Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer

"Mysterious Dungeon: Wandering Why I Bothered Playing This"

Ok, before we get started, I'm just going to go ahead and get this off my chest now. I'm not the biggest fan of these "Roguelike" games, but compared to the other ones I've played on the DS, Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, needs to be fitted for a pair of cement shoes. Yes, this game is worse than Pokemon Dungeon and even Izuna, which has its own bargain bin at any videogame store you can point to in the phone book. I'm predicting that the only people who will enjoy this remake are the people who originally enjoyed it on the SNES. This game had the potential to be good, but even my favorite feature has a huge downside to it making it more trouble than its worth.

Story: The story in Shiren the Wanderer is very complex: you're a wanderer who is wandering and you kill stuff while talking to your pet weasel. Alright, the story is nonexistent, but in this case thats a good thing. This game isn't about story, its about stomping through dungeons and making everything you come across extinct. The story (what little there is) only slows down the action of the game when it decides to pop out of it's hole, I doubt you'll even care about it or the "Golden Land".

Sound: Shiren the Wanderer has the usual sounds of a DS game that makes you turn the volume down and turn the TV on as a substitute white noise. The music, though upbeat, is very repetitive and annoying. Even worse are the sound effects that make me think that the developers recorded the noises of a fat guy after walking up a flight of stairs. I'm guessing all of the sounds have been recycled from the game's namesake during the good old SNES days because its obvious that they didn't put forth any effort in this department.

Graphics: The graphics look exactly like the SNES version, thats not necessarily a fault, the graphics do what they're supposed to and nothing more. You know how it is, fat little sprites with limited,spastic animations that leave much to be desired and are rather boring. I understand this is a remake, but they could've updated the graphics somehow.

Gameplay: Forget all the previous stuff I mentioned, thats not important and this is where the meat is...and it's rotten! Your movement is based on a grid, one turn gets you one square of movement, the opportunity to attack, equip weapons and accessories or use an item. After every turn you get, your enemies also get a turn to move, attack, etc. The developers relate this game to a chess match and they're not too far off. However, chess has never made me throw the board across the room and break out a thesaurus to find another word for "pissed off".

Some people will describe this game as hard, I describe it as overly frustrating. Not only do you not have enough inventory space to carry 90% of what you'll find, but the enemies will constantly do things like steal your money, blind you, paralyze, poison, steal your items, change your items and change you into inanimate objects that make you helpless to do anything. On top of that, there are invisible traps all over the ground that will also trip you up and murder you. To make things worse, you'll never have enough room to carry all the items you need to counter all of these things being done to you. You also can't buy most of the common items you need to keep yourself alive because the stores either don't carry them or the stores are too few and far between. You can pick up someone to fight along side you, but you don't get that chance very often and they don't do much anyways.

You get to do a lot of backtracking, but it doesn't help prolong any enjoyment or add any replay value to the gaming experience. Each dungeon has a randomized map, which keeps you on your toes, but will also add to the massive, frustrating mound that is already on your plate. The enemies will come back, the traps will come back, but the items you need to get through these dungeons just happen to disappear. Its like the developers sat around and thought of ways to impede on any type of fun in this game.

Wi-Fi: If you happen to die (and you will) you have a choice to throw in the towel for good (start all over) or send out an S.O.S. and wait to be rescued. If you choose to be rescued you can use wireless communication, give someone a password that allows them to rescue you (the passwords are 56 characters long...have fun tapping that into your DS) or you can post your distress on a type of forum using wi-fi and wait to be chosen. Once someone decides to rescue you they have to traverse through the dungeons to your spot and revive you. Once rescued you'll start right where you left off. Your knight in shining armor won't be so lucky...

Now if you want to play the role of hero, you're going to have to make some sacrifices to save your fellow man. You either have to connect to them through wireless communication, putting in the password they give you or choose them from the list on wi-fi. Once you decide to start the rescue, theres a horrible catch...you have to travel back to the first village in the game. This means going back through all the dungeons (using items and getting none back) and then losing all of your EXP and starting at level one again. You get to keep all of your items, but you basically have to start the game over again, shortcomings and all. I should also mention that you don't get to keep the EXP you earn while rescuing someone. Once its over you're transported back to the first village and you get to trek all the way back through the dungeons with the stats of a beginning player to try and get back to where you left off.

To be honest, rescuing isn't a complete waste of time. You do get that uplifting, good Samaritan feeling of being the savior of someone thats literally stuck in a rut. There is also the chance that the person you rescue will give you something special as a way of saying thanks. It's usually something mediocre, but you never know what someone might gift you in a thank you note. Theres also a good chance you'll find some good stuff during the rescue that you won't find treading through a regular dungeon.

Conclusion: Theres just way too many cons in this game to recommend buying it or even wasting time on playing it for free. As I said before I can't see why anyone would want to subject themselves to this kind of game unless they're huge fans of the series or are desperate for a "Roguelike" fix on the Nintendo DS. If you really want to play this type of game you should play Pokemon Dungeon instead. I think Santa Clause should put this game in naughty kid's stocking instead of coal...you can at least turn a lump of coal into a diamond.

Score: 3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/08

Game Release: Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (US, 03/04/08)