Etrian Mystery Dungeon 2: Finished + Thoughts!

 I bought the game quite a while back when it was being sold at a good discount, but I only finally got around to it. I think it did a good job to get me through the waiting for Trials of Mana and Xenoblade.
This was when I bought it, BTW.
https://tdnshumi.blogspot.com/2019/11/hmm.html

And yes, this game has not been localized. Only the first one has.

Hmm, well, how do I say it.
Well, the biggest problem (and also most well known) of this game is the text.

Imagine if you thought you bought a real light novel, but it turns out you bought a Narou novel.
Or like how you start playing Bravely Second, and then it suddenly throws a Jojo reference (yes, the JP version did...), which the first game would have never done.
That is the biggest problem of this game.

As far as a mystery dungeon game goes, I think it is more or less satisfactory. As an Etrian Odyssey game goes, I'm not exactly sure it is satisfactory.

Here are some other problems I had:

• I guess the fact that beating the main story dungeons is pretty doable but the post-game dungeons are out to kill you is amusingly loyal to the original games, it doesn't really translate well into this game, because in the original game, you could just start over from where you saved. In this game, you die. And all of your items and equipment disappear.
• Also, frankly, the difficulty of this game's post-game dungeons is even beyond the original game. I actually got hot in the face trying to beat one in the first game.
• Sometimes just entering a room will get you killed. For instance, there is an enemy that can randomly hits characters inside a room 3 times. Well, since it will use this the moment you enter the room, you are the only one in the room at that moment, so you get hit 3 times. And you die. Which then powers it up. This happens within the main story dungeons, BTW.
• Just like in the previous game, the Hypnosis status ailment exists. In the main story, only one enemy in one dungeon will use it, but if you get hit, you could randomly and permanently lose equipment and other items.
• There are two characters, who are supposed to be twin brothers, who literally reuse the same character artwork, with different hair-color. Twins... or just lazy?
• As far as the main story goes, sub-classes are useless. You will probably beat the game around Lv30 to 35. That is hardly even enough to even master the skills in your main class, forget a sub-class. In fact, I didn't even use that feature in my playthrough.

Now, while unfair, there certainly are ways to get past the above stuff. Come into the dungeon with lots of ways to defend yourself against elemental damage. Have plentiful amounts of items and skills that protect yourself against status ailments. Prepare to go all-out against incredibly dangerous normal enemies.

So I guess you could say these aren't really that bad of points against the game.

But the text is pretty bad.
Stuff like the AI and UI have been somewhat improved from the first game though.
I wouldn't buy the game at full price, but if you get it for like 10 dollars like me, I think it is actually not a bad purchase. Stuff like the music and graphics and you know, those stuff are actually pretty fine. Perfectly playable too, albeit some unfair moments.