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Europe to explore Mysterious Dungeon in March
They might well be a teensy demographic, but DS-owning, Europe-based fans of hardcore dungeon-crawling have had it tough in recent times. Etrian Odyssey has yet to make the trip across the Atlantic, leaving only Orcs & Elves -- albeit a title of respectable quality -- as the only option.Until now, that is, because SEGA has informed French site Wiiz that Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer DS will be available in Europe from March, where it will probably sell around a dozen copies. Why, it's like having Dreamcast-era SEGA back, the one which didn't give two hoots about selling stuff. We love it![Via Go Nintendo]
Shiren the Wanderer 3 picks up a Scroll of Awesome Boxart
Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 3 is a total surprise. The graphics look great, the trailer is classy, and now this boxart is just beautiful. We had no idea Sega was putting this much money into a dungeon-crawling RPG, and, in fact, we're a little shocked that they would want to. The budget for this must be enough to fund four or five Sonic Riders sequels. Is the Japanese audience for roguelikes really that large? We're suckers for great boxart, which the Wii is sorely lacking. It's not the only consideration for game quality, but we bet more boxart like this would at least draw curiosity from shoppers. And it's certainly nice to look at for free on the Internet!
A supernatural advantage in Shiren the Wanderer 3
You're likely to need all the help you can get in Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 3, whether it comes from enchanted weapons, scrolls, or -- for the first time -- talismans called o-fuda. While o-fuda are used in Shinto tradition to ward off harm from a home or family, their effects are a little more direct within the Mystery Dungeon. Shiren uses o-fuda to afflict status ailments on monsters.Another advantage new to this entry: other characters. It's rare in a roguelike to have someone around who not only isn't a monster, but will in fact help you kill monsters. Not that any of this matters. Only the most dedicated, and luckiest, players will do anything in the game besides die. We have to keep telling ourselves that before we get sucked in to basically the hardest RPG on the Wii.
Shiren the Wanderer DS coming to the U.S., for real this time
Soon after we spotted Shiren the Wanderer DS on GameStop's online store, it disappeared. We thought that maybe GameStop was trying to make us look like lying jerks, or that maybe one of their employees was trying to will a localized version into existence.Well, that fictional employee's totally-made-up plan worked, because Sega announced that Shiren the Wanderer DS will be released in America in 2008. This is the same kind of Mysterious Dungeon gameplay seen in Izuna and the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, only more brutal. It seems like the perfect handheld game to occupy thousands and thousands of hours. Or, in our case, fifteen agonizingly frustrating minutes.
TGS07: Mysterious Trailer: Shiren the Wanderer 3
A monster randomly dropped this trailer after we killed it, and we had to carry it around for a while until we found a Scroll of Trailer Identify. We were afraid it was going to be something useless like a trailer for Super Glove Ball, but we lucked out! A +3 Video of Shiren the Wanderer!It was then a matter of posting it before we died and had to go find another one.
Plenty of Sega screens to go around
Sega is releasing a lot of potentially awesome stuff in the near future (in Japan), including NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Ghost Squad, and Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 3. They showed these products (and some stuff for other systems or whatever) to some lucky Japanese gamers at a consumer conference, and sent some new screens out to the rest of us poor folks.We're happy just to stare at some screens, however, as they are all filled with excellence! Except for this one from NiGHTS. The screens from Shiren the Wanderer are old, but still nice-looking. NiGHTS is actually looking good, and Ghost Squad's got ninjas and bikini girls in it. The only thing that could have made this bounty of screens any more exciting would have been new Mibri & Tebri content. Next time, maybe.
Shiren the Wanderer 3 soon to punish Wii owners
Chunsoft's ridiculously difficult Roguelike series, Fushigi no Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren, is getting a new installment on the console that we kind of thought would be the least likely destination for crazy-hard games. The new edition, Fuurai no Shiren 3, will be in (very nice-looking) full 3D, and will contain a new item-growth feature in which items left in certain spots will improve after a certain number of turns.Perhaps our favorite thing about this game is that it renders a common criticism of the Wii invalid. As of right now, the Wii officially has the most "hardcore" game of any next-gen console. We do feel a little bit bad about Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon, which is pretty much redundant now.
Shiren possibly wandering to the US
One of the best examples of the Mysterious Dungeon subgenre of roguelike RPGs appears to be on its way, one step per turn, to the US. Fushigi no Dungeon 2: Furai no Shiren (Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer) was one of the few entries in Chunsoft's series that didn't carry a license-- it's actually numbered as a sequel to a Dragon Quest spinoff game, despite the total change in setting. It's been ported from the SNES to the DS, and was released in Japan in 1995. If, as Gamestop says, Sega is releasing it in February, it'll be the first American release for the game, which also recently came out on the Japanese Virtual Console.The DS has some experience with the genre: Chunsoft is working on their second Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, and Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja is similar in gameplay. So if you've played those, you have an idea of what to expect. If you like random dungeons, unknown items, and permanent character death (and, really, who doesn't love permanent death), you'll probably enjoy Shiren the Wanderer. If you're a normal person, you'll probably cry a lot. Still not sure? Check out this exhaustive two-part writeup of the SNES version![Via NeoGAF]
Shiren the Wanderer is insanely complicated
Coinciding with the Japanese Virtual Console release of Mysterious Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer for the SNES, GameSetWatch columnist John Harris has posted (the first half of) an exhaustive writeup of the game. His @Play column, about roguelikes, is consistently excellent even for those of us who are completely oblivious to the genre, and we're glad to have an excuse to mention this especially involved entry.It's probably a good idea to read this before you jump into any roguelike (except for maybe Pokemon Mystery Dungeon). Shiren the Wanderer and other Mysterious Dungeon games are a little bit simplified, but still ridiculous in their complexity. Random items must be identified, monsters gain levels if they kill something, and it can take multiple playthroughs of a game to level up a weapon to satisfaction. Even containers are random and may turn out to heal you or destroy your items. We have limited experience with the Mysterious Dungeon series-- we played the first few floors of Nightmare of Druaga, and then quit before it got into the serious stuff. After getting killed, of course. We don't know if we're brave enough to try another one.
VC Tuesday: Mario's Mysterious Gateball
Have any of you ever heard of a sport called gateball? It's some kind of Japanese croquet-like game for kids. It's also the basis for this week's most out-of-nowhere Virtual Console offering from Hudson. We can only say that because, over the years, we've gotten used to the other, objectively weirder game in which the protagonist throws his tethered head at enemies. The other games are both significantly less whaaa? than either of these: NES Open Tournament Golf and a classic Mysterious Dungeon roguelike. Mario Open Golf (Famicom, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points) Fushigi no Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer (Super Famicom, 1 player, 900 Wii Points) Dynamite Headdy (Mega Drive, 1 player, 600 Wii Points) Appare! Gateball (PC Engine, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points)
