F-O-E! F-O-E! F-O-E!

If you had asked me a week ago which game I'd rather play, Dragon Quest IX or Etrian Odyssey, I'd have gone with the former without skipping a beat. Today, I'm not so sure--which says a lot about my (so far limited) experience with the latter.

Speaking of which, I've now spent enough time with Etrian Odyssey to fully appreciate the horror that goes by the name of FOE (or Foedus Obrepit Errabundus, which supposedly is Latin for "the vile, wandering one sneaks up"). Before I played it, I couldn't understand why so many gamers feared these creatures, which serve as the DS dungeon-crawler's mini-bosses. Now I do.

I also understand why the following YouTube video has received so many hits.



By the way, if you're like me and you have Etrian Odyssey on the brain, you may want to pre-order Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City. Folks who pre-order the game (at, say, Amazon.com)--due out on Sept. 21--will receive Forests of Eternity, a 60-page art book that contains concept art pulled from the series.