If there’s one thing I dislike about JRPGs, it’s their tendency to drag players through prolonged and often quite unnecessary opening sequences. This isn’t a genre-wide issue, with plenty of modern iterations sidestepping or at least changing up the conventional formula, though many still fall into the trap.

Take Final Fantasy for instance; the last mainline instalment, XIII, tried to cram in so much lore alongside character and setting description that, when the game started to actually open up, it was all too tempting to simply reach the nearest save point and call it a day. Some of us revel in video game narrative, no matter how many times it folds in on itself, but for those who want to jump straight into the action, Etrian Odyssey IV is right up your street.

Being the fourth title in the DS-exclusive series, it’s easy to see why some gamers may feel a little apprehensive about not knowing the story, but there’s really nothing to worry about. Though there are some underlying connections to the first three, player needn’t have tried the series beforehand, Legends of the Titan serves up a new chapter in the saga with no strings attached.

The story itself is fairly low-key and rarely intrudes on the overall experience, at least to begin with. Instead, Etrian Odyssey focuses on the player, their guild, and the many adventures that await. There’s no drawn-out opening cutscenes or walls of text to barge through; the only thing that stands between you and the open world is a simple registration process.

In Legends of the Titan you run your own customisable guild, recruiting rookies from a variety of professions before bundling them into a tailor-made crack squad. You can take five recruits into the field at any one time and, while it’s tempting to stick with your initial five, rotating your party line-up will allow you to adapt to any situation. You could, theoretically, fill your squad with five healers, five snipers, or five tank-like guardians, but the best results come from a combination of classes.

Once ready, you’re then free to roam a hub city before embarking on an adventure. Thankfully, navigation is pared right down, with no need to endlessly walk around 3D environments. You simply choose a location from the travel menu and bam, you’re there. Hubs are packed with a number of locales, including inns, shops, and other areas where players can accept contracts.

While out on duty, gameplay is split between two stages: the airship-enabled open world exploration, and dungeon crawling. The former is used to travel between caves, mazes, settlements, and other landmarks of interest. Though landscapes are fairly broad, they’re often peppered with hotspots which can be searched for treasure, crops, livestock, birds, and fish, all of which offer cash prizes when flown back to a city.

Dungeon-crawling, on the other hand, is more isolated and familiar. From a first person perspective, players will walk down tight corridors, broken up by the occasional opening or alcove. Random encounters will punctuate your expedition, throwing an unpredictable line-up of enemies in your path. Using a turn-based system, these battles are exactly what you’d expect, and though there’s a useful “Burst” mechanic (allowing for super-charged moves) there is little else in the way of nuance, which isn’t such a bad thing.

By scouting dungeons, you’ll come across items, shorcuts, and perhaps even stairwells, leading to other floors. In turn, you’ll vanquish enemies, hoard loot, and occasionally return to cities in order to fulfil missions and trade goods, all the while levelling up and developing your squad.

Each time a recruit’s XP gage fills, you’ll be able to add a point to one of their numerous job-specific abilities. Furthermore, by selling ore, herbs, wood, and other salvage, you’ll unlock better equipment to purchase. Combined, it makes for a very straightforward yet satisfying progression system.

One thing that some won’t appreciate, however, is the amount of backtracking Legends of the Titan often requires. Missions will often have you delving deeper into the same, uncharted dungeons. To combat the sense of repetition or being lost, the game does have a handy map-making mechanic. Whenever exploring, you can draw lines and paint tiles to create your own custom maps, even laying down waypoints which can be used to auto travel from one end to the other.

Difficulty spikes are also another issue. Etrian Odyssey has a tendency to trickle in tougher opponents when you least expect it and then there are FOEs. In short, these are larger hostile NPCs that are visible when navigating dungeons in first person mode, in addition to the regular random encounters. They will often set-up patrols and need to be avoided unless you want to meet a quick death.

Though everything in Legends of the Titan is consistent and artistically succinct, its not much of a step up from its predecessors. Yes, battles now feature 3D enemies but the first person view is slightly outdated and lacks flair, even if it does help to quicken the flow of random encounters. Environmental textures are also lacklustre from time to time, though the game’s menus and artwork are sublime, enhanced ever so slightly by the console’s 3D effect.

Legends of the Titan is suitable for both the hardcore JRPG fans and those who only dabble casually. Everything here has been simplified yet still offers an optimum amount of depth, allowing players to fully customise their experience. Still, it’s not the most visually-arresting game on the market, and the occasional sense of grinding repetition may be enough to put people off.

Score: 7/10