One of the best examples of the Mysterious Dungeon subgenre of roguelike RPGs appears to be on its way, one step per turn, to the US. Fushigi no Dungeon 2: Furai no Shiren (Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer) was one of the few entries in Chunsoft's series that didn't carry a license-- it's actually numbered as a sequel to a Dragon Quest spinoff game, despite the total change in setting. It's been ported from the SNES to the DS, and was released in Japan in 1995. If, as Gamestop says, Sega is releasing it in February, it'll be the first American release for the game, which also recently came out on the Japanese Virtual Console.The DS has some experience with the genre: Chunsoft is working on their second Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, and Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja is similar in gameplay. So if you've played those, you have an idea of what to expect. If you like random dungeons, unknown items, and permanent character death (and, really, who doesn't love permanent death), you'll probably enjoy Shiren the Wanderer. If you're a normal person, you'll probably cry a lot. Still not sure? Check out this exhaustive two-part writeup of the SNES version!
[Via NeoGAF]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-09-2007 @ 2:06PM
hvnlysoldr said...
Arggh! I could only beat Chocobo Dungeon 2 due to my kept experience after dying. It was the only way I made it through that game.
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8-09-2007 @ 3:31PM
sillypatterson said...
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.
I can't tell you -how- many times I've climbed the mountain in the SFC version (99% failure rate as it should be :D), but I've been so jealous of the DS version, and it may be coming -here-!? I can die happy... -after- I climb the mountain, dual-screen style
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9-09-2007 @ 1:09PM
LordGek said...
I so hope this is still the plan! Being a freak Shiren DS is one of my all time favorite games...and I can't even speak or read Japanese (heavy use of poorly translated Japanese FAQs via some Japanese to English web translators and a strong knowledge of the Mysterious Dungeon series)!
While I was able to stumble through the game competently enough, if I could play it in English I could finally understand some of the little NPC quips as well as other subtleties I'm surely missing.
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