#game-review #finishedgame2025 # Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer  [Console:: Nintendo DS] [Status:: Beaten] [Approximate Start Date:: 2025-02-02] [Finish Date:: 2025-02-07] [Clear Time:: 7h 44m] [Total Play Time:: 7h 44m 46s] [nReplays:: 0] ## [Rating:: 87] This game's so bullshit (/compliment). Real fuin game to beat over the course of a week. If you've never played a Mystery Dungeon game, this one';s a TOUGH game to start with. Luckily the game wants to teach you movement skills and mechanics so that you don't just get your ass handed to you by poor play. Of course, you stay in the Canyon Hamlet forever, you'll never reach the Golden City. I learn best by doing so I set out multiple times. I died a few times, but on my third attempt I was successful because I understood the value of preparation and patience. I was willing to have my level reset so that I could accumulate items as necessary, and that's what I mainly take away here. Patience is a virtue. Shrewdness is learned through patience. Acting without thinking will be ytour downall. Sometimes you cannot fight your way through an encounter and must instead use even the most miniscule tool to succeed. # Playthrough Notes - Started playing this while erin was playing [[Master Detective Archives Rain Code]] - Funny that Chunsoft made this gameand later went onto merge with Spike and make all *THOSE* games. - This is the DS remake of the SNES game - eating monster flesh turns you into a monster and you can use their skills. # My Thoughts - - plays like a halfway point between [[Fushigi no Dungeon Torneko no Daibouken]] and eventually pokemon. More like a real journey rather than the cyclical job-like grind like what pmd and torneko felt like. - i like that there's a grid based town - is keckleon strength in PMD based on the shopkeeps in this game? - Sure enough, you can steal from the shops, but the you get swarmed by the cops and their dogs. - Hey that's gotta be where the kecleon shop keeper swarm comes from. - Wish the top screen showed me minimap information the way that like [[Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team|Blue Rescue Team]] and the explorers games would. I can forgive it since it's an early entry. - forgot to equip my shit in town and got rocked. - i should keep track of what resources are in each town. Fuck it, let's see what happens if I go backwards. - Sky Tower Summit Layout in Table Mountain 18F - oh no i killed a dog ? ? ? ? ? ? - this was a stray on the Pegasus ridge - but you do have to kill dogs if you steal from shops. - pushing b to swap places with partners is in Rescue team dx, but no pushing in this one. - the blinding sisterssssssss - jk shes a party member - She joined for a while, and then died in a monster house. - I also recruited that dipshit who stole 1000 gitan from me. I punched him like twice and then joined me. He died on Pegasus Ridge. So it goes. - so many back to back monster houses dude - Getting to the Golden City was such an incredible experience, especially because I knnew that it wasn't over yet. The music was triumphant but it also told me that "you have one last trial ahead of you. Do you have the resolve to succeed?" ## Progression is based around your Items - If you fall on your journey you go all the way back to he Canyon Hamlet and your Level reverts to Level 1. But any items you put in storehouses are saved for later runs - This is why you should put your items in store houses. If you acquire spares along the way, you'd do well to deposit them in checkpoint villages so that you're not strapped for items later. Even if you fail, your efforts are not toally in vain if you're thinking ahead. - It's about "tension" and "reasoning" - Your items progress more, not you. ## Dying is BRUTAL - monster house on room 27 this SUCKS - revived myself and then. FUCKING DEATH ANGEL JUST FUCKED ME UP - FUCK I DIED ON THE LAST FLOOR **AGAIN** - Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck dude. ### Which makes A Winning run soooooo much more satisfying - "Success is 30 percent planning, 30 percent persistence, and about 80 percent luck- making for a challenging, infuriating, but deeply rewarding experience.", Sharkey EGM 228, May 2008 [^1] ## Music by Koichi Sugiyama - There really is a kind of dragon quest feel that comes with sugiyama's compositions but with an East-Asian twist, rather than the more Euro-centric sound of Dragon Quest - Sugiyama really presents a mysterious and meaningful expedition here since ultimately this game is about a journey just as much as any dragon quest is. - The absence of music in the swamp area really sets in the realization that there's no turning back. Just some wind in the swamp. - I would love to see if there's like a symphonic suite of some of these compositions., The Golden Condor Flkight theme is incr4edible. - I bet Mr. "Japan did nothing wrong" really enjoyed composing for this game. ### Let's Given it a little listen, eh? - [Cavern in the Cliff](https://youtu.be/QiZikH-KizQ) sounds a LOT like some of these dungeon themes from [[Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky]] - Waterfall Marsh is shockingly ambient for a DS soundchip. ## the final stretch - this run was one I was able to recruit both the annoying drunk "big bro" guy and the blinding girl, and I got a fuckload of jars to store TONs of items there. - I basically grinded a couple floors to get money to either upgrade my sword or find scrolls that would help me out in monster houses - I ran into back to back monster houses TWICE - Once in the stretch in the cave before the Underground River Village, - and once during the final trial floors. - Hiding in a jar worked! Crazy how that happens. - I made it to the golden city and realized, "no there definitely will be a final boss" - my palms were sweating the whole time on that waterfall cave fight - somehow the bug got turned into a shiren clone and was rendered moot. I never got attacked by it. - dealt the finishing blow with my katana. - incredibly satisfying ending imo # Favorite Moments / Memories - # What were you doing when not playing this? - # Relevant Links - https://sskey.homerow.club/ - rescue password generator. [^1]: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/a018f206-cdbe-4787-b936-86cc4698d26f/pdf?token=d04430a9-aa49-4e17-9215-762fb3e6829d&length=116548328