Atlus is one of those publishers that have made quite a name for themselves by bringing over niche titles from Japan to other markets. They have garnered quite a loyal fan base that enjoys their effort to properly localize these titles. This brings us to their latest release, Etrian Odyssey for the Nintendo DS.

Not surprisingly Etrian Odyssey is yet another RPG which was developed in Japan. You take control of a youth who lives in the city of Etria. Outside the city is a huge and frightening forest and at the proclamation of your town elders you decide to investigate these feared woods. Soon you learn of a mysterious labyrinth located in the center of these woods, and the unspeakable monstrosities that are within its walls.

This may sound very familiar to anyone who has played any RPG game. So you may be thinking to yourself, so what makes this game a niche title? Would you believe its map making? Yes, that is right as you progress through your adventure you will use the touch screen to draw out maps. The level of depth for making these maps is extremely high. There are icons that you can drag onto your map to indicate a particular room has a boss character, or item. You can even mark certain areas as event specific. The actual game design relies heavily on map-making, with NPC charging you with exploring unknown areas of your map, and charting your course.

Aside from the map-making Etrian Odyssey is at its heart a dungeon crawler. Actually, before the game truly begins, you will have to create a guild and start recruiting people into your party. You can have as many people as you want in your guild, but you are only allowed a maximum of five characters in your party during a dungeon siege. You will naturally have to equip your troops, so even though the game allows you to keep a large standing army, it might be better to save the money for your favorite characters.

When you have assembled your brigade its time to venture into the labyrinth. The top screen of your Nintendo DS shows a 3D perspective of your surroundings, while the bottom screen encompasses your map. Etrian Odyssey does use a tile-based engine for your movement, which is easier on the Nintendo DS hardware, and makes it far easier to chart your progress on the map.

When you do meet up with the monsters, battle is handled in a turn-based manner. With each character in your party taking their turn to attack or defend, until you either defeat your adversary, or your enemy defeats you. Similar to the other facets of Etrian Odyssey, the battle system is very traditional in its approach and execution, but will most likely delight fans of the RPG genre all the same.

The learning curve in Etrian Odyssey is very steep. Heck, it’s almost not even a curve at all, it’s more like a right angle. This is not exactly a bad thing, but it does make this title more than a little daunting to say the least. For example, if a companion dies on a campaign, you will have to do more than just pay for a night’s rest in the inn to revive him. Players will either be forced to pay a high fee to resurrect the character, or say goodbye to the fallen friend forever. That may sound painful but if you lose your entire party in a dungeon you lose every bit of progress you have made, and the game reverts to your last visit to the city of Etria. The only good news about this is all the notations on your map are saved so you will know at least where you were last.

Etrian Odyssey does hold a lot of promise. The map-making aspect is a neat gameplay addition which sits well with the very traditional approach that permeates the design. We will see how well everything holds up when we finally get our hands on the final build of Etrian Odyssey next week. So stay tuned.