LOOKING BACK ON
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
By Filipe Salgado - July 15th, 2009
The situation is pretty sticky. I’m on the twentieth level, far enough to be worried about my progress, when I enter a room with a Popster Tank. Don’t let his silly name fool you: He’s one of the toughest enemies in this part of the game. His projectiles hurt you and anything within a one square radius. This is bad news by itself, but there’s a complication: There’s also an Inferno in the room. It’s kind of like a fire creature. If an Inferno gets hit with any sort of explosion, no matter the source, it multiplies. So what was once a tough situation can turn into a no-win situation quickly. I take a breather.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer for the DS is filled with these situations. The game looks like a Japanese isometric action adventure, but plays Rogue-like. The levels are randomly generated, it’s turn based, and perma-death is everywhere. You’ll never encounter the same game twice, and you can’t master Shiren the Wanderer. This isn’t like a Metroid game, where you can speed run using nothing but dexterity and eidetic memory. Shiren requires thought. Real, honest thought.
Because the game is turn-based, I leisurely assess the next move, fully aware carelessness will bring me back to level one with my stats reset and nothing to my name. On earlier levels there’s a bit more room for risk, but I’ve put some time into this run, and perma-death is a strong deterrent to recklessness.
I look into my inventory. Scroll of confusion? Usually a good idea, but a confused Popster Tank is unpredictable and, therefore, more dangerous. A knockback staff that’ll send the Popster Tank flying backwards? Useless. He shoots projectiles. I spot a jar. It’s unidentified, but I’ve identified most of the other jars at this point and I have a hunch. It pays off: it’s a jar of hiding! I crawl into the jar and the enemies pretend I don’t exist and leave me alone. I crawl out of the jar in a few turns, the enemies having left the room, and now have the option to hunt down the enemies separately. But now, I’m a little more careful.
It’s a frustrating game. You will die, a lot. My save file is near 400 plays, with 80 hours clocked. Some of my runs have ended in less than a minute because I spawned in a bad spot. Other times I’ve played for an hour on a bus ride home. Your first 100 deaths will serve as a tutorial, but the game does provide an actual one in the form of puzzles that teach you some of the more intricate nuances. Some lessons, however, like the Inferno multiplying mentioned above, are learned from experience (and oftentimes through death).
Yes, sometimes you die because of bad luck. But more often than not there’s a way out of the situation. The game is forgiving. If you have a friend who has the game, they can bail you out up to three times, but even with this safety net, Shiren is a game that demands your full concentration. After those first 100 deaths you will know how to survive. You’ll know to stock up on rice balls so you don’t die of starvation. You’ll know how to properly put items in the storehouse to be retrieved on another play through, even if you die. You’ll know what enemies are troublesome and you’ll know when you’re ready for them. You’ll know what unidentified swords to buy from a merchant based on price alone. All of this is learned from that one time where you had great gear, but it rusted on you. Or that time you were limping towards the exit and tripped a monster-summoning trap.
If you clear the main quest, which is substantial in itself, the game opens up other dungeons where the rules are different. What if the traps hurt the monsters instead of you? Now the gameplay is less RPG and more Rube Goldberg-esque, as you can spring traps in order to get combos and experience. There’s a dungeon that revolves around eating monster meat to turn into enemies and using their skills to your advantage. Each of these dungeons requires a unique mindset.
Shiren won’t hold your hand. It’s the type of game that throws you into the ocean and expects you to not only learn to swim, but make your way back to shore. It’s part sadism, but part respect. It’s a port of an SNES game, and it shows. It’s from the era where developers clearly trusted the player to be smart enough to figure things out. This isn’t for everybody. This is challenge for the sake of challenge. But it’s that challenge that ultimately makes the game so rewarding.
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Shiren the Wanderer is hardcore. I was never going around calling myself an elite hardcore gaming nerd but I’ve played games.. and this is one of the most hardcore experiences I’ve ever had. You’re review is about on par with every other one I’ve read and they all say the same thing. It’s a school-of-hard-knocks, die-50-times-to-live-once type of game.
Maybe it’s too hardcore for me. Maybe I didn’t give it enough time but I have to openly admit I just didn’t get it. I’m just not used to a game where you can die 15 minutes in because of bad luck at the beginning that I didn’t know enough to recognize.
I sit in awe of StW. One day I’ll get an actual cart and sit down and give it more of a fair shake because the greater the challenge, the greater the feeling of accomplishment. That game was so hard it put hair on the chest of kids I haven’t even had yet.
The thing is, though, that this game lets you feel some progression. There are side quests that carry on even after death that give a sense of things carrying forward.
Aside from that, even a “wasted” game isn’t wasted. I’ve had a few runs that looked like they wouldn’t get far, but just by playing intelligently I managed to get really far in. I’m obviously bias though, as I love this game dearly.
Very nice review. Like Wolfkin, I’m not sure it’s my thing – I’m up for challenge, but would doubtless feel like at least part of my playing time was wasted if I died after a lot of effort to get to a certain point, even if I learned something from it – but I may still check it out if I can ever find it in a discount bin, or somesuch…
“The thing is, though, that this game lets you feel some progression. ”
that’s the main problem i had with the game. maybe it’s because it’s my first ‘rogue-like’ but i had no idea how the game is supposed to go. I don’t know what the ‘flow’ is so I didn’t feel ANY progression, but like I implied i was playing off a rom in the middle of good release season so after about 2 days I switched to Ninja Gaiden. i do think if I spent maybe 5 days with it I’d at least get what I’m trying to do and be able to work from there.
I love dungeon crawlers, but this was hard to get into for me. I think the main thing is that I just don’t care about talking to anyone in these games. I want to go in a dungeon and have NPCs serve as largely buying/selling robots.
What I played of this didn’t fit that. Same with Izuna.
I did love Tower of Druaga on PS2, though. I’d love to see that on DS/PSP/whatever.
Just picked this up the other night, more or less because of this article, and I must say im totally enjoying it so far… Managed to stay alive till I was lvl 8 my first play through, and im about to start up again. Cheers!