Etrian Odyssey II: I'm back!

So I've discovered I don't have a huge impetus to play Shiren. Well, I'm not hopelessly addicted to it like I was with P3:Portable, anyway. So I popped in Etrian Odyssey II on a lark while I was tired a few nights ago, and I've put in another five hours or so, I believe.

I just reached the 20th floor before posting this, and am likely going to be facing the Strata boss soon, which will, like pretty much all the other Strata bosses, probably destroy me hard. Hopefully I can keep playing, because my guys are all level 55-59, just short of where I beat the last game. I'd like to finish the main story, to prep myself for Etrian Odyssey III, which I really need to pre-order so I get that awesome pre-order bonus art book.

Anyway. So I don't know what it is about EO that I love so much. It is not as though I ever played old-school PC RPGs when I was a kid (EO is like a love letter to those). The prospect of making my own map would have certainly made me vomit as a concept on its own. Endless grinding for loot and money never really appealed to me either, and I certainly don't like the goofy (and in a certain store in the original EO, outright disturbing) character designs, although the music is quite good.

It's hard to pinpoint, honestly. I guess EO is like the RPG genre distilled to its essence - a story that is both there, and virtually transparent, allowing you to fully customize your party any way you want. In fact, that's most likely it - the game is so ridiculously customizable that there is really no wrong way to do anything. There are just level-up paths that make your characters more powerful sooner than others, and I kind of like discovering that.

I mean come on - if you reach level 100 with your characters, the game allows you to "Retire" them and let you start over at level 1 with all your skill points, which means you can level them up all the way again and max out every skill and (probably, anyway, since I've sure as hell never done it) stat.

And I believe, like the last game, there is a bonus Strata after you beat the main storyline boss, which will allow you to really test your party's mettle.

I don't know why I'm so addicted to these hardcore RPGs these days. They're pretty much all I've been playing (with a short break for Super Mario Galaxy 2)! I hope I don't get RPG'ed out. Guess will see. Anyway, back to the grind.