Etrian Odyssey: That difficult second stratum

I'm done with EO's second stratum, and let me tell you: I'm glad. I'm glad that darn Primitive Jungle is behind me, and I don't want to roam it again before a very, very long time.

To be fair, that second stratum was not nearly as hard as the first; but what it lacked in difficulty, it made up for in sheer tediousness. It boasted tons of FOEs that respawned at the speed of light and had to be eliminated on a regular basis for unhindered roaming, damage floors, trash mobs hell-bent on poisoning me, hidden passageways, stealth sessions — in a word, the whole shebang of first-person dungeon crawler obnoxiousness. On top of that, I was really not fond of that stratum's look, with its dull and dark colour palette that contained way too much black for my retinas' liking. Are jungles really that dark? And if they are, do we really need game jungles to be realistic? I'd have preferred deep and lush shades of green rather than this depressing mix of black and khakies.

But all these annoyances pale in comparison to the second stratum's main irritant, which was none other than the bloody backtracking. I honestly don't think I've encountered a worse case of backtracking in any RPG ever. The whole stratum was a nasty case of two steps forward, three steps back: crawl a bit, retreat, save, crawl a bit further, kill some FOEs, retreat, save — rinse and repeat for a number of hours I'm glad I don't get to know. That number of hours was pretty indecent, if my lone ranger's progression is any indication: I gained 30 levels in that stratum alone, and I gained them solely through backtracking, with not a shred of dedicated level-grinding involved. I don't know if I should be happy or mortified, honestly.

Regardless of how I feel about that second stratum, there's no denying that this is the stratum that made me stupidly strong and indecently oveleveled. On top of the 30 level package, I gained access to the powerful skill Smite, which could as well as been called "let's bulldoze that FOE in three turns, b*tch". FOE fights are now only marginally harder than the average trash mob fight, and I can easily handle several of these nasties in a row — or even at once. How do you like my fighting now, you bullies? I used to tremble at the sight of you, but I'm all grown and leveled-up now. (Cue evil laugh.)

Anyway, I'm standing on the very first squares of the third stratum, which is already promising a much more pleasant roaming by sheer virtue of its gorgeous crystalline blue colour palette. I think I'm going to take a one-day break from the game, because that cursed Primitive Jungle really drained me; but I'm already itching at the thought of exploring that splendid oceanic third stratum. I'll see you later with tidings of the Azure Rainforest, dear fellow gamers! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!