Sega and Atlus seem to be much more open to porting the latter’s core games to more platforms of late, but while PC and the Nintendo Switch have often come up in conversations about Atlus games, Xbox has mostly been ignored. In its own yearly surveys, when Atlus asks about what platforms players would like to play their games on, Xbox is typically missing from the options. That’s changed this year.

In its newest survey (via Persona Central), Atlus asks if players want to see releases from a number of its core franchises on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. These franchises include the likes of Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, Etrian Odyssey, and more. Meanwhile, several questions in the survey also seem to be focused on smartphones, while the survey also asks about older games from several franchises.

Atlus is currently at work on a number of upcoming projects, including Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne HD, Shin Megami Tensei 5, and Project Re: Fantasy, while the developer also seems to have something planned for Persona’s 25th anniversary celebrations this year.

Atlus has been in the habit of sending out surveys to Japanese audiences in the early months of every year, and their survey for 2020 has gone out as well. It asks the sort of quests they’ve been asking for a while now, getting a rough idea of where people’s interest levels lie for things such as remakes, ports of older titles, sequels of mainline releases, and more.

Just like last year, Persona 6 is brought up in the survey, with Atlus asking what platforms people would like to see the game on, with new options for PS5 and Stadia having been added to older options for PS4, PS VR, Nintendo Switch , PC, and mobile devices. Similar questions are also asked for mainline sequels to Shin Megami Tensi and Etrian Odyssey.

The Switch is brought up in plety of other questions as well, including ones for hypothetical of ports of all Persona titles (including expanded versions ad spinoffs), the Shin Megami Tensei series (once again, including spinoffs), and many others.

Remember that a though a survey indicates the the developer is at least thinking about if they have an audience on various platforms, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have any concrete plans for them yet. Atlus has been asking questions like these in its annual surveys for a while now.

Either way, it should be interesting to see if anything comes out of this. For now, they’ve got Persona 5 Scramble coming to the Switch and PS4 in Japan very soon.

In 2018, the 3DS will be in its eighth year on the market. At that point in its life, it should be winding down- and by all accounts, it will be. Except, Atlus doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. They will be releasing a whole spate of games for the system in 2018- The Alliance Alive, Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey, Radiant Historia, Persona Q2, and now, apparently, a brand new Etrian Odyssey game, too.

Contrary to what you might expect, the new game will not be Etrian Odyssey Untold 3, although it is expected to be the ‘culmination’ of the franchise. It will have loads of mapping, enough that series director Shigeo Komori jokes that players will become sick of it.

What this game might be, then, remains to be seen. Perhaps a final entry in the franchise? With the two screened 3DS on the way out, and the Switch only having one screen, no hardware exists to host future games in the series- maybe Etrian Odyssey will be riding into the sunset with this game.

[Persona Central]

At first, this fusion might baffle- although both series are old school and unforgiving role playing games, which lay the onus of success and failure entirely on the player’s preparation, how are the two franchises going to work together in tandem? After all, Etrian Odyssey is known for its meticulously crafted maps, its famed mapping system, and its high difficulty that requires just the correct party composition to get through. Meanwhile, Mystery Dungeon is more real time, featuring procedurally generated dungeons, and difficulty that derives chiefly from resource management and party movement.

How will all of this work together, you ask? Surprisingly well, as it turns out.

"The hint to how Etrian Mystery Dungeon plays is right there in the title: this is more a Mystery Dungeon game than an Etrian Odyssey game."

The hint to how Etrian Mystery Dungeon plays is right there in the title: this is more a Mystery Dungeon game than an Etrian Odyssey game. Most of the Etrian Odyssey components seem to be aesthetic window dressing, or just those specific portions of its formula that could be fit into the Mystery Dungeon setup without compromising it too much. Dungeons are all procedurally generated, and you and a party of your choice make your way into them. Like Etrian Odyssey, your inventory space is limited. Like Mystery Dungeon, death can come to you quickly, particularly since fatigue is a very real factor now- every step costs you food points, and the more you garner, the higher your hunger goes. Hunger can be debilitating and can entirely take party members out of commission, meaning it’s in your best interest to keep your party well fed.

That would, in turn, imply that you should stock up on food as much as possible, but that’s a terrible idea. As mentioned before, inventory space is limited, and hunger is but one thing to consider. You also need healing items, especially since the enemies can be so brutal, and you must leave enough space for any loot you find as well.

This kind of resource management has always been central to the experience of Mystery Dungeon, and so it is here as well. Every dungeon and every enemy encounter in Etrian Mystery Dungeon is high stakes, particularly since death has actual consequence this time around, and since you don’t get to keep your loot unless you escape the dungeon with it.

Actual enemy encounters are pretty much the same here as they are in other Mystery Dungeon games- you and your party of three are on an enemy grid, and your movement and positioning matters for a lot. The battles are all turn based, meaning your enemy does not move or attack until you do. This lends an element of tactical strategy to each encounter, as you try to get into an advantageous spot before you are forced to engage with an enemy, try to surround them, or just try to escape unscathed. Enemies in Etrian Mystery Dungeon are very difficult- sometimes they are just ridiculously powerful, and the worst part is, each time they defeat your party member, they level up, in the middle of battle, just as you would, making them tougher still.

All of this said, the one Etrian Odyssey convention that makes it through to this game is the importance of party composition. This cannot be stressed enough- your party composition can single handedly decide the outcome of your sojourns into the dungeons. You have four slots, and a slew of characters, each from different classes, to choose from. What classes you take with you determines how the battles in the dungeon will play out.

"Unfortunately, there is no direct control over your party members. Worse still, the 'gambits' that let you decide just how they will act and react on the field are pretty limited too. "

Unfortunately, there is no direct control over your party members. Worse still, the ‘gambits’ that let you decide just how they will act and react on the field are pretty limited too. This means you are often at the mercy of CPU characters making just the right choice at the right time, which they often do not, leading to a complete loss of progress in a given dungeon. While this would be frustrating at the best of times, here, it’s flat out diabolical- since the penalty for failure is so harsh, and since, in this case, the failure is not even your fault, it just stings.

Thankfully, more often than not, CPU characters do make the right choices- I just wish that some form of direct control, or better gambits, would have been offered.

If all of this sounds too intimidating, it should. Etrian Mystery Dungeon is a very difficult game, and it makes you work for your success, instead of just handing it to you on a platter like so many other modern games do. More than, perhaps, even the mainline Etrian Odyssey games, which are notorious for their high difficulty level to begin with, EMD is a game that is more than happy to stack the deck against you, without apologies.

That said, it is also a fair game, and as such, it gives you multiple tools that, if used correctly, can make the experience far easier than it would be otherwise. For instance, you are allowed to build forts. Forts are highly useful structures- they ‘lock’ a dungeon floor (meaning it is no longer procedurally generated after the fort is built, and instead is stuck to the layout it was on when the fort was built), they allow you to continue your dungeon run straight from them, instead of having to start all over again, and when really powerful enemies known as DOEs try to make their way towards your home base city to wreak havoc, forts act as a line of defense and turn them away.

Forts also let you send secondary party members there to train and gain experience passively, and they are just all around useful structures. Because of all of this, they also cost a lot of money to build, but they become an integral part of the metagame.

"In a sense, Etrian Mystery Dungeon is made from the same mold as games like Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate or Bloodborne. It is a game that makes you work for success, it is a game that likes making things difficult for you, but it is also never unfair."

You may have noticed that I have talked mostly about the gameplay here, and that’s because the gameplay is really all that there is. Etrian Mystery Dungeon is a game that lives and dies solely by its gameplay. Yes, there is a story, but it’s barebones, receded into the background, and almost entirely inconsequential. The graphics are bright and charming, but nothing more or less. Above all, they are functional, conveying all the necessary information. The sound is catchy and upbeat, but can quickly begin to get annoying.

In a sense, Etrian Mystery Dungeon is made from the same mold as games like Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate or Bloodborne. It is a game that makes you work for success, it is a game that likes making things difficult for you, but it is also never unfair. Success in EMD is hard won, and it is all the sweeter for that. It is a very long game, and it lends itself to further replays, meaning you are going to be spending a lot of time with it if it ‘clicks’ with you.

But that’s the thing- it might not. Even if you’ve been an evangelist for the core Etrian Odyssey games, there is no guarantee that you will like Etrian Mystery Dungeon. It’s a completely different breed of game, albeit cut from the same cloth.

If it does, however- then you’ll be playing Etrian Mystery Dungeon for a very long time to come.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo 3DS.

A game that celebrates Atlus’ biggest successes in Persona 3 and Persona 4 by bringing their two casts together in an interdimensional game that has the casts collide and clash, and come together in a story that truly serves as a fitting farewell to them before we move on to Persona 5 next year; and a game that, in celebrating modern Persona, inadvertently also ends up paying homage to classic Persona by reverting to the first person view that was a mainstay of the very first Persona game.

It’s an unlikely game, and for a long time, as you play it, you find yourself questioning if you are playing it because of all of this, which makes it appeal to you uniquely as a Persona fan, or because the underlying game design is actually fun and compelling on its own.

I’ve been playing the game for over a month now, and I still don’t know. All I know is that I want to keep playing it, and then go back again to play it more.

"It's an unlikely game, and for a long time, as you play it, you find yourself questioning if you are playing it because of all of this, which makes it appeal to you uniquely as a Persona fan, or because the underlying game design is actually fun and compelling on its own."

Before we go any further, let’s tell you what Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is. It is basically a Persona re-skinning of Atlus’ hardcore, cult popular dungeon crawling franchise, Etrian Odyssey. As such, this is a Persona game that features a lot of elements that you probably have never seen in the series before- you have to maintain your own maps in dungeons, for example, and your party makeup and formation is now crucial to your success.

Knowing when to cut your losses and run is equally important, as many foes you will run into are simply way out of your league, and mana and resource conservation is extremely important as well. With this Etrian Odyssey-fication of Persona, a lot of Persona elements that you are used to are also gone- there is no time management, no social links, no extra curricular activities. It’s a game squarely focused on the dungeon crawling.

But on the other hand, this is still every bit a Persona game, and the personality of Persona permeates it on every level. It is often said one plays Persona not for the gameplay, which can be described as average at best (though I disagree with that assessment, but let’s not digress), but for the characters, the story, and the excellent soundtrack. And Persona Q heavily benefits from all three of those- by bringing together the casts of Persona 3 and Persona 4, it has over a dozen incredible characters to draw from, two very compelling protagonists, a story that starts out as throaway and gradually evolves into something that really ties Persona 3 and Persona 4 together excellently, and along the way, also benefits from some of the best music a dungeon crawler has seen yet.

Indeed, Persona Q succeeds the most as a tribute to all things Persona 3 and 4, in spite of all of its Etrian Odyssey trappings. All the characters you know and love are back, except now all of a sudden, there are new permutations and combinations of character interactions to account for, as the two casts make their way through the story together.

All the goofiness that you loved from Persona 3 and 4 is back, and the game is liberally peppered and sprinkled with references to those two games. The music stands as a stirring revisiting of those two excellent soundtracks, and nets us what might just be our best 3DS soundtrack yet (considering this is a system with Fire Emblem: Awakening, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Super Smash Bros., and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, that really is saying something). The dialog is sharp and witty, and will often have you in splits, the voice acting is exemplary. And the first time the Persona 3 and 4 protagonists show up in the same frame, it’s positively chilling.

"This is still every bit a Persona game, and the personality of Persona permeates it on every level."

And even though the social links are gone, the game still makes concessions to character interactions and characterization, that it knows and understands are Persona’s greatest strength- sometimes (although not very often), you will be able to go and take a ‘stroll’ with certain characters in the game, and in the interactions that ensue, you will not only learn more about them (especially in this new context), but get to see more of Persona’s exemplary characterization, that enhances the story in so many ways.

So much for the Persona parts, but Etrian Odyssey fans might be wondering if they’ve been given the short end of the stick. Happily enough, that is not the case. Where Persona’s strengths are its music, its characters, and its storytelling, Etrian Odyssey benefits from hardcore dungeon crawling, mapping, resource management, and battle strategies, and all of that has been showcased here, without it compromising on Persona’s strengths or vice versa.

You still pick parties of five and go into dungeons, and how effective your party is depends not just on who you pick, but how you arrange them in a battle formation, what equipment they have, and what ‘sub’-Persona they have equipped (since each character can now equip up to two Personae). You still have to map out your dungeon on the touch screen (though if you would rather not, Atlus gives you a simplified mode where the map fills itself out, and you just have to put markers any time you run into something of interest).

You still have to harvest resources, you still have to make sure you don’t bite on more than you can chew, you still have to make your way through befuddling and cunningly contrived dungeons that are far beyond anything Persona has ever attempted (seriously, just the first floor of the first dungeon in the game is probably far more complex than any dungeon period in a Persona game). You still need to learn to cut your losses, run and heal. You need to know how to conserve you mana and resources. You need to take advantage of character classes.

The Etrian Odyssey side even benefits from the Persona side- Persona fusion adds another, entirely new layer of complexity to the mix. A ‘Leader’ skill lets you re-configure your attack order mid battle without losing a turn. Elemental weakness exploitation, which has always been a hallmark of Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, returns here, and is synthesized into something altogether new- instead of getting one more turn when you attack an enemy’s weakness, you enter a ‘super enhanced’ state, where you get to go first the next turn, and your attacks don’t cost any mana or HP (potentially leading to long, chained combos). If enough people are in this state, you even get to launch Persona 3 and 4’s trademark All Out Attacks.

"What I am trying to say here is, somehow it all works. I'm not sure how, but Persona and Etrian Odyssey come together in a beautiful blend, a symbiotic relationship where each actually benefits from the other and comes together to create something that is wholly unique and more than the sum of its parts."

What I am trying to say here is, somehow it all works. I’m not sure how, but Persona and Etrian Odyssey come together in a beautiful blend, a symbiotic relationship where each actually benefits from the other and comes together to create something that is wholly unique and more than the sum of its parts. The fact that the game just represents such great value- it can take upwards of 50 hours (and closer to 80 or 90) to complete the game, and you’re still not done, because the game makes you pick which protagonist you want to play as at the beginning, and you can always go back and have a second playthrough on the other path- means that this game more than pays for itself.

Oh yes, there are some problems for sure- the game is terrifyingly difficult and punishing, and newcomers might be scared off, in spite of the fact that there is a difficulty mode that is very literally titled ‘Picnic.’ Sometimes the dungeons tend to get too long, and you may be forced to go for hours without getting to save (which, on a handheld especially, is a cardinal sin).

The fact that movement is mapped to the D-pad, while the analog stick basically goes to waste (and with no option to re-map either) is baffling. In some instances, Persona Q can come off as too pandering or trying too hard. The game’s focus on the two new characters that it introduces, Rei and Zen, often hurts it. And the chibi style graphics may not necessarily be to your taste.

But it works in spite of all of that. It comes together as a love letter to Persona fans, while also giving them something wholly unique, and, hopefully, forward looking. In a lot of ways, I look at Persona Q, and I hope that Persona 5 takes some cues from it, notably in terms of dungeon design, and the combat innovations Q brings to the series. In many ways, Persona Q is the perfect game for fans- it pays tribute to them and to what they love, while also keeping one eye squarely trained on the future.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS.

Well… sort of. You see, Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl is a remake of the first title, the one that started things up back on the Nintendo DS. But it’s such a thorough remake, with so many things added, that it might as well be treated as an all new game. And a pretty darn good one at that.

"Judged from that perspective, the story in Etrian Odyssey Untold shines: after all, how could it not, when it is, strictly speaking, the only true story this series has ever told? Unfortunately, the game cannot be judged in a vacuum, and in that regards, the story in this game falls short."

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl is the latest step in Atlus’ ceaseless experimentation in order to give the franchise a broader base to appeal to. The hook with the new game is that it adds a heavy story emphasis to a series famous for its aversion to any sort of plot or exposition- indeed, Etrian Odyssey in notorious for just setting the general plot up, and then completely de-emphasizing any and all narrative and story.

Judged from that perspective, the story in Etrian Odyssey Untold shines: after all, how could it not, when it is, strictly speaking, the only true story this series has ever told? Unfortunately, the game cannot be judged in a vacuum, and in that regards, the story in this game falls short. Etrian Odyssey Untold’s plot line, which features an amnesiac protagonist, what appears to be time travel, and saving the world from a dark threat, is pretty standard fare for JRPGs, and even dangerously borders on cliche territory. It’s a bit of a disappointment, considering just how compelling the stories in other Atlus 3DS games (Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, Shin Megami Tensei IV) is.

However, like so many other games that prize gameplay over exposition, the story here is just an excuse to get things going and to get you to some hardcore dungeon crawling and grinding action. As a series, Etrian Odyssey shows no mercy, and even this game, which is allegedly made as an entry point to the series, a more accessible, casualized entry in the series if you will, can kick your ass if you don’t pay attention. Etrian Odyssey Untold demands that you pay attention to the class composition of your party, to weigh the benefits of your attacks and moves versus their cost, to focus on your enemy’s weaknesses, and the effects that their attacks can have, and to, above all, have a head for directions, and know your way about every dungeon that you enter.

"Ultimately, it becomes very hard to fault Etrian Odyssey for anything after that- not only is it top of the genre in providing players with what it does, but it gives them a choice as to how to approach it by literally giving them two games for the price of one."

All of this incredible dungeon crawling is here in Etrian Odyssey Untold, refined so that it’s the best, mechanically speaking, in the series so far yet. The class composition side of things suffers a bit, as you’re not permitted to make your own party, but have to deal with pre made characters, with their pre-determined classes. It’s basically the trade you have to make to get a more story focused Etrian Odyssey experience.

Ordinarily, this would be a huge knock against the game, that it has taken away one of the core mechanics of the series to focus on a story that isn’t all that great to begin with. But Etrian Odyssey Untold sidesteps this criticism by including what is effectively a second game within itself, a remake of the first title without any of the story focus but all the improvements the series has seen since then. You see, all the story improvements and emphases that I have been talking about so far, they apply only to the game’s new Story Mode. But if you want all the mechanical improvements without any of the narrative requirements fettering your hardcore dungeon crawling experience, you can just play the Classic Mode, which features all the staggering depth the series is known for, in addition to all the improvements and refinements as well.

Ultimately, it becomes very hard to fault Etrian Odyssey for anything after that- not only is it top of the genre in providing players with what it does, but it gives them a choice as to how to approach it by literally giving them two games for the price of one. The staggering depth and wealth of content in Etrian Odyssey is already incredible to begin with- there are nearly a hundred weapons and a dozen classes in the game, for example- but this just takes it to an all new level.

For players looking for a more hardcore, satisfying experience on their 3DS, there is literally no better game on the system right now, as long as a good story is not one of the requirements. For those looking for some more RPG goodness on the system, Etrian Odyssey Untold is a great purchase to consider. For those who have been looking for a jumping point into the series, this is the best place to start. Etrian Odyssey Untold is two great games for the price of one, and an incredible value both quantitatively and qualitatively. Buy it, but do so at your own risk: just go in expecting to get your ass kicked.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS.

It might seem like much longer (especially so given the great year the system has had so far), but the 3DS got an Etrian Odyssey game back in February, Etrian Odyssey IV. It was a pretty good game, decent at what it did, and a hardcore dungeon crawler and a timesink for those who’re into that kind of a game. But in a year dominated by other high profile 3DS releases like Animal Crossing, Luigi’s Mansion, Fire Emblem, and Atlus’ own Shin Megami Tensei IV, it kind of faded away quickly.

And now we have another one of these coming up soon. Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl revisits the first title, released back on the Nintendo DS, and it brings with it several enhancements (including the fact that the game is basically redone from the ground up entirely. It’s a new game in all but name). One of these includes the Story Mode, the first time the series has had a campaign with a definite story. You can see the trailer for the story mode above.

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl releases exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS on October 1. It will be available via the Nintendo eShop, and at retail as well. We will have our review for the game up soon, so stay tuned.