I am way too addicted to this brutal game! I never spent 8hrs in one day with the DS before! I even had to charge up while playing towards the end. I was getting creamed until I took out my bard and made a alchemist. Now I have someone in party that can wipe out those mean crabs in one hit and poison those special mobs on floor two! Dang I feel terrible I missed this at launch but May is not a good time as I am busy with dreams of outdoors and hiking those summer months. I'll make up for it though and buy 2 of EO2 if it makes it over here!

Yes the game is really addictive. My characters are at about level 25, and I just jumped into the seventh floor. I do have a question. The one mission says to steal an egg on the seventh floor of the second stratum. Does that mean floor two of stratum two, or does the second stratum have seven floors?

Notes from the Labyrinth, the latest instalment...
 

Count down two floors from where you start on the second stratum.

Hint:


This game is indeed, scary addictive.

Ronin update:
1) The ronin has a skill that supposedly increases a chance to get a critical hit. I think it is broken. I have a level 54 ronin with no allocated skill points whatsoever and have been playing about with the different abilities. I maxed out the skill in question (along with the prereqs) and saw absoutely no noticeable difference in critical hit frequency. If anybody else finds out anything different, please let me know.

2) A fun ronin skill falls under the "Iai" category. The skill is called, "Kubiuchi". It is basically a one-shot kill skill. It is awesome when it works, and it works a fair amount of the time (when maxed out) against run-of-the mill creatures encountered on floors such as floor 25. I don't know how it would be against FOEs and/or the "boss" creatures (or even typical beasties found lower in the labyrinth).

3) Other than the above, I haven't been overly impressed with the Ronin's offensive prowess (even with a good blade and maxed out "katana" and "attack up" skills). Speed, on the other hand, can be rather good.

Advice Update:
1) Before taking on enemies after say, floor 21 or so, it is a huge help to have characters that have "group attack" types of skills. That is, where one skill can inflict damage upon multiple opponents that are fighting you. The Landsknecht's "Allslash" and "Tornado" are quite good, along with Alchemist spells like "Inferno".

2) As you go deeper in floors, it is also helpful to have a Cleric that is skilled with "heal-whole-party" skills (e.g., salve). When maxed out, Salve only costs 10 TP/use, can restore somewhere around 150 points damage/character and is thus, quite handy.

3) The "recharge TP" skill is a nice thing to max out when you have Alchemists and Clerics.

4) If possible, through the use of items, etc, try and have it so your Cleric can cast spells like, "refresh" before your "heavy hitters" (e.g., an Alchemist with maxed out, "Flame" skill) get their combat turn. This works out extremely well when fighting enemies that can curse and/or bind your party members.

5) "Refresh" is a very important Cleric Skill to have once you have built up the "higher priority" Cleric skills (e.g., revive, various Heal skills, etc).

Wow, I thought I was going to destroy my game just now.

So, I found the crystal key. I unlock the doors on the first and second floors, and I get my treasure. I then go to the fifth floor to unlock that one and find a whole new area to explore with the same easy enemies since I'm leveled at 30. I go and wow, I find stairs, this is cool. I go down, I go down again. The enemies are getting tougher, but no big deal, and plus I'm finding treasure. Finally, I realize I'm getting low on TP so I decide to go back. Oh yeah, I forgot to buy a warp wire. I'll just teleport back to the geo thing with my alchemist. Oh yeah, I'm low on TP.

OK, I'll just walk back. I have Patch Up leveled well, and the enemies rarely hit me so it won't be a problem. Oh wait, that secret passage you went through to get to this area, you can't go back out that way. So now I'm stuck going forward with limited resources, and I'm doing great, until I come to this section of all interconnected rooms, and it seems like half of them have FOE's. Two of my characters die, but I manage to escape from 2 separate FOE battles after reviving and healing. Then I realize I can't go forward, withouth avoiding these people. Plus I don't know if it would help getting past them since I don't know where the next stairs are.

I decide that since I have 10 TP, and I need 15 to warp, it's time to level up. I find an area where I'm fighting one character at a time for about 100exp a pop. Unfortunately the first level isn't enough, and I have to fight around 50 more battles just to level up AGAIN to put me over the top with 15 tp and enough to warp back to my last geo point. Wow, that was intense. I don't know what I would have done if I had died there since I hadn't saved in at least an hour.

Thank God for this forum introducing me to this game.

Tale
 

Awesome.

That had to be a nail biter and a half.

That sounds familiar. :lol:

I am at near the final boss, but I've set it aside to play some Zelda. :(

spain -
You seem like you're forging way ahead of us! Where's the crystal key?

I am very addicted to the game. I found it on the seventh or eighth floor I believe. It was in a treasure chest. I don't like to move onto floors unless I have completely mapped out the floor I am on.

You'll know it's the floor because it will have vines on the ground that hurt you as you walk over them.

Did anyone actually do the 5 days on floor 8 quest? It's an easy enough quest since there is a fountain that cures you, but the reward is garbage for all the time you have to put in. I actually already have the armor on two people purchased. Is there a reason to complete a quest where the reward isn't great? Is there any punishment for cancelling a quest? I am a completist, but this is going to take forever.

I did that quest, in the fountain area.. just back and forthed while watching something. ;)

Did you ever cancel a quest? Does everyone get the same quests? Can you miss a quest if you already accepted five? Do they go away? I just don't know if it's worth it when I don't need the armor.

If you cancel a quest, it just goes back to the list and you can accept it again later.

Cool
 

I did the quest. It was tedious. On the plus side, my party went up a bunch of levels.

Good info to know. Thanks!

You realize of course that I blame you for my addiction to this game...:)

Haha,went from pride in defeating Fenfir after leveling up for like 8hrs on that floor with free heals back to get owned hardcore by mobs on floor six. Gotta love this game, if it was 100 floors though I never make the top.

How many floors is it? I'm on floor 11 at the moment. I love the look of it.

I'm on the 25th.. near the final boss, but I think there's extra stuff after that.

I agree, the third stratum looked excellent and also had the best background music.

Indeed.

To paraphrase a quote from the great movie, "Kung Pow! Enter The Fist"...

"Iron Claws hurt like crap, man!"

I unlocked the Ronin class a little while ago, and it's so fun to level him up to 20 in 15 minutes. A fight against Fenrir, then back up to the third stratum. I wish it was always this fast to level. I'll have that quest finished in no time.

I thought you could only get your guys to level 70? I'm at 45 with them right now. I can't imagine not getting to that level way before the 25th floor if I just stepped onto the 12th. Leveling must really slow down coming up.

Congrats on getting unlocking the Ronin.

It will. The points required to level up will really start increasing shortly.

I forget where my characters were once they hit the 20th floor, but I hung out there a looooonnnggg time leveling them up (You'll see why once you get there).

I'm at work so I can't access Gamefaqs. I have a question concerning the third stratum. I defeated the Golem and got the Golem rock after a loooooong battle which I didn't think I would win, but just pulled it out thanks to inferno. I got a rock, which when I sold opened up NO items which was very disappointing. How long does it take for a boss to reopen? I ask because I know the second floor boss also has a question mark where I didn't get another item along with the Golem's other item.

My real question though is what's up with the 14th floor? I can't find a way to get to the 15th floor. I opened up every area, and now I was going through that area with the endless amounts of pain things after getting the crystal key. I don't think I can make it past that area at this level, because I don't have enough TP with my cleric to keep healing unless maybe I loaded up on AmritaII's. Am I missing something? I didn't even complete the mission to find the humanoid people which I'm assuming are the Hexers. I met one, and I notice that a lot of times after I beat an enemy there will be an FOE on the map, but once I move it disappears. I have tried walking backwards, looking at it, but I can't seem to catch them. How the heck do I get to the fifteenth floor?

That map is in Japanese, but Gamefaqs has another that is in English on their page that could be emailed to you if the directions aren't good enough.

Hmmm I must have mismapped that floor then, since I remember doing all those things, but I didn't see the stairs. I'll go back there and see why I missed it. Must have to get my vision checked.

I was going to suggest a mismap as well, the 14th floor is the one with the lily pad warp points, no? There's a few levels like that to come and they don't give you a good way to map out the interconnecting points.. MOST of them are just straight line warps, so it's not utterly horrible but I at least hope the sequel gives some better mapping options for that.

Yup, that's the one. I would just add a warp point in the water and drew a path to where it takes me but didn't fill out the floor part. I figured I would understand it.