I really like this more than I thought I would. My only complaint would probably be the fact that there are no class icons or something similar, which makes doing formations and other things tough, based on name alone. My solution was to name people by their class.. Landsnect, Fortressa, Medicant, Sniperessa, Nightseek.. heh. I've mapped out all of (I think, at least) Lush Forest 1F, so I'm not too far in, but I dig it.

Glad to see new people getting into this awesome series. The exploration, music, and character customization elements are what really draw me into it. Don't be afraid to Rest your characters at the Explorer's Guild if their skill sets aren't working out for you. The 2 levels it costs really aren't that big of a deal.

First time here as well and I'm liking it too. I really like when they use FOEs for "puzzles". Though I wish they wouldn't gate the classes as much as they do and simply had more as well. I feel pretty familiar with the class lineup I have and would like to try some others, but I have little interest in the other starting classes and I would really like to try the locked classes but after 20 hours of playtime I still have yet to unlock any (but I'm close to the first one).

My only complaint is that they replaced the old FOE map icons (just orange/red/black fuzzballs) with actual sprites. One of the fun and dread of an FOE fight was not even knowing what the thing was going to look like before it blindsides you when you took one too many turns in a fight within its field of view. IOSYS said it best, FOE FOE FOE FOE

This game is fantastic. I beat the demo and went out to pre order it the next day. Tis my first with the series as well. Its soooo good. Just made it to the 2nd Labyrinth.

@etoaster: The music in this game is ridiculously excellent. I found this nice playlist on Youtube that has all the OST songs, made for some good listening over the weekend.

When I got to the first major boss in the game, and this song played, I just sat and listened to it for a couple minutes to get pumped up:

I think this is by far my favorite track, can't wait until I actually get to this dungeon in the game:

So resting in the new game only costs 2 levels? I just started playing the first game and I believe resting is 10 levels in that one.

I've wanted to play one of these games for a long time, but I never got around to it. Now three have passed me by. Glad to hear this fourth one is a decent place to start!

This game is just damn near perfect for me. The art style and the music are fantastic! It's pretty weird how such a tough game is actually relaxing for me.

Yeah, it's 10 levels in 1, 5 in 2 and 3, and now down to just 2 levels in 4, making it practically a non-issue. The cost in 1 is definitely too high to be anything but tedious.

That give a lot more leeway to test things out, or screw up. When I popped the game in the other day, I played for 3 hours, but didn't really have a plan. I did some research and looked at a character build guide and realized I had wasted a bunch of skill points. So I started from scratch. Good to know though.

I just unlocked the Arcanist and it gives you the option to level a total of two characters from anything lower than 25 to level 25. That's fantastic since I wanted to use the Arcanist but didn't want to power level it. That is fantastic, I really didn't think this game would do that.

I'm curious. As someone who's interested in trying this series, if I start with this one would it be hard to go back to the previous titles? Has it advanced so much that the other games would feel extremely primitive if I back tracked and played those after this one?

@ezakael: Considering the first three are practically identical, I doubt it. Unless this one made some serious leaps forward, but it doesn't sound like it. Awesome games too. Too bad I can't be arsed to buy a 3DS just for this.

I really loved the first two EO games, so I definitely am interested in this, but I've barely sunk any time into EO3, which I sort of want to do before I play this game.

Either way, I suppose I'd better buy this before it becomes impossible to find, whether or not I play it right away.