That makes sense then.. I've only seriously played EO II (want to get to III but need to beat II first :p ) so the upgrades were very impressive for me with the mechanic changes and such.. but then again, could have been in EO 4 that I did not know about. Maybe if I played 3 or 4 first with the overworlds, it would have not been as impressive to me. I've basically completed both modes (got to the 6th stratum on classic) so I stopped there

Have you beat the story mode yet?

Not yet.This game is harder than I though!Playing on the hardest difficulty there is(dont exactly remember the name) so dieng is normal, and as such I keep redoing stuff.Not to mention that when I find a boss, almost always I need to grind to defeat it(after he kicks my ass of course), either by doing the side quests I missed or finish exploring the floors.Im currently midway through the 5th Stratum.Im just not sure if thats the last Stratum since, the story hints at it, and the 6th is just the post game stuff, or if the 6th is also part of the story.

One thing that I will give this game credit for is the difficulty.I know thats maybe because I am on the hardest difficulty, but its fresh to see a game make a hard mode trully hard.You get pissed off at first when you die and need to do 20 minutes worth of game again, and sometimes you may feel a deep wish to grab a hammer and smash the game cartrige and burn it, but when you pass a difficult part(usually after you defeat the boss), the feeling is so good!

Since you really liked this game, I highly recommend you to try EO IV sometime, especially now that it had a price drop for the digital version.I may not have played I - III before, but if reviews are anything to go by, is the best in the series, and I can attest that it is one excellent game.

Is the classic mode much different from the story mode though?As I said, I still need to finish the story mode, but I have zero plans on playing through classic mode, but I was curious to know the differences.

I've been considering getting EO IV for quite some time and I played a bit of the demo, but I would rather get EO 2 Untold, which I am waiting for a good sale.. EO IV goes really cheapt at times so maybe I'll snag it when I see it go for $10 or so :p

Unfortunately, there aren't too many differences with the classic and story mode, since the quests are all the same, as well as the maps. The main plus is that you can create your own team without having to use a specific job class. In that sense, you have more freedom to explore and not follow a storyline though I guess it's not exploring when you already have an idea of what is to come ;) The ruins, of course, is not available in classic mode. What I really liked with Classic is that there is the New Game + feature that allows you to transfer your weapon recipes, grimoire stones and characters to the new game.

...so along with the item duplication and grimoire glitch, I was able to make my new characters overpowered and breezed through classic mode even though I was playing on hard :p

As for difficulty, I'm not the one that likes to play insanely difficult games.. I like to enjoy playing games at my own pace and with gradually increasing difficulty or being able to change it when I want to. This is why I really liked the feature in changing the difficulty when you want (at least in Classic) so it makes it easier to get good grimoire stones on picnic mode and such

Previous:
1. Super Smash Bros for 3DS (250:47)
2. Animal Crossing New Leaf (173:28)
3. Pokemon Omega Ruby (131:53)
4. Tales of the Abyss (118:36)
5. Kid Icarus: Uprising (104:57)
6. Fire Emblem Awakening (104:11)
7. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (97:16)
8. Streetpass Mii Plaza (67:40)
9. Pokemon Y (59:00)
10. Fire Emblem Fates (57:11)

Current:

1. Super Smash Bros. for 3DS (252:54)
2. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (191:48)
3. Pokemon Omega Ruby (149:13)
4. Fire Emblem Fates (141:32)
5. Fire Emblem Awakening (120:43)
6. Tales of the Abyss (118:36)
7. Kid Icarus: Uprising (104:57)
8. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (97:23)
9. Streetpass Mii Plaza (68:17)
10. Pokemon Y (59:00)

Gosh, this again... I forgot my previous record, so I'll just go with my current one.

1. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (922:28)

2. Fire Emblem Fates: 331:07

3. Fire Emblem Awakening: 282:03

4. Tomodachi Life: 188:03

5. Bravely Default: 121:15

6. Stella Glow: 113:26

7. Super Smash Bros: 81:19

-- Street Pass: 80:25

8. Shin Megami Tensei IV: 78:13

9. Pokemon Y: 73:13

10. Mario Kart 7: 38:48

Tagging.

Previous

1) Mario Kart 7: 180:18

2) Bravely Default: 116:15+1:13 = 127:28

3) Pokemon X: 124:20 + 0:03 = 124:23

4) Pokemon Alpha Sapphire: 88:23 + 0:03 = 88:26

5) Pokemon Shuffle: 61:07

6) New Super Mario Bros 2: 57:57

7) Pokemon Super Mystery dungeon: 47:03 + 4:17 = 51:20

8) Super smash bros 3ds: 45:06

9) Super Mario 3D Land: 43:27

10) Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside story: 27:55

Current:

1) Mario Kart 7: 180:18+5:37=185:55

2) Bravely Default: 116:15+41:08 = 157:23 (I finally beat this one so it should stay here put way too much time into it)

3) Pokemon X: 124:20 + 8:14 = 132:34

4) Pokemon Alpha Sapphire: 88:23 + 0:30 = 88:53

5) Pokemon Shuffle: 61:07

6) Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon: 61:02 (Slowly climbing, should be higher when I actually finish Ace attorney Trilogy)

7) New Super Mario Bros 2: 57:57

8) Super smash bros 3ds: 45:07

9) Super Mario 3D Land: 43:27

10) Kid Icarus Uprising: 30:03

I left Ace attorney on so its at 27 hours and should easily reach into the top 10 by the next time I update this. Pokemon X, Alpha Saphire, Mystery Dungeon should all move upwards a bit, Either Ace attorney or Pokemon Blue might take Slot 10 but I'm sure it'll be ace attorney.

Some consider this an app rather than a game, but I consider this to be more of a game than an app so I'll include this one rather than your actual number 10 ;)

Current:

Previous

Only change for me is the addition of Fire Emblem Fates, and playing a few minutes of Pokemon Y...probably trying to get a mystery gift or something.