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Other Announcements / Re: If you have a Wii...

« on: June 30, 2009, 02:11:02 AM »

I gotta try one of these commercial roguelikes sometime, it would be super fun to be able to have a roguelike on the go. The Palm OS roguelikes are too hard to play, and I don't want to get a R4 for my DS.

Shiren the Wnaderer DS is your best bet then for now and, while maybe a little tricky to find these days, should be under $20.

I went to the store today to get a DS game, I had 20% off any used game but they only had Shiren new, so I got Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Blue Rescue Team. How does it compare to Shiren the Wanderer?

I like it so far, it's more complex then I thought it would be. I also like how your Pokemon level up and learn moves like in the regular Pokemon games.

I thought it was a clever hybrid of the two game systems (they Mystery Dungeon series of Chunsoft games with the Pokemon mechanics) but that these two genres ultimately didn't combine that well.  The traditional Mystery Dungeon games were all about quick leveling and clever item usage whereas the pokemon games are much slower paced leveling and more reliance on your own skills than your scavenged items.  Lastly PMD completely drops a key mechanics in most of the other Mystery Dungeon games, and that is of the whole needing to ID your items.  In the other MD games you never really knew when you first found, say, a red potion, if it was a good thing or a bad thing until you tried it and even then what a red potion does the next run you go on might be completely different (like in Rogue, Nethack, Angband, etc.).

I see what you mean, I guess they just wanted to make it a bit simpler. I'll check out Shiren when I finish Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

The only other commercial roguelike I played was Azure Dreams, and I didn't like that one, I hated that you healed over time but your pet didn't. In Pokemon you both regenerate health over time. Also the first time I went into the tower I found a sword and shield, then I died, then I couldn't find any weapons the next time I went. Frustrating as hell. I'm kinda glad PMD has more move based stuff so I don't have to deal with that. I like how in most roguelikes you at least start with a weapon and armor in Azure Dreams you started with nothing so it's hard to get better stuff, when you get killed by enemies easily because you have no armor.

Ahh but, while YOU had to start from scratch each session in the dungeon your pets had persistent xp.  The key to that game was having your pets fight for you as much as possible (but then that was a bit of a trick as you couldn't just leave them out too long or they'd lose all of their energy).

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Other Announcements / Re: If you have a Wii...

« on: June 30, 2009, 12:45:41 AM »

I gotta try one of these commercial roguelikes sometime, it would be super fun to be able to have a roguelike on the go. The Palm OS roguelikes are too hard to play, and I don't want to get a R4 for my DS.

Shiren the Wnaderer DS is your best bet then for now and, while maybe a little tricky to find these days, should be under $20.

I went to the store today to get a DS game, I had 20% off any used game but they only had Shiren new, so I got Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Blue Rescue Team. How does it compare to Shiren the Wanderer?

I like it so far, it's more complex then I thought it would be. I also like how your Pokemon level up and learn moves like in the regular Pokemon games.

I thought it was a clever hybrid of the two game systems (they Mystery Dungeon series of Chunsoft games with the Pokemon mechanics) but that these two genres ultimately didn't combine that well.  The traditional Mystery Dungeon games were all about quick leveling and clever item usage whereas the pokemon games are much slower paced leveling and more reliance on your own skills than your scavenged items.  Lastly PMD completely drops a key mechanics in most of the other Mystery Dungeon games, and that is of the whole needing to ID your items.  In the other MD games you never really knew when you first found, say, a red potion, if it was a good thing or a bad thing until you tried it and even then what a red potion does the next run you go on might be completely different (like in Rogue, Nethack, Angband, etc.).

3

Other Announcements / Re: If you have a Wii...

« on: June 24, 2009, 04:29:05 PM »

I gotta try one of these commercial roguelikes sometime, it would be super fun to be able to have a roguelike on the go. The Palm OS roguelikes are too hard to play, and I don't want to get a R4 for my DS.

Shiren the Wnaderer DS is your best bet then for now and, while maybe a little tricky to find these days, should be under $20.

4

Other Announcements / Re: If you have a Wii...

« on: June 03, 2009, 09:32:32 PM »

Did somebody mention...Lord Gek? 

Even though I still don't know a word of Japanese this game held me rapt for months!

As far as what the Shiren series in general is like I'd say it's closest comparison might be Hack (so more to it than Rogue but not quite up to the complexity of Nethack) but in it's own Japanese folk inspired mythos.  There are no classes, the only personal stats are strength and hit points, and your character has no actual skills other than what his items allow him to do (so proper management of your wands, weapons, armor, rings, scrolls, etc. are key to your survival in the game).  In an attempt to compromise between the traditional Roguelike's harsh one life and then you must start over from scratch, Shiren the Wanderer as well as the other games in this series traditionally had it so your character lost all of the equipment he had with him when he died and (depending on which Mystery Dungeon game you played) sometimes would reset his level back to 1 forcing you to practically start from scratch.  To at least give your future runs a little bit of a leg up your character is free to store away items back in town at various points in the game for use on later runs.  Therefore a big mechanic of these Mystery Dungeon games became knowing what to keep with you and what to store away for later.  Store away all of your best equipment and you'll doom your current run...but at the same time if you only store the really useless crap you aren't helping yourself much in future runs.  Another key aspect in the Mystery Dungeon games is that a lot of the creatures will "screw" with your inventory (something that seems so taboo in most RPGs).  There are beasts that will steal from you, rust your equipment, outright destroy it, or even turn a random inventory items into a food ration (is that a good or bad thing...it all depends).

Shiren 3 for the Wii is a really high production roguelike (lots of story related cutscenes and boss fights) that actually tries to take many steps to bring newcomers into the traditionally harsh world of the Shiren series.

-Your characters have persistent levels (so you never have to start from scratch again in the main story quest).
-As opposed to one long epic dungeon the game is divided into many small 5-12 level dungeons for the most part so even if you do get killed you'll never have to backtrack that far.
- There is even an option to remove the traditional, "lose all of your carried items when defeated" aspect of the game.
-They even managed to push many of the most annoying inventory screwing creatures out of the game's main story (only to mess with you in the many very brutal post story dungeons).
-So while this game is still much more about careful item management than say Pokemon Mystery Dungeon which was more about using your characters' special abilities to make it through the game's challenges, this game's flow and difficulty is much closer to the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game than any of the previous Shiren games.

So while I myself actually felt many of these changes were for the worse compared to the previous Shiren games, I think the developers had cleverly proven that they hadn't forgotten us hardcore Shiren fanbase.  Once the game's final big story quest boss fight is completed a number of much tougher post story dungeons are unlocked that add even more advanced baddies, gameplay mechanics, and other fun surprises.  So for those who just want a good story driven quest that never really gets too frustrating or annoying, there is the main story but for those who want to really test their mettle, just slog through the story and you will be richly rewarded.

Let me know if I can answer anything more specifically about the game as I did complete at least the main story aspect and at least unlocked all of the additional dungeons (but completed very few) I'm pretty knowledgeable about this game with one HUGE exception.  Not speaking or reading Japanese I only have a very vague and hazy understanding of the game's plot and storyline which, as it takes some pretty wild twists and turns, wasn't that easy to follow just by watching the zillion cutscenes ("Wait, why is Shiren now fighting THAT GUY of all people?").