Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer

"A graphical roguelike of a fine flavor"

Shiren the Wanderer is the recent release by Chunsoft, creators of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, published by Sega of America. In Shiren the Wanderer you play as a ronin searching for the magical Land of the Golden Condor with your (not important to the game play) buddy, a talking white weasel named Koppa. Being a graphical rogue-like, the game sets you in randomly created static dungeons in which nothing moves unless you do. In this way, the game plays similar to a turn based strategy game, but without the volumes of text to wade through before each battle, and well, the battle doesn't end until you reach the Land of the Golden Condor. Miscellaneous weapons, armor, and items lie strewn about the dungeon floor, unidentified and waiting to be picked up by your greedy mits in an attempt to find out their magical purpose. Whether it be a cursed sword thats strength is equivalent to a flimsy tree branch that refuses to be unequipped, or a great magical fire sword that allows you to bowl over anything in the way. The only way to find out is to either use the all-too-rare identifying scroll, or just equip the thing and see what happens. Which often leads to an embarrassing death.

When you die you lose everything, and while this may seem a cheap trick to increase the difficulty, it is actually fundamental to the progress of the game. Each death is a lesson learned. Sometimes it can be to not use a particular item at a particular time or sometimes it's just a certain monster to avoid for the time being. Sometimes it's a monster that turns you into a rice ball as its buddies pummel you into oblivion. You always start every new life at the first town in the game and at experience level one. Losing everything in death can be frustrating, but luckily there are warehouses in most towns on the journey that can house your precious treasures until your next return, regardless of death. Dying also begins a new day, or a new cycle for the characters in game.

Each cycle bears more information about certain townspeople and opens up quests which can lead from the acquisition of new equipment that assist you on your journey, to the companionship of a pseudo brother who doesn't always know who the enemy really is. (If you're not trying to quell his constant cries of hunger by feeding him your own valuable food, he'll be apologizing for hitting you by accident.) In Shiren the Wanderer, if you do not wish to lose a particular favourite weapon or armor on your now dead person, you may send a rescue request either via password or via Nintendo's Wifi at any wireless hotspot. Doing the latter can result in a waiting game that could last from anywhere to a few hours to a few days. You'll be waiting for another player to accept your rescue request and then make it through the dungeon to the location of your corpse to apply a resurection scroll. The results of which can be delivered to you via both previously mentioned methods. A successful rescue means a free item or two for the rescuer, some of which are very rare, and a continuation in the journey without loss of precious goodies for the rescuee.

Being a port from the Super Famicom game of the same name from Japan, the game looks exactly that; Super Nintendo era graphics and music. The squat misshapen characters waddle about, but do not distract. They do what they need to do to the tune of the quasi-forgettable music. The enemy types are numerous and they explain away the palate swapped monsters via the monster “level-up” system.(ie. If the goblin is red instead of blue, it's a level 2 goblin monster) I've always been a fan of each equiped weapon looking different on the character's avatar, and even though everything else is humdrum in the graphics department, I personally like this touch.

Whether it's finding NPC's that come along on your wandering journey, or it's finding a new enemy with aggravating abilities, Shiren the Wanderer comes together quite well. Discovering new items and artifacts is most of the fun in this title that clearly speaks that the fun is had in getting there, not in the destination itself. The one-hundred level dungeons that open up post game more than make up for the humdrum ending. Finding said dungeons and then actually navigating them to the bottom is where Shiren really shines.

If you've played such titles as the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon titles or Izuna: The Unemployed Ninja, or if you have played Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon 2 or Torneko you'll basically know what to expect. Keep in mind that Shiren is a much more polished experience than these titles, save Torneko.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/28/08

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