Board 8 > Etrian Odyssey V or Etrian Odyssey Nexus

(+) Yeah! (+)

V is 15 bucks right now and Nexus is 20

I know Nexus is a sort of "greatest hits" type of thing taking elements from all the games but I never really heard people talk about whether the game turned out good
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I skipped V, but Nexus is very good. It does the EO4 thing of having many smaller dungeons rather than one mega-labyrinth, if that's a turnoff, but the degree of customization given how many character classes are available to you is the best in the series IMO.

And if you have any nostalgia for EO1-4 I think it gets an extra bump (I don't think any EOV elements are present in Nexus aside from a few character classes, but I may be misremembering).
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Nexus is really, really good for what it is. Mana Sword is correct in that it doesn't contain a lot of elements from V. It actually goes out of its way to acknowledge that EO 1-4 all take place in the same world and have the same lore, but totally ignores the fact that 5 existed -- which makes sense. 5 had weird nonhuman races as a major part of the setting, and it clearly didn't take part in the same world. The biggest flaw with Nexus is that it probably draws TOO MUCH influence from Etrian Odyssey 4.

If you know a lot about the EO series you can kinda understand that EO1-2 are their own thing, and EO4 is its own thing. They are similar, they are part of the same franchise, but the fundamental gameplay and design choices are from two different schools of thoughts. EO3 is sort of in between, but has more similarity to the classic games. Nexus is another in between game. They went out of their way to really make the EO1-2 fans pretty happy, and I did definitely feel like I was satisfied with Nexus. But, yeah, ultimately, it's still probably more like EO4 and that's a shame because EO4 is definitely my least favorite game in the series. That being said, lots people like 4, especially with how it made the series far more casual. That would also make 4 (and Nexus, by extension) "easier" for players to get into if they aren't looking for the most hardcore dungeon crawling experience.

Now, to talk about 5... 5 is actually amazing as well. The thing about 5 is that it's probably the most nostalgic game in terms of the feeling and the design of Etrian Odyssey 1. Aside from 2, which was sort of like an 'expansion' of EO1, I feel like 5 is the first game in the series to capture the magic of EO1 again. However, that's really true from the perspective of game design, dungeon design, and class balance. When it comes to Lore, EO5 is THE most divergent game in the series, hands down. As much as I loved the gameplay of EO5 and as much as it really gave me that magical feeling of playing EO1 again for the first time... I really didn't like the new world with all of the nonhuman races, and having classes locked behind races. although you can swap your class and basically end up with cross-race class options, the stat spreads for the races are fixed and so this is generally a case of; you have options, but most of the options suck. this may or may not be a sticking point for some people. if you're like me and you just want to play a human party in a fantastical world, the normal EO formula is best. if you actually like the idea of playing around with different fantasy races, then 5 is probably more appealing. and it does have the awesome gameplay and dungeon design to make it a solid choice in its own right.

uhh.... tl;dr

EO Nexus: More casual, simple lore that ties games 1-4 together but doesn't require that you've played any of the previous games. Solid amount of class options, but only the human race is available. Dungeon and world design is just okay, but it's split up between a bunch of small dungeons so you won't get exhausted.

EO 5: More of a dungeon focused dungeon crawler with one big, awesome dungeon. Fewer class options, but with more playable races. Some of the classes will feel mandatory, but there's more depth and strategy behind how you build your party around your core classes. You can play as elves and furries if you're into that.

It's worth noting that in some of the older EO games, there were some gimmick "furry" races like the Beast in EO2 and the secret classes in EO3/EO4. However, the thing to understand that makes EO5 different is that in EO1-4 the nonhuman races were just a class. In EO5, you pick your race FIRST, and then you have an option of different classes within that race.

hope this info is helpful! Etrian Odyssey is one of my favorite series and I'm definitely prepared to talk about it at length if anyone is actually interested lol
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