[Before beginning translation, the translators play through the game first to make sure they understand the context of each line - who says it, which dialogue portrait is sued, and so forth. Translator Alex Britton was the first person in America to get his hands on Etrian Odyssey, and playing it prove to be the toughest part of the job... ]

When I started, there was no manual, and no help or support, since the game wasn't out in Japan yet. It was really difficult at first - when I play RPGs, I like to put people on the front lines, and concentrate on attacking instead of magic. That style of playing didn't work at all with Etrian Odyssey, so I had to rethink things. Later on, I figured it out, and found success with a party of two protectors and three alchemists, which worked well until later in the game.

Until then, though, it was frustrating. At the start, one round of poison damage would take half a character's HP, and the FOEs that started to show up on the 2nd floor could kill a character in one hit. I didn't realize that the item-gathering skills were important, either, so I never had any money. Every time I'd die and have to pay to revive my party members, I'd be broke again. It took me a long time to advance past the beginning of the game.

The worst part was this one quest where you're supposed to collect butterfly eyes. Before I started the quest, I had a few, but I always sold them off as soon as I got them. When I took the quest, I went back to kill the butterflies, but I never got any eyes. I tried that quest for almost 13 hours before I gave up.

But around the halfway mark, I started really loving it. Every battle was exciting, and once I got the ronin class, I could go back to the high-damage attack style I preferred. I've heard that medics can do a lot of damage with their Caduceus skill, too, so I want to try that sometime. I even figured out how to do that one quest: it turned out I needed to kill the butterflies with magic, so it wasn't as hard as I thought.

The really fun part came toward the end. The last bosses are really challenging. wow. If you don't have a good strategy, there's no way to beat them, even if you're at the highest level!