History YMMV / EtrianOdyssey

** Once a Nightseeker in the fourth game hits high enough level to be able to use Venom Throw, maxing it out allows them to inflict a poison status that does a fixed 700 damage every turn for several turns: combine this with Spread Throw and Auto-Spread, and they can take out most random encounters in a single turn and severely damage bosses over several turns with very little TP used. If you then give them Arcanist as a subclass, you can not only use one of their passive abilities to increase the chance of landing the poison status on even strongest enemies, but also gain back any TP you spend to use the move if the poison sticks on at least a single enemy thanks to their TP Return.

* BaseBreaker: The [[PettingZooPeople Bushi]]-class from ''Legends of the Titan'', hands down.

** In ''Legends of the Titan'', the Nightseeker's Spread Throw skill is normally "used up" the next time they use a Throw skill. If it's activated at the start of the battle by Auto Spread, it persists through the entire battle.

** Even funnier when you finally found out that Gladiator is supposed to replace ''Landsknecht'' instead. [[hottip:*:The Princess gets the Landsknecht's ability to equip heavy armor, while the Gladiator is a straight combatant; while their armor choices emulate Dark Hunters, they generally lack the ability to dole out status effects unless they invest in Stun Attack. But in turn, when compared to Landsknechts, both classes can specialize in two weapons: Sword and Axe/Hammer, and their sword skills rely on hitting as many enemies as possible, while their other weapon skill rely on hitting one enemy as hard as possible.]]

** Which didn't help much, because they also took the opportunity to boost some unused skills, and did a bit too much. In ''Heroes of Lagaard'', the Hexer skill Revenge was boosted to deal 255% of the damage the Hexer had taken for only 19 TP once mastered, which means a Hexer with items to boost max HP, 1 HP left, and enough AGI to move first can be devastating. ** [[hottip:To elaborate: Revenge deals set damage depending on how much HP a Hexer has lost, ''ignoring enemy's defense, resistance, immunity etc''; If a hexer can deal 1000 damage to a {{mook}}, they can deal that much damage to a [[BossBattle Boss]]. There are two reasons why Revenge is broken in ''Heroes of Lagaard'' but not in ''Etrian Odyssey'': First, Revenge is stronger in [=EO2=], and second, most importantly, [=FOEs=] and bosses have significantly lower HP in [=EO2=]: [=EO1=] bosses can have upwards to 5,000-10,000 HP and even beyond, but in [=EO2=], highest HP among non-FinalBoss or BonusBoss is around 3000-4000, but said bosses have such massive defenses that Other classes will have to be lucky or maxed out to deal a couple hundreds of damage to a boss. With proper equipments and setup, [=EO2=] Hexers can dish out between '''''1500-2000''''' damage per Revenge. This entire thing is why Revenge is a GameBreaker: A BossFight using other classes can last 10 turns or even longer, while Hexers can happily wipe out a boss in probably ''two'' hits.]]

* ExcusePlot, sort of: the introductory plot to both games is more or less "there's this labyrinth and this town built around it, and you're one of quite a few guys who wants to conquer the labyrinth for gold and glory and to solve its mysteries. Have fun." It tends to remain so for about 3/4 of the entire game, but then things suddenly start happening near the end. In a sense, the major plot twist is that there actually is one. The third game is better about this.
** The fourth game breaks this and has a plot throughout the game.

** You can skip Fenrir in the first game by exploiting the fact that [=FOEs=] maintain aggro even with a wall between you to lure him into a coridor so you can run past him. While you can not go far on the 6th floor without going back and killing him (as you need to report Fenrir's death to do so), it does allow you to warp to town, save, and fight stronger monsters for better gear and get a free turn on Fenrir by attacking him from behind, as well as open some new quests. This is all very helpful, as Fenrir is an EarlyBirdBoss.

*** The Dancer's bottommost dancing skills in the fourth game. They're all passive, and give an increased dodge chance, the ability to hit multiple times in a single attack, and the chance to stun an enemy upon connecting with a normal attack. It only takes ''three'' skill points to unlock the second skill, compared to the ''twenty'' (at least ten of which are dumped in a useless skill regardless of what weapon you use) it took to unlock Swashbuckling (which is the same skill) in ''The Drowned City''. Dancers are also able to use a different skill to make allies in the same line follow up on their attacks, meaning it's possible to have your ''entire front line attack multiple times per turn''.

** You can skip Fenrir in the first game by exploiting the fact that FOEs maintain aggro even with a wall between you to lure him into a coridor so you can run past him. While you can not go far on the 6th floor without going back and killing him (as you need to report Fenrir's death to do so), it does allow you to warp to town, save, and fight stronger monsters for better gear and get a free turn on Fenrir by attacking him from behind, as well as open some new quests. This is all very helpful, as Fenrir is an EarlyBirdBoss.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: [[spoiler: Olympia: WellIntentionedExtremist [[IDidWhatIHadToDo doing what she must]] to protect the Deep City's secrets, or CompleteMonster who ''enjoyed'' leading hapless, trusting explorers to their deaths?]]

*** Speaking of Hexer and War Magus, the former's Torpor immensely aids the latter's Sleep Cut, allowing the party to deal pretty massive damage while the enemies are asleep.

** It was (probably) also to avoid classes having the same first letter in their name as to make it easier for the item shop menu to characterize them. It would have been a little difficult to tell the difference between Princess and Pirate, or Buccaneer and Beast King.
* GameBreaker: Hexers. With Evil Eye and Suicide, the Hexer can command the enemy to attack itself instead of the party, allowing the player to attack an enemy without worry of being hit. There's also Betrayal, which forces all terrified enemies to attack each other. Adding in Relapse, it's possible to cripple an enemy for the rest of the battle.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqd1xwaXZ-4&fmt=18 Cherry Tree Bridge]] from the second game.
** This series [[AwesomeMusic/EtrianOdyssey has a whole page]] dedicated to awesome songs from this series.

** It was (probably) also to avoid classes having the same first letter in their name as to make it easier for the item shop menu to characterize them. It would have been a little difficult to tell the difference between Princess and Pirate, or Buccaneer and Beast King.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Some of the enemy designs are very much this. From the BonusBoss / TrueFinalBoss of ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' to the one-eyed worms in the third stratum of ''The Drowned City''.

** This series [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CrowningMusic/EtrianOdyssey has a whole page]] dedicated to awesome songs from this series.

** The Bloodant FOEs in the first game: the first time you encounter them on floor 12 they don't hit very hard but their Hp is significantly high and they regenerate indefinitely, they can also summon deathants AND bloodants on every turn making it even harder to get past them. They just keep fighting you until your entire party dies from exhaustion. Also, four of them pop right out of nowhere when you fight the Royalant Boss. They're each in a corner of the room, and there is no way you can beat the Royalant before they start moving on. Enjoy a main dish of Royalant, a side order of Bloodants with a generous helping of Deathants with your-ass-getting-kicked sauce.

** [[spoiler:Played jarringly straight later: Halfway through the second stratum, you run into Hypatia and Agata, the latter of whom presses you to tell him the location of a nest of Sea Wanderers you found earlier while the former begs you not to, as she already had a traumatizing encounter with them before. You just decide whether to tell him or not and think nothing of it when he runs off to find them. Then you decide to follow him, and go to the room and find one of the two ''fucking dead'' while the other is cradling their body. There is no way to avoid this happening, as saying "Yes" or "No" only determines which dies (saying "Yes" means Agata dies, while "No" kills Hypatia).]] There is no way to back out of this, and can only be circumvented by using a different warp point to reach the stairs and never opening the door.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Some of the enemy designs are very much this. From the BonusBoss / TrueFinalBoss of ''EtrianOdyssey'' to the one-eyed worms in the third stratum of ''The Drowned City''.

** It was also to avoid classes having the same first letter in their name as to make it easier for the item shop menu to characterize them. It would have been a little difficult to tell the difference between Princess and Pirate, or Buccaneer and Beast King.

* {{Woolseyism}}: {{Atlus}} changed the names of the character classes during translation; Landsknechts were originally Swordman, Protectors were Paladins, Survivalists were Rangers, and so on. This may have been done to give the game a more original flair and help it stand out. The Hexer class was originally called 'Curse Maker'; the War Magus was originally a 'Doctor Mage'. A newer example from ''The Drowned City'' would be changing 'Beast King' to 'Wildling', probably because (like most classes) you can make a female version, and the original game didn't change the class name to 'Beast Queen' like it did for Prince/Princess. Some classes got their names changed for no reason at all but to make them begin with different letters. Many of the changed names don't fit as well as the original games: Warrior became Gladiator despite not actually being a gladiator, and Andro became Yggdroid. Many of the changes in the first and second game were necessary because of the maximum character length, though the third game increased the limit. Some changes were made even though the original names would have fit the character limit.