Etrian Odyssey X- Interview with Director Komori

April 12, 2018

Atlus announced the last Sekaiju no Meikyuu (Etrian Odyssey) game for the Nintendo 3DS as Sekaiju no Meikyuu X (with X read as “Cross”, referring to how the game is a cross between all previous entries in the series), with a trailer and website on Tuesday, 10th April 2018.

Official website: http://sq-atlus.jp/sqx/
Related article: Sekaiju no Meikyuu X (Etrian Odyssey X) Announced
Related article: Etrian Odyssey X- New Details Revealed

This week’s issue of Famitsu includes an interview with director Komori Shigeo.

『世界樹の迷宮X（クロス）』正式発表！ニンテンドー3DSで“最後”のシリーズ完全新作を10ページの特集でスクープ！【先出し週刊ファミ通】 https://t.co/RJ3vSZBsIA pic.twitter.com/bBugIf1q4Y

— ファミ通.com (@famitsu) April 10, 2018

Komori says that the idea came from listening to opinions from users after 5 was released. While 5 was in itself a culmination used know-how from previous games to do entirely new things, there were also many people who wanted things from older games as well, which resulted in the idea of making a different culmination of the series, containing popular job classes and systems from previous games.

He says that while he cannot reveal much about the setting just yet, he does say that Lemuria is a land cut off from all other continents, and that around the massive world-tree at the center is a massive forest that should look familiar to old adventurers. But even if it does look familiar, there are traps that might make use of what prior knowledge one might have. Why this land is the way it is is the heart of the story and he cannot elaborate further, but there are things that should make old fans of the series happy.

Komori had wanted to make a world map in previous games, and finally managed to in X. There are dungeons all over the world map, and fulfilling conditions allows the player to go to new dungeons or cause events to happen. There are also optional dungeons, and altogether this is the biggest game in the series. He mentions again that this is the last game in the series for the 3DS, and hopes that players will be able to enjoy it for a long time.

When choosing the job classes for X they did consider the 10th anniversary popularity ranking carried out in 2017 *, but also considered game balance as well. As offensive classes are popular they ended up with a lot of them. Hero is a new class that they made to be able to stand out amongst the most popular classes in the series, and has new elements that stand out amongst everything else and is “protagonist-like”. Because it’s new and they expect people to want to try it out, it’s a multi-purpose class that can handle offense, defense, and healing, and is easy to use.

V was made so that each class is clearly distinct, but being able to expand the range of skills in 3 and 4 with the subclass system was popular too, and Komori hopes players will be able to enjoy applying subclasses to the jobs from 1, 2 and 5. Also, while in previous cases there were times when a class would be better as a subclass than a main class, they used the force system this time to make the strengths of the main class stand out more. The character customization is also improved from 5, and can be used for all classes, with there being more voice types as well. He says that he expects that some people might spend a whole day just creating their characters.

Komori also mentions the early purchase bonus “New Adventurer Illustration Pack” (a set of alternate portraits for the Farmer, Gunner, Nightseeker, and Medic, and one special collaboration portrait from Atlus’ “PROJECT Re FANTASY”), saying that when they put the illustrations in the game it felt refreshing.

Sekaiju no Meikyuu X will be released in Japan on 2nd August 2018, with physical and digital versions of the game are priced at 6,480 yen (excluding tax). Non-Japanese versions of the game have not yet been announced.

* The results of the job class popularity ranking were: