Soaring synth melodies and punchy battle themes running on 3DS hardware that shouldn't sound this good. Etrian Odyssey IV's soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro opens with "Adventures Across the Sky" and immediately sets this tone of wide-open exploration that the series hadn't really done before.
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"Lush Woodlands" is the first stratum theme everyone falls in love with, this bright FM-flavored loop that makes mapping floors feel peaceful. Then "Gale Force" drops and suddenly every random encounter is life or death with aggressive guitar-synth layering.
"Crimson Blaze, Dancing Blades" cranks it even further for FOE fights. The landscape themes between dungeons give you room to breathe. If EO4 was your entry point into the series, this soundtrack is probably why you stayed.