As the penultimate entry in the Etrian Odyssey developer blog, readers were asked to submit their questions to be answered by the development team. I’ve only read a few developer blogs before, but I’ve found theirs to be remarkably informative and entertaining; more than anything else, it is the vision of Niinou-san and the rest of the Etrian Odyssey team that has convinced me to pick up the game.
I was pleased to see that my questions were answered in the latest blog entry. These were mine:
Were there any common features/characteristics of turn-based RPGs that the team specfically decided to omit in Etrian Odyssey? Why were they removed?
In most turn-based RPGs, so long as your party is alive, you have as many turns as you want to win a battle. However, if you look at screenshots of Etrian Odyssey, you can see a turn counter. In some battles, you’ll have to keep an eye on this, since completing a quest or obtaining an item depends on defeating the enemy in a certain number of turns.
That in itself isn’t so innovative, but each turn also corresponds to 1 space of movement on the map. When there are mobile FOEs in an area, you’ll have to finish the battle before the FOE arrives to join the fight, making your situation that much worse. Battles in Etrian Odyssey aren’t meant to be just survived–the turn counter is there to add tension and encourage you to finish them as quickly as possible.
How would you describe the role of music in the game? Was it added mostly as an afterthought, or was it being composed as the dungeons and gameplay were being designed? Is the sound in the game ultimately disposable, or is it an integral part of the experience?
The music composition was an ongoing process, involving several drafts and versions, some of the earliest of which were made available on a preorder bonus CD in Japan.
Given that the general purpose of the game is to try to reinvigorate a foundering genre of game, the sound is thematically integrated in that it, too, is a style of music that fell out of fashion. Yuzo Koshiro’s PC-88-based compositions are largely bypassed these days in favor of more symphonic music–but the game is striking a blow for the simplicity and “smallness” of games past, and in that respect Koshiro’s music couldn’t be more appropriate.
Is there anything the team wanted to do in Etrian Odyssey that they simply did not have the time or resources to accomplish? Can we expect these things in a sequel?
The game was originally scheduled for release in its home country of Japan several months earlier, but the project was shaping up so well that the developers were given extra time to complete their vision. So virtually everything Niinou and his team wanted to put in the game is in there, but I’m sure the remaining staffers at R&D1 have their own ideas that’ll come out someday in a sequel.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this tomorrow.
