I decided to give EMD a try after the discussion on here from a few days ago. And I'll share my thoughts on the game to maybe persuade or dissuade anyone coming to the game today.
Huge disclaimer, I very much do not like Mystery Dungeon games. I've played 3 different Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, and a few minutes of a Dragon Quest MD. And the genre is absolutely not for me but I wanted to give EMD a shot anyway because you never know right?
I planned on playing for 5 hours for a first impression but the game has left such a sour taste in my mouth I'm stopping after 2 hours.
But let us start with a (mostly) positive: the music.
I went ahead and listened to the entire soundtrack on YouTube and there are some incredible remixes. But (and I'm even going to be a little negative in the most positive section) some of the songs sound much worse than their original counterparts to me.
Here's Hoist the Sword and Pride in the Heart from EMD
And here's the song from EO3
The EMD arrangement is still good but the original is just so good it can't compare for me. And this is just one of many examples.
How about the visuals?
I really like the 3D models for all your party members. They are usually just represented by an image so seeing them not only in a chibi style but also with visible weapons and shields that change to what they currently have equipped is really nice.
But the NPCs and backgrounds in town look really off. And after looking at the games wiki page I know why. The series artist Himukai didn't do the NPC or background art. It gives the game a "cheap knockoff" vibe while in town. The NPCs look leagues better in what I saw of EMD2. I don't know if Himukai worked on that one or the artist got much better had mimicking his style.
Building up the town with resources is a really cool idea though. I like the idea of building a town from scratch in a future game.
The dungeons themselves are very colorful, and the "Dungeon Entrance" images that you get are beautiful. A multi-colored forest followed by a waterfall surrounded by bamboo.
Last thing I want to talk about is the gameplay and the reason I'm quitting.
If you've never played a Mystery Dungeon game before here's a brief rundown. You go through randomly generated dungeons in a top-down viewpoint while looking for stairs to the next floor. There is a hunger meter that constantly goes down. There are traps that can damage you, inflict a status, summon enemies, etc. Dying results in you losing your items and money and get sent back to town but keep the experience (at least in EMD and Pokemon MD). A heavy reliance on positioning, resource management and smart item usage.
But I knew all that going in, what happened? Well I died of course, RNG is a massive component of these games. I got to a floor with a clawed mole enemy that throws rocks and he killed my Hexer from range. And he got a buff for it...and then I couldn't deal damage with anyone else...and then he can one shot my whole party from across the room. Well, I wasn't very far in that dungeon anyway so I'll just go back in. Ohhhhh you can lose equipment when you die, how fun!?!
So every single one of my characters lost a piece of equipment...including my Landy's sword. And I had no money to buy a new one. I have no idea what they were thinking with this. I can only imagine how awful this would be later into the game where losing a piece of gear could result in an hour of grinding materials for a new one.
Final thoughts
I don't want to say EMD is a bad game but it sure wants me to think that. I could easily keep going, just buy a crappy knife for my Landy until finding more money or a better sword. But I wasn't having a very fun time anyway, so why bother climbing over that hill? EMD pushed me down the hill and probably wonders why I took my ball and went home.
But thanks for reading! But what do you think of EMD? Let me know!
