Etrian Odyssey: Origins Collection

The Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection is a fantastic set of games with so much content and, thankfully, it runs beautifully on the Steam Deck!

Explore the rich beginnings of this RPG franchise with remasters of three timeless adventures that inspire players to go on a journey of discovery, mapping deep dungeons, and building customized parties for exploring and engaging in tactical combat. Play as the leader of a guild of adventurers, searching for rare treasures and secrets within the depths of a vast, sprawling labyrinth. Traverse and draw a map of the environment while encountering enemies large and small in turn-based combat, then return to town to rest, sell materials for better equipment, and manage your party, selecting from a...

Three old school JRPGs that are so perversely old-fashioned they force you to draw your own map – and yet they’re surprisingly captivating and fully deserving of this welcome remaster collection.

This collection may be priced at a premium level, but for Etrian Odyssey fans, you are sure to remember why this addictive formula is more than welcome on the Nintendo Switch.

It's been a long time but Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection revives 3 classic DS dungeon crawlers so let's head to the guild.

Some games were just meant for the Nintendo DS. The dual screens and the touch controls were the perfect canvas for all sorts of RPGs. I honestly thought the Etrian Odyssey series would never work on a different platform. But I’m always happy to be proven wrong. Between the portability and the robust touch screen, the Etrian games work wonderfully on the Nintendo Switch. Better yet, these games still hold up over a decade later. Making your own map? Still totally rules, I’m happy to report.

Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection feels like an odd release to recommend, but we’d be doing you a disservice to suggest you pass on it. On one hand, the three games are undeniably solid DRPGs that are worth your time and attention. On the other, the cost at launch feels astronomical for what are essentially straight, no-frills HD ports of decade-old portable titles. This collection is worthwhile because this series is and always has been great, but the collection itself feels subpar given the rather lackluster effort that has gone into bringing them to modern hardware. We’d still give Etrian O...

Etrian Odyssey is a series of turn-based dungeon-crawler RPGs that are presented in a first-person view. Players can pick from several classes of characters to form a party and head out to explore grid-based dungeons of various biomes. In these dungeons, they will encounter enemies for turn-based combat, loot, hidden objects or passageways, and more. A key feature of the games is that as players explore, they are drawing their own map of these labyrinths on virtual graph paper with different icons and tools at their disposal. Once they are ready to return to town, they can sleep in the inn, se...

The magic of manual map drawing is curbed with the handy auto-map feature, yet pulling off risky expeditions into Etrian Odyssey's dangerous labyrinths remains unmatched.

The Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection remasters the first three games of the series for the Nintendo Switch and PC, maintaining its unique dungeon crawling gameplay but struggling with the transition from dual to single-screen.