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Shiren's dungeon delights and dangers
Despite middling reviews and a limited audience due to its hardcore nature, Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer has established an impressive following, mini-communities of masochists spread about the internet's gaming districts. Of course, the dedicated GameFAQs forum is bustling with dungeon-crawling discussions, but NeoGAF and the Penny Arcade Forums are also fine venues for settling your roguelike affairs. These communities are valuable hubs for not only finding a hero to rescue your felled wanderer, but also for trading stories of Shiren's grand escapes and even grander deaths. It was these sort of tales for the original Super Famicom release that impelled @Play's (a regular column on the roguelike genre) John Harris to seek the game and write up his own playthrough narratives. His accounts in turn inspired many other gamers -- including us -- to try out the Shiren, so you can imagine our anticipation to hear his impressions of Chunsoft's DS port.John's latest @Play article is a must-read for any Shiren fan; he defends the title against misinformed reviewers, provides an introduction for those of you who haven't decided if Shiren is for you, and shares a huge list of tips for surviving your dungeon trip -- like how to decrease your chances of starving to death! Even if you aren't a Shiren fan yet, here's an opportunity for you to become one! Hit the "Read" link below for John's in-depth piece. %Gallery-11488%
Mystery Dungeon solved with Pokemon preorder
As excited as we always are when it comes to free stuff, we're ten times more thrilled with this excuse to reuse our Unsolved Dungeon Mysteries image. What better way to introduce a paranomal Pokémon preorder? To promote the April 20th release of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness, Nintendo is offering a free strategy book to anyone who reserves either edition of the roguelike. The Explorer's Guide will contain game tips, interviews, and an original manga from Ken Sugimori, likely similar to (if not the same as) Ginji's Rescue Team. For the uninitiated, the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, like Shiren the Wanderer, are all entries in Chunsoft's Fushigi no Dungeon series. Catering to the license's audience, Explorers will be significantly less difficult and punishing than its peers. Having a strategy guide on hand should increase your survivability chances even more! If you're looking to ease yourself into the dungeon-crawl genre, this is the game you'll want to try out. [Via press release]
Metareview: Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
Blame Shiren the Wanderer's old-school presentation and difficulty for its inconsistent scores -- some critics were able to overlook Shiren's frustrations in favor of its refined mechanics while others found the roguelike remake much too challenging and full of anachronistic elements. 1UP -- 83% (B+): Though Jeremy Parish saw Shiren as a humbling experience, he praised its rewarding depth: "The secret of victory in Shiren isn't brute force but rather a deep understanding of the game's possibilities ... The amount of depth to be extracted from the interaction possible among tools, foes, and random factors makes for one of the deepest portable RPGs you'll ever play."IGN -- 65%: IGN seems to miss the point of the game's randomized dungeons among other features: "Far too often the dungeon's exit would appear in the same room we started, thus negating any need to explore that floor, unless we wanted some items that may or may not be there. It doesn't seem like it'd be hard to program the exit to not be in the room Shiren starts in ..." This is intentional, forcing adventurers to choose whether advancing to the next floor without risk is worth skipping potential treasures and experience points.GameSpy -- 70%: GameSpy recognizes the roguelike's appeal while simultaneously noting the harsh limit of that appeal: "Shiren the Wanderer offers a lot of quality gameplay to a very small audience. What it does, it does very well. We're sure there's a small audience that will adore the game. We're also sure the majority of today's gamers will find it nasty, plodding, and archaic."Our opinion of Shiren the Wanderer? Let's just say that we've barely put any hours into Super Smash Bros Brawl because of our quest to reach the Lair of the Golden Condor.%Gallery-11488%See also: DS Fanboy interview: Shiren the Wanderer
DS Fanboy interview: Shiren the Wanderer
With Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer shipping out to stores tomorrow (March 31st for Europe), we called up Sega of America to chat with producer Keith Dwyer about the roguelike. We spent a good half-hour exchanging thoughts on the genre's appeal and the game's pitiless difficulty before we both wondered out loud, "Wouldn't it be cool if we posted our conversation on DS Fanboy?"Rather than spend the rest of our lives asking ourselves what might have been, we decided to post the Q & A session for you to enjoy, dear reader. After all, this will be the first time the Shiren series sees an official release outside of Japan, and the game is considered by many to be the finest console roguelike in existence, putting all other challengers and clones to shame. Pack a rice ball in your lunch box and venture past the break for our Shiren the Wanderer interview!%Gallery-11488%
Shiren side quests and screenshots
There's a lot more depth to Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer than just traveling through and subsequently dying in its treacherous dungeons. As with its unique monsters, Chunsoft's roguelike offers an interesting variety of companions and side quests to add some spice to your journey.We've posted a new batch of screenshots of Shiren and his talking weasel, Koppa, chatting it up with the locals and getting all up in everyone's business in our gallery below. Apparently, there's a guy named Butafooter running a bungee jumping business on a bridge. That doesn't sound too safe. Also, what kind of name is Butafooter?! Who would name their kid that?! He must have had a hard life, growing up.%Gallery-11488%See also: 2008's Biggest Blips: Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
2008's Biggest Blips: Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
Developer: ChunsoftPublisher: SegaRelease: March 4If you're going to check out a roguelike, you might as well try the best dungeon crawl Japan has to offer -- Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer. Unfortunately, most will find themselves turned off by its intense difficulty, SNES-level graphics, and turn-based battles/movement. It's a game with a very special appeal -- you won't survive Shiren the Wanderer's monsters and hazards by grinding or mashing an attack button; you'll have to rely on your wits and use your limited equipment to their best advantage. It's a rewarding experience, to say the least.Oh, and did we mention that the game is insanely hard? What's worse, unless you've got an online buddy to revive you, every time you die (and you'll die very often), you lose all of your items and equipment, starting over at the beginning town at Level 1. Beginners usually die dozens of times before picking up the rudimentary skills needed to survive the dungeons. To help you in your journey, we've cleared up four mysteries for you, so you won't have to sacrifice a playthrough to figure them out yourself!Mystery #1: How do I approach arrow-shooting enemies without having my face rocked off? Don't attack arrow shooters head-on! You'll want to creep up to them with zig-zag movements, keeping yourself out of their direct line of sight. Unfortunately, this strategy won't work against other ranged attackers like rock throwers and magic users.Mystery #2: What the hell is this dancing polygon monster? That affable-looking polygon figure might not look so dangerous, but he has the power to reduce your Hunger meter by 30% (Hunger meter decreases 1% for every 10 moves), just by dancing his jig right next to you! Once that meter hits 0%, you'll lose 1 HP every turn until you find something to fill your belly with. Don't let yourself get served by this guy!Mystery #3: Why are sleep scrolls so dangerous? While having a Sleep scroll might come in handy when you've got monsters surrounding you, what that piece of parchment doesn't tell you is that once your enemies wake up from their nap, they'll move around with double speed. Make sure you don't dally around!Mystery #4: Why should I let a monster puke on me? We're not sure yet if they've been renamed in this remake, but the original Shiren the Wanderer had Nigiri beasts that would throw up on you, somehow transforming items in your inventory into rice balls. Very useful in case you run into some Polygon Jives later on! Just make sure you don't have anything you'd rather not lose in your inventory. Really, one of the greatest features of Shiren the Wanderer is its unique monsters! Far from generic characters, every one of them seems to have an interesting special ability or idiosyncrasy. Like puking on you.%Gallery-11488% Jake Hunter Back You spoony bard!
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]
Mystery Dungeon site opens, travelers begin descending into it
Sega has opened the promotional site for Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, providing further comfort for those of us as yet unsure it'll really come out. The page confirms the February release that has been previously announced. And, to soothe our worry a bit more, there are some English screenshots! That's encouraging.The website outlines some of the new DS-specific features in the RPG remake, including what may be one of the weirdest uses of the DS's Internet capabilities yet. When you die (which you will, frequently), you can "summon another player to revive you via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection." We suggest buying this game in pairs and coordinating a buddy system for optimal chance of rescue.[Via GoNintendo]
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.
Stay away from the Mystery Dungeon if you value your humanity
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon featured the story of a human who gets transformed into a Pokemon and ends up exploring a big dungeon with a team of Pokemon. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 features the story of a human who gets transformed into a Pokemon and enters the fast-paced world of fashion design. Or does the human explore a big dungeon? We always get the two mixed up. Now that we think about it, it's definitely the dungeon one.We're willing to accept that an entire society is built around the concept of capturing animals and making them fight. We're okay with the idea of technologically rendering said animals pocket-sized for convenience. But this? Preposterous.
