Took me a bit longer to fully materialize what I was thinking since I didn't sleep at all last night and I'm still pretty tired.
I frankly just don't know what to say about Odyssey, the game starts off mostly pretty well with a solid setup, I am not very fond of the idea of mashing up different games with Pokemon even if just as references given how I'm not one for fanficky scheisse, but Odyssey pulls it well enough that I was hooked by it and even interested in playing Etryan Odyssey by myself eventually. But it becomes clearer and clearer than the game's pacing and direction starts fumbling so badly, with Stratrums becoming and worse and worse and more frustrating to traverse and pointlessly enlongated for no better reason than the dev likely realizing how rushed the story and pacing became. The story unfolds way too fast and haphazardly for me to become truly invested, we literally only get to see Aimeé like twice throughout the entire game right at the start and then right at the end, she might as well not be there despite being a moving force of the plot, the villains literally just exist, the Abyssal fags are a joke, Frey is not that bad as a villain, but the game acts like he's this nemesis whom you had a long rivalry with despite the fact you see him all of like two times throughout the story I think, and you only face him once. What the fuck was the point with Zeus? He shows up and jobs so bad extremely hard offscreen. The final twist was honestly not that bad and felt like a massive gut punch, but again, it comes too late and doesn't give you time to breathe. That however doesn't begin to described how retarded it gets, with the story degenerating into shonenslop that's unbearably stupid and it genuinely feels like the dev does not want Pokemon to be part of the story anymore, especially considering how little they matter to the plot. I am left disappointed. The difficulty on hard was miserable, especially for me given my dualtype, HOLY FUCK, what was the dev thinking with the type chart changes? Ice needs buffs, that I do not disagree, but why these one? WHY NERF PSYCHIC?! Why remove Fairy? I understand hating the type, I certainly do some myself in many occasions, but without something to keep Dragon and Dark in check, both types just become extremely broken, especially Dark, Sucker Punch spamming is broken and only really has only counter in spamming Follow Me, that's it, awesome game design. Aether type has no justifiable reason to exist, it has no identity besides a type that's solely good for it's defensive merits, so imagine Steel before gen 6, except doesn't actually threaten anything, and in fact makes already broken types in Ghost and Dark EVEN BETTER by the sheer virtue of just existing. This is such a hairbrained idea that I don't know how it was allowed to continue being a thing, it's so dumb, going through the game with a Psychic/Dragon type was torture, simply just torture, but I don't think these are the only types that have it really bad, Grass also gets raped, the entire type chart is just fucked by the changes so much that it makes fights that normally shouldn't be too annoying turn into nightmarish slogs. F.O.E.s are probably one of the big selling points of the game aaaaaaaaaaaand......they're practically shoved aside past a certain point, it's not like they're not present but not much is done with them, not cool Super F.O.E.s akin to what I had hoped like fighting Kyogre in the ocean or Groudon in the volcanic caverns. Ocean exploration is actually practically pointless past a certain point and the quests tied to it rarely offer actually good rewards, Charon is probably the one island that is justifiably worth it on it's own due to how good the stuff you get there is, but that's mostly it, it's honestly not a bad feature and I had fun exploring, but there's not much to it at the end of the day and that sucks. I think to wrap it up I should at least bring up what I loved about the game so it doesn't seem like I outright hated it, the music is amazing, the GBA styled version of EO songs is great, the GBA version of Area Zero's theme is gorgeous and there's a few other renditions that are also lovely. The spritework is fantastic, unquestionably 9/10 in most instances. The game also has quite a few SOVLFUL things, but again, issues creep in with that, the home building at the end of the resort quest feels pointless, just a neat little thing and nothing else, the game has way too many missed opportunities like this sadly.
I waited eagerly all this time for the final version of Odyssey and I'm not quite left with a positive impression, it's not that of a game, dear no, I've played much worse. I think this game earns a 7/10 for me, in many ways it shares issues and problems similar to what I had in Awakening, thank fuck none of the Stratums drag on for long as the wind temple or the mines and most everything in chapter's 2 and 3, otherwise my opinion would be much worse. I think I still recommend the game if you want a solid romhack, but it has issues, I'd probably recommend completing ignoring postgame though, seems like a tedious waste of time.
>>7816
Yeah, that's just dumb.
>>7817
>>7820
>>7824
>>7830
GG and congrats bros.
>>7823
I didn't play EO and I can tell they fumbled things really bad, I expected way more Etrian forms, and the whole Battle Bond thing feels completely pointless and forgotten, I'm not using Minun and Pluse, it just isn't happening, the fact there's just like 5 BB forms is just dumb.
The fact not all classes made it in is really stupid dude, it's not like the game looks places for them to expand on that front considering the dex starts to feel really small due to all the lacking legendaries past the fourth Stratum, since by then you have pretty much every non-legendary available to you.