Why bother holding onto old games when they’re just gonna remaster ’em?
It’s been more than four and a half years since Altus dropped a short trailer that seemed to indicate the Etrian Odyssey series would live on in a post-two-screen gaming world. One of the most celebrated creations of the Nintendo DS and 3DS eras, it’s been all quiet on the western from Atlus on the status of this series since that trailer dropped. During yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, the developer made it loud and clear it hadn’t forgotten about its niche dungeon crawler with the reveal of Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection.
The Origins Collection combines the first three games in the series—Etrian Odyssey, Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard, and Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City—into one complete package that features new character artwork and, in a first for the series, HD graphics. Of all the franchises to debut on the Nintendo DS and 3DS, I don’t there was one that was more dependent on the two-screen setup of those systems than the Etrian games. The whole point of the game was to make it like you were playing an old pen-and-paper RPG. Clearly, that’s part of the soul of the series, and I can’t imagine it’s all that easy to replicate on a single screen.
But Atlus is giving it the ol’ college try with these HD ports. Judging by the video and screenshots, the map-making features of these games will take up roughly half the screen when you do it manually. If you’d rather just focus on exploring the dungeons, the games in the collection will feature auto-mapping, which I am not ashamed to admit I utilized throughout all of Etrian Odyssey V.
Okay, so it’s not the follow-up to Etrian Odyssey Nexus like I was hoping for, but after a four-year absence, I’ll take whatever Atlus is dishing out. Plus, Etrian Odyssey III is arguably the best game in the series, so I’m really looking forward to revisiting that world again with my sovereign guiding the way.
Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection will launch on June 1 for Nintendo Switch. You can buy all three titles together digitally for $79.99 or get them individually for $39.99.
