Parent's Guide: Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight is a role playing game in which you explore dungeons and fight the monsters you come across, such as giant insects and dinosaurs. Playing as a member of the  Midgard Library organisation, it's up to you to escort the Princess Arianna on her quest to perform a ceremony inside the nearby ancient temple of Ginnungagap.

As a dungeon crawling game, Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold makes use of both of the 3DS's screens. On the top you'll see a first person view of the dungeon you're exploring, and on the bottom, a map that you can place markers on to note important locations. A highly customisable game, Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold can be played in two distinct ways. First up is Classic Mode, where you can create a whole team to fight alongside you - but you have to draw the map on the touch screen yourself, while those looking for a more leisurely game can choose Story Mode instead. In Story Mode, the game will instead be a gripping tale with pre-defined characters, each with their own personalities - and the map will fill itself in as you explore. In both modes, battles are turn based affairs that let you, and your party, choose the moves they're going to perform, with no pressure or time limits.

Much as the game itself is customisable, so to is the difficulty. While dungeon crawlers have a (well earnt) reputation for being incredibly hard, Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold is actually a lot easier to get to grips with than other similar games. With a selection of difficulty levels on offer, the lowest, "Picnic" is designed for those who simply want to soak up the story and enjoy the quests, reducing the difficulty of the game to the point where you can pretty much just the default attack, and win every fight without the need for any real strategy. It's important to note, though, that you can only properly save the game by heading back to the Inn in the Central City to create a save. When out exploring a dungeon, you can create a suspend file that'll let you pick up where you left off next time, but you can't save your progress as you go along, so if you die, you'll be back to your last save at the Inn.

There is also a lot of reading to do in Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, and as much of the story is told through non-voiced dialogue boxes, a strong reading ability is a must, especially when it comes to answering the multiple choice questions the game sometimes presents you with.

Unlike some other dungeon crawling games, Etrian Odyssey 2 is light on the mature content front. In terms of violence, there is no bloodshed during battles, or anything in the way of realistic impacts, but the characters do sometimes talk about how they are in pain. There is also reference to certain characters having been killed by monsters in the dungeon.

There's no outright sexual content in this game, but there is partial nudity at times. There's a scene where there are female characters bathing in a hotspring. They are nude, but their breasts are covered up by steam.

There's also a character called "Hook-nosed Drunk" who occasionally makes remarks towards the females in your group. At one point he said to the character Arianna "Ain't this one a cute li'l thing? Go on, girl, get me a drink," to which she replied, "If you require assistance to order drinks, then perhaps you have had too much already!"

There is also mild bad language, which is infrequent, such as the word 'ass' and 'bastard'.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS