The Dancing Peacock

So it turns out that the Flame Demon himself isn't the problem.

Nope, it's those friggen gelatin things that he can spawn that explode for almighty damage (or at least non-fire damage) whenever he unleashes his ultimate attack.

EDUNO: Was able to clear up the gelatins up better. This time the problem was that I forgot to have Bertrand use Fire Shield to null the fire damage. :U

My entire experience with Etrian Odyssey is from playing the Untold: Millennium Girl demo on my 2DS. (By the way, I feel the need to express that I love demos and I think people don't appreciate them as much as they should. Like, you're playing a game for free! Be grateful! It always puts a smile on my face when I learn that I can download a demo for a game that I've been wanting to check out.)

Anyway, along with action-adventures, I think role-playing games are my favorite style of video game, and I've been itching for a RPG besides Pokemon to play on my 2DS for a long time now. More specifically, I've been itching for a RPG that has a good story. From what I can tell, the older Etrian Odyssey games "didn't have a story", as people have phrased it, which I'm finding hard to picture because it makes me wonder if the story is just extremely bare-bones and underplayed, or if it literally just thrusts you from dungeon to dungeon for no reason. Either way, that's not what I look for in a RPG so I realize that Etrian Odyssey is the wrong place to look for a RPG with a rich, enthralling story. Still, the demo was fun. Also from what I can tell, these games are supposed to be sorta like "throw-backs" to older RPGs that demanded more of the player in terms of difficulty as well as navigation, which is reflected in the map-drawing aspect of these games that I think is neat. The enemies are indeed challenging, too, which I always appreciate as long as it doesn't fall into the trappings of trial-and-error or mindless grinding, which I see as a failure on the game's part as well as a waste of time. I probably can't tell how effectively Etrian Odyssey avoids these things without playing through the full game, but the thing is that I'm the type of guy that doesn't really get motivated in these sorts of games without a good story to get me invested and thinking. Call me pretentious or whatever, but I'm not much of a "play games for fun" kind of guy, I like to treat games as an art form when I can. So for that reason Etrian Odyssey hasn't really sold me yet, and neither has Bravely Default for that matter, although the battle system in that game is phenomenally fun and has left me kinda half-wanting to purchase it based on the combat alone.

Make of this post what you will, I'm kinda tired right now and I think I'm mostly just looking for recommendations for a 3DS RPG with a good story that will satisfy an artsy-fartsy type like me.

Join the EO cult:gilbird:

Although re:"it has no story" I believe it's more of the player characters being blank slates for the player to imprint personalities on, like, uh, RPGs of ye olden days. Story Mode in the Untold games allows you to remove the burden of having to think up personalities and/or names for 4/5ths of the characters, though the main Highlander character's still pretty blank, IIRC. (And you have to name him.)

Alright Lief, if you ever see a Legendary (Class) wanting to trade Grimoires with you, DO IT. Their Grimoires have additional effects you won't find normally.

Duly noted.

As a random side note I despise Arachne and all she stands for

Have you tried burning her web?

I did. Actually didn't really have any problems; beat her the first time and didn't have anybody die, which is better than what I can say for the other bosses.

But it seemed like the battle dragged...

I see.

What's your party's level at?

29.

It's entirely probable that the reason why is that I've focused too much on Sigurd's Force skills rather than his attack skills.

Possibly. You miiiiiiiight wanna have him rest.

I'll check my Faffles and see what I did with him.

That doesn't look terrible, but I'd suggest perhaps putting more points into Blade Mastery.

For any specific skill, or is the damage bonus just nice?

Damage bonus, though Resonance can also be really good later on.

I think I might have found out my problem.

Not enough gratuitous application of Delayed Chase.