Etrian Odyssey: The trick is to keep crawling

Here I am with tidings from the third stratum, tidings that mingle disappointment and delight. While I adored Emerald Grove and despised Primitive Jungle, I have mixed feelings about Azure Rainforest. Things started auspiciously enough, with lenient trash mobs, softcore FOEs, easy to navigate layout and, last but not least, a great decor that made crawling deliciously pleasant and relaxing. XP was raining on me, especially when Treefrogs and their propensity to call for help were involved, and I already saw myself reaching the big 99 before I was done with the stratum. In a nutshell, I was enjoying myself tremendously and relishing the change of pace after the obnoxiousness of the second stratum.

Best enemy evah.

Then came the nastier blow I had endured since I started the game, a blow that was made all the nastier by the fact that I didn't expect it one second: the level 70 cap, folks. I reached that level as I was innocently cruising the 11th floor and realized, to my utter horror, that battles that ensued didn't yield any more XP. A frantic internet search revealed that for some unfathomable reason, party members in EO cannot go beyond level 70. Seriously, game? Why the heck do you violate the implicit RPG rule that states that characters can go up to level 99? Are you trying to be edgy or something? I'm not gonna lie: the discovery of that level cap was such a blow to my gaming morale that I seriously considered giving up on the game entirely. Not only did I see random encounters as pointless obstructions with no benefits whatsoever after hitting level 70, but I also genuinely feared being ovewhelmed further down the labyrinth. Having reached the maximum level at the beginning of the third stratum, was there any hope that I could go all the way down to the maingame boss? Sure, I was seriously oveleveled; but would that be enough? And if that wasn't enough, then why did the bloody game let me run solo only to stab me in the back?

I was getting all fidgety and paranoid, and my drive to roam was slowly but surely evaporating; but them, I suddenly remembered something that gave me a glimmer of hope. The farming, folks! It's a well-known EO feature that monster drops can be used to forge gear — the stronger the enemy, the better the gear. I suddenly had a very good reason to forge ahead, as well as the implicit guarantee that I would indeed be technically able to forge ahead: I just needed to get my paws on good monster drops, and I'd have my progression covered.

My drive to roam blossomed again after that, and I spent the next hours blazing through what proved to be the fastest and easiest stratum by far and the perfect breather after the tediousness of its predecessor. Oh, it sure had its share of hindrances and nasties: the 12th floor ants were a pain in the behind that generated many a Game Over, and I could have done without all those Killclaws that tried to sneak on me when I was engaged in random battles. But overall, it was a jolly good ride. As planned, I clawed and sliced myself some neat monster drops that granted me powerful pieces of gear that compensated for the levels I was no longer gaining. And here I am now, standing at the entrance of the freshly uncovered 4th Stratum and ready to keep crawling. I'll get to the bottom of that labyrinth or die trying, I swear. See you soon for a red-hot Sandy Barrens report, dear fellow gamers! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!