Etrian Odyssey is really hard

[A Black Falcon]

Just wanted to say that I'm still playing this game... it's so, so awesome... my main party is now at floor 13, since I just beat the boss on level 12. I've got a main party of L38, D37, M38, A38, T30. I've got lower-level characters too of course, including a ronin and survivalist that are in their 20s somewhere levelwise, but if I want to progress I can't use them in the main group...

I had a few comments about the floor 12 bossfight on NeoGAF if anyone cares.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.p...92&page=41

Anyway, the game does a fantastic job of... just about everything. Varied classes, enough skills to make you want to play again because no one character can do everything and those other skills look great too, great graphics and character art, the awesome mapping thing... if only you had more character slots (15 is not enough!) and no restrictions to how many tags/notes you can make per page on the map... :)

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

[A Black Falcon]

The enemies that put your whole party to sleep while their friends kill you are so, so cruel...

[A Black Falcon]

I'll beat this game sooner or later... started playing it again today. With the help of a bunch of FAQs at GameFAQs (different ones for the main layout, enemies, quests, and maps) because the quests are often obtuse and annoying and I'd prefer to just know what to do to complete them.

Tried to fight the boss of the game (before the postgame content that is). Got slaughtered. I don't know how this party will ever beat that guy... I did manage to just beat the optional boss Manticor, though (party levels between 65 and 59). He killed me easily in the previous attempt with hits-the-whole-party poison attacks that I can't counter because I don't have Immune (didn't put enough points in Regen early enough on, and now it's too late, with that skill still at 6 and only a few more points to go...) to help me, either, or a protector or troubadour to reduce damage. So, I did what I could: Bet it all on bindings working! To increase my chances I went in to the battle with full boost for most of the party members... and my darkhunter's head bind worked. Hah! Then within just a few turns, between the darkhunter and hexer, I bound the feet and arms too, then did Ecstasy twice (1800HP to a fully bound enemy...) and it died. :)

[A Black Falcon]

... And I just beat Entreant, the boss of the game. :D

Crushed him, really... took three more tries, the first of which was a total defeat, but on the third time everything worked. Bindings held, was able to use Ecstasy twice (the second time boosted, too!), he didn't remove my bindings before I had all three on him, I managed to block his attacks sometimes by binding the part he wanted to use (my strategy of focusing on the feet first, then arms, and head last for bindings worked really, really well!)... didn't lose any characters, and only used two items, Soma (needed) and Somaprime (turned out that I didn't have to use it as the boss missed its attack the next turn, but I didn't know that until after I'd used it of course)... the ending is confusing though. Why did doing that make things better, now?

(On to the postgame content, aka the bonus stratum!)