Here's Update 7.

Sorry this took so long! Between the ongoing process of coping with my grandmother's recent passing and my back being fucked up in February and then getting even worse in March before getting a lot better a week or two ago, I've had a Lot going on. I'll try to get updates out with less of a delay.

As a bonus, here's the nightseeker overview.

[Araxxor]

Nightseekers are just super nuts. I'm sure you could nerf that class skill to max out at 2x damage and they'd still tear the game into shreds.

Venom Throw's internal data threw me back when it got unearthed. Like sure, it just straight up has the best infliction, and several bosses and FOEs are real weak to Poison. Okay.

Curse Throw isn't a "we need an ailment on this thing" like Nexus gave it. It's just straight up bad in this game. Venom Throw has that niche in 4.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

Oof, hope life gets better for you.

There's not really much I can say about that Berserker King fight that killing it in five turns doesn't already say, Nightseeker strong.

Meat being the best in general is pretty much EO4.txt from what I remember.

Venom Throw is a very balanced skill, Nightseeker is a very balanced class.

[Cullen]

I distinctly recall looking up team comp ideas on GameFaqs and one that this one guy constantly advocated for was dual Nightseekers with a front row Runemaster and just spamming Ice Knife off of Ice Rune in the early game before the ailment skills could further break the game. I tested it out a bit and it was about as obscene as it was made out to be. Venom Throw is just why the overwhelming majority of the random encounters in this game pose no threat with a Nightseeker present outside of the rare situations where poison doesn't work.

[Rea]

Here's Update 8.

Here's the Fortress overview, too.

Apologies for the continuing delays with updating this LP, real life keeps happening so much. I'm already working on Update 9, at least, which will include the Sniper overview as well.

[Araxxor]

Lotta EO3 throwback enemies in this land, huh? Great Lynxes are way less scary than their EO3 counterparts, who were practically placed at the beginning of the game and could one shot your fledgling guild members much to the horror of many starting players. Here, they exist. That's all that can really be said about them.

The Night Shard gather point is also rigged to give out 1 guaranteed drop if you don't have it by the end.

Weak Shield is utterly ridiculous and it absolutely deserved the nerfs it got in 2U. Sure the whole "but taking my party below 50% HP sounds like a hassle" is a thing. Except there's one very easy solution for that. Fly into a tornado. That's it. That'll send everyone to 1 HP instantly, which will prep any Weak Shield strats. Though Tornados do have a chance of killing someone, so have some Nectars on hand if that happens.

The whole "redirection considers the redirector to be in the front row" aspect was a correction to a hilarious oversight from 3, where you could just place the residential tank class in the back row to completely benefit from an additional 50% damage reduction on top of redirection. Especially since sad tank class was incredibly hard to kill in the first place even without exploiting that. Needless to say it's understandable why 4 immediately got rid of that exploit.

Also Prevent Order in 3 was bugged to be used up on any infliction attempt, even if said attempt would fail. Knight's Boon was fixed to only be used up on actual inflictions, which is a huge buff to an already amazing skill. Shame Refresh Waltz exists now, which basically kinda invalidates Knight's Boon, but the option is there if you need it.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

As much as I like the game, the miasma gimmick and the compulsory failure that basically exists so Wufan can deliver a terribly ineffectual GTFO that could've been delivered about a minute earlier is one of those small annoying bits I could do without. Granted it's not nearly as bad as a later thing which... yeah.

I think overall I'd like Fortress better if EO4 wasn't the game that it is, I tried to stick with one and decided some part of the way through that it was more fun turning bosses into fireworks displays and food is worth a decent chunk of survivability anyways.

[Rea]

Here's Update 9.

And here's the Sniper overview.

[RandomKesaranPasaran]

The Dense Bushland is one of the reasons why I don't think Nectar stock is much of a problem, although considering Revive is a veteran skill (assuming you even have a Medic, for all that 4 lets you get away with not having one) it would've been nice if you didn't need the first elevation upgrade to get there.

Also not going to lie, I completely forgot that Impact Arrow existed at all. What an utterly worthless skill. Divine Shot is also pretty sad, even in the case where it's actually useful that boss is uh. Well as you said we'll get there when we get there.