Etrian Odyssey is really hard

[A Black Falcon]

Poison is a status effect, and yes, it definitely can kill you, and it does a LOT of damage. The floor two enemies that can poison you hit you with poison that does maybe 25-30 damage per turn... with characters who arrive on the floor with barely more HP than that. Mine are now up to 30-60 (50-60 for the front line, 30-40 for the back line -- you have a five person party, and can put up to three in the front or back. Front for warriors, back for support people, of course. Fine system.), but still keep getting killed, because it's not only the bosses (FOEs) that are dangerous...

Really, your best hope with poison is that your character will dodge the hit and not get poisoned in the first place. :) There is no cheap "heal poison" potion or anything; maybe there is an expensive one, but that's not exactly in my price range if it even exists. My Bard does have a spell (song?) that reduces poison duration, but that's about it. :)

Oh, it does end at the end of the battle. The poison effect doesn't carry over once you win. It's always a huge relief when you win and avoid taking another big poison hit... venomflies are scary! :D

One of the nice things about modern RPGs and their experience is they balanced the fine art of leveling so that if you just don't run away from any encounters and fully explore places, you should always be at a level that allows you to continue onward.

Well, this one is designed so that if you never run away from battles you will be killed. A lot. :)

Fortunately, Escape is fairly reliable...

Anyway, that usual difficulty curve in newer RPGs isn't necessarily a good thing. I mean, that means that all you do is just progress forward, doing everything as you go... here, you have to actually think more. Can I face this guy now, or should I avoid him for a while and go on exploring elsewhere? The normal encounters are random, but the FOEs are visible as large orange spherelike light things... you quickly learn to be afraid when you see one of those things. :)

Also, as I said, because the game doesn't have quick-travel to and from town and the warp points are really far apart, you cover the same ground many times; so far every time I've fought a FOE and survived that's been pretty much it for the trip and the only question is to whether you think you can make it out or if you have to use a warp pipe to escape. And floor two has five FOEs (three Ragelopes which I can beat but kill some characters in the process, and some giant bull things which I haven't defeated either of yet in several tries...). And there's also exploring and mapping the maze.

It also doesn't hurt that the graphics and sound are great. Great soundtrack, and a unique setting -- while it's a dungeon-crawling RPG, instead of being in caves or castles or something, you're in a forest. An underground forest, which somehow gets sunlight anyway. :)