If Atlus’ Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City for the Nintendo DS isn’t pretty enough for you, check out Forests of Eternity, the preorder exclusive art book spanning the history of the series. It’s much prettier than the game.
I suppose it’s not hard for the concept art for a Nintendo DS role-playing series to trump the visuals of the games themselves. The Nintendo DS can only push out so many polys and pixels, after all, and there are no such restrictions for Forests of Eternity.
The book contains 60-pages’ worth of full-color artwork, giving us a clear idea of what the artists had in mind before the DS came into play.
Forests of Eternity will be available for pickup with your preordered copies of Etrian III at participating retailers while supplies last, so hopefully your local GameStop isn’t staffed by a bunch of video game art fanatics.
There’s more news today about Etrian Odyssey 3 [世界樹の迷宮Ⅲ 星海の来訪者] goodies. In addition to the pre-order bonus CD, there will be a set of telephone cards (again featuring new character artwork by artist Yuji Himukai), an A3 sized calendar poster, and a set of 10 clear file folders each bearing members of the character classes. This merchandise can be purchased separately or in a marginally cheaper bundle with the game.
But wait! That’s not all! Atlus has announced that it will give out a limited edition book – one containing the game’s conceptual images and information – to the first 500 people who submit a certain form after the game’s release. There’s not much else to be said for this book for the moment, as director Komori informs us it’s not even been assembled or printed yet.
As fans eagerly await the arrival of Etrian Odyssey 3 [世界樹の迷宮Ⅲ 星海の来訪者] on the first of April, a fair amount of new promotional material continues to appear. The second promotional video, as seen below, first appeared on Famitsu. It is now on the official website too, along with a new wallpaper featuring the four Pirate class models. It should be noted that since the game’s release was pushed back, the OST has also been delayed and will become available on April 7th, 2010.
In this week’s Famitsu issue, EO3 has a little corner to itself, announcing secondary color palettes for every character portrait. This option involves a toggle between color versions once the character base has been selected, and provides a total of 80 unique sprites to choose from. A HQ scan is below the cut, for those who would like to see the second set of colors for the Princess/Prince class.
The development blog sees another post by battle designer Kakuichi, who notes various technical improvements: making the active attacker more obvious, giving monsters shadows, allowing powerful monsters such as bosses to dish out damage to the entire panel at once, and adding distinct damage animations to indicate the types - slash, bash, and pierce damage.
The Etrian Odyssey 3 [世界樹の迷宮Ⅲ 星海の来訪者] official website has been updated, with all character portraits now up for viewing. We’re happy to provide all these images (with transparent backgrounds) and hope you will put them to good use: whether it be for assembling your guild and party line-up, editing to create custom characters, or embellishing a desktop or even a website. Enjoy!
To download the full set of EO3 class portraits, click here.
Furthermore, there are three new system videos which demonstrate the skill types and the use of limit skills (we reported on these in our previous post). The character customization screen has individual tabs differentiating between main and common skills, limit skills have their own submenu, and subclass skills appear in blue (versus main skills in green) in the battle menu. Director Komori has posted in the development blog, apologizing for the long silence. He comments on the subclasses, though he isn’t entirely clear on the limitations of the feature. Komori seems to say that the best use of the subclass involves augmenting the strengths of a character’s main class. The videos, however, suggest a huge range of possibilities: among others, there’s a Shinobi with healing skills, a Warrior with Beastking skills, and a Monk with guard skills. Make of it what you will!
There are no new Famitsu website articles nor development blog posts for Etrian Odyssey 3 [世界樹の迷宮Ⅲ 星海の来訪者]. However, scans from the latest issue of Famitsu showing a female model for each of the Ballista, Beastking, and Farmer classes. Scans are below the cut, click for a larger view.
There are three kinds of skills in Etrian Odyssey.
Common – Skills common to all classes, like those for item collection and those that raise TP and HP.
Main – Skills unique to the character classes. Since skill points are gained slowly by leveling up, you may want to give your characters a focus within their skill ranges.
Limit – Skills that open up for use when special items are obtained. Anywhere from 1-5 characters may be involved, depending on the skill.
An interesting new feature, limit skills depend on an item equipped to the head of your adventuring party, and the characters involved can be set. Over the course of several battles, the limit gauge fills. When each character has a full gauge, the limit skill can be used – making it possible to suddenly turn the tides of war in your favor. Lots of different limit skills exist, so search high and low for new ones!
January is winding down, bringing us a month closer to the April 1st release of the third Etrian Odyssey installment [世界樹の迷宮III 星海の来訪者]. As of today there are still no new posts on the game’s official development blog, however, this week’s issue of Famitsu did include another spread on the game. The images above refer back to the new nautical features: fishing, ocean navigation with unique obstacles, and multiplayer quests as well as item trading through the NDS’s wireless communication. This presumably means that completing the item compendium can now be a team effort!
The magazine article, in combination with the new post on Famitsu’s website, shows off the Warrior and Zodiac classes and introduces the new “subclass” element of the game. With subclasses, characters become able to acquire the skills of another class. For instance, a Pirate with the subclass Shinobi enhances the agility advantages the class already has, with the potential to develop into a character specialized in speed skills. This all-new feature allows for a far wider range of character specialization, customization, and development, refreshes battle tactics, and potentially softens battle difficulty. HQ scans are below, click to enlarge.
As was expected following the latest Famitsu issue, the official Etrian Odyssey 3 website [世界樹の迷宮Ⅲ 星海の来訪者] now shows character portraits for the Princess/Prince, Phalanx, Pirate, and Monk classes.
The above video, at long last providing a look at the seafaring portion of this Etrian installment, can now be found in the System section. The oceans of this game set the stage for yet another adventure – while they do not compose a labyrinth, they contain many new gimmicks that will require constant vigilance from even experienced cartographers. Fishing is one of many new features that provides players with more items to collect for trade-in back at port. Furthermore, the new multiplayer feature (which allows up to five people to connect via the NDS wireless communication) will permit players to play alone or to band together in undertaking “Discovery Quests” and defeating additional creatures.
For more information on the other character classes that were discussed by director Komori in the latest blog post, please see here.
In today’s post on the Etrian Odyssey 3 [世界樹の迷宮Ⅲ 星海の来訪者] development blog, director Komori shows us the back cover of the outtake CD. This is the game’s pre-order bonus soundtrack and it has a limited availability, as fans of the previous games should already be aware. The CD features four battle themes and two piano versions of dungeon tunes.
HQ scans of the latest Famitsu spread have also surfaced – click to enlarge!
Famitsu’s site also shows more of the outtake CD, various screenshots, and character artwork. If those aren’t the characters you were hoping to see in clearer detail, keep your eyes on the official site since the flash-embedded character portraits should be added to relevant section soon.
