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[DS roguelike] You have failed me PA. (SHIREN THE WANDERER)
lowlylowlycook
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
OK, so I was over at neogaf. Shame shame I know.
Somehow a thread with the stupid title:
BEST RPG ON THE DS, PERIOD - New official thread of YOU WILL BUY SHIREN DS
Caught my eye. Must be something retarded right?
Well fuck me. There is a god damn roguelike on the DS with permadeath, turnbased play and every fucking thing.
I was not informed. Searching turned up no threads and only a few passing notices.
Even though I'm not amused by any means, you can redeem yourselves by making posts in here so I don't have to actually read a non-sales neogaf thread.
GO!
OK, so friend codes
Musan 2535-3368-9074
eelektrik 1934-0432-8697
Deswa 3351-3825-1572
MrBlarney 2578-2734-2707
I was hoping there would be some new Japanese sales data so we could change the subject of the sales thread away from just how right Threepio is and how wrong everyone else is.
Somehow a thread with the stupid title:
BEST RPG ON THE DS, PERIOD - New official thread of YOU WILL BUY SHIREN DS
Caught my eye. Must be something retarded right?
Well fuck me. There is a god damn roguelike on the DS with permadeath, turnbased play and every fucking thing.
I was not informed. Searching turned up no threads and only a few passing notices.
Even though I'm not amused by any means, you can redeem yourselves by making posts in here so I don't have to actually read a non-sales neogaf thread.
GO!
OK, so friend codes
Musan 2535-3368-9074
eelektrik 1934-0432-8697
Deswa 3351-3825-1572
MrBlarney 2578-2734-2707
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
lowlylowlycook on
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Shiren is all about sharing the careless deaths as well as the grand victories. Hopefully we can get more stories in here?
Shiren Playthrough - part 1, part 2
Ah, but Shiren is old-school to the max, and without it we'd never have had Pokemon Mystery Dungeon... I'm enjoying it so far, just dabbled in the first few levels - never played this originally, though I did play the hell out of Asuka's game on DC (Fushigi Dungeon - Onnakenshi Asuka Kenzan, I think it was). I really ought to go back to that sometime, too.
I didn't realise the music was a series staple. Heard the theme when I started up the DS and couldn't stop smiling.
Read my book. (It has a robot in it.)
1934-4237-4812
Fruit: Peaches, perhaps coconuts soon too!
Powder is a free roguelike.
The biggest shame about this game is the terrible US coverart. The game itself is fine.
This game is destined for the bargin bin, so I'll be sure to look out for it when it does.
Oh burn.
Pretty good.
Platinum FC: 2880 3245 5111
We should probably put up are friend codes now in case of future rescues, as dying seems to be a common occurrence.
Edit: here's my friend code: 2535-3368-9074
Seconded. I really like the look of this game, but I think I feel safe bookmarking it and coming back in a few months when I can find this for cheap. Rogue games like this will always have a place with me, damn Amulet of Yendor.
Edit: if anyone can tell me a good reason to get it now, that about all I'll need to buy it.
I managed to complete Powder around version 0.82 or so and they are up to version 1.02 now. It's gotten much better. The controls are pretty damn good and it's a fairly deep roguelike.
My reason will be related in the form of an epic poem.
Well, not really. But I will tell you a longwinded-story relating my experience with the game, and it will either convince you that this is TOTALLY THE GAME FOR YOU, or convince you of the exact opposite.
For starters, it'll kill you. It doesn't care.
But each time I died and came back (at level 1, from the set starting place), I'd find a new shield that's better than the one I found in my previous life, and new NPCs in the dungeon.
Among those NPCs, there's this STUPID WOMAN WHO BLINDS YOU, who will henceforth be referred to as "crazy blinding woman." While you are blinded, you can see nothing around you for a brief time. The first time you fall for it you think it won't happen again. Then the next time you run into her, she does it again while pretending to apologize. Then you once again reach one of the checkpoint towns that you've reached before in your previous lives... and you find her there! Except now she's cornered by some other guys who are pissed at her for blinding them. I was gonna leave her there, but then whatever, I butted in. The guys attacked me and I beat them up. Then she says, "you saved me, even though I blinded you twice!" and offers to join you. You accept... AND SHE BLINDS YOU AGAIN... but joins you anywa! Of course, while you're running around blind you can't really tell that she's there (while you're blind, all you can see is yourself, everything else is black). So then your blindness wears off.. and she REALLY DID JOIN YOU! And then she starts kicking ass all over the place. All these enemies that seemed fearsome before... she kills them, and then you chat with her, and seemingly whatever she killed last, she says "is not so tough."
Now among those enemies, there are these ones called Evil Soldiers, which are normally kinda tough on their own. The kicker is that once you kill them, this Evil Spirit pops out, and if it can run into another enemy, it will combine with that enemy and upgrade it to the next version. So we run into a bunch of these Evil Soldiers, and the Evil Spirits JOIN TOGETHER WTF. But it doesn't matter, because crazy blinding woman blinds it like the vermin it is and we kick its ass.
You've also got a hunger meter. Once it gets too low, you lose HP and whatnot. You can indeed die of starvation. So I'm hungry, and I'm about to eat my only real food item left. The moment I hit the "Eat" command, an old man appears out of thin air in front of me and says that he's starving, and wish that he had a riceball to eat (i'm about to eat a riceball). So I choose to be nice and give it to him... and he gives me a herb that instantly levels me up. Of course, I nearly starved to death afterwards, but that was fun in retrospect.
Back to the crazy blinding woman.
Now, the AI for companions is nutty. It didn't need to be smart, since all it needs to do is follow you (and not in real time) and attack nearby enemies. The problem is that the following is easily screwed up when you enter a 1-person wide corridor (of which there are many in the Mines) and somebody comes between you (like one of those non-monster NPCs). Once this happens, the AI decides that running off and trying to loop back to meet you EVEN THOUGH THE PLAYER DOESN'T KNOW THE DUNGEON LAYOUT AND THERE MAY BE MONSTERS EVERYWHERE is a good plan of action. The companions are also not very smart at trying to meet up with you when you start moving towards them... I'm not sure how that works. This can be quite irritating at times, but sometimes the results are amazing.
Let me also mention that enemies can friendly fire, and that I have as companions crazy blinding woman, and this little girl who said that she was lost, who we will now refer to as "lost little girl."
So a scenario like the first plays out, both of my companions split off from me, and I've mapped barely 1/3 of the floor. I haven't got a handy Scroll of Seeing which instantly shows me the whole floor layout and all the monsters, so I've got guess work to do. From the message log, my two companions split in two different directions, fighting different enemies. One of the enemies that was ranged hit another enemy, aggroing it and getting attacked by that enemy. The aggro'd enemy killed the other enemy and levelled up. It then killed lost little girl before I could reach her, and levelled up. It then went on a RAMPAGE, hunting down other monsters (OF ITS OWN KIND!), killing them, and levelling up. It then caught up with crazy blinding woman, killed her, and levelled up. Then it made its way towards me, ran into the NPC that caused us to split up, killed him, levelled up (by now it's levelled up like 9 times, its name changing from Kingy to Kingy10), and then made for me. I ran like a frightened little girl for the exit.
Another floor later, I reached town, and right at the entrance to the town was a couple wondering where there daughter had gone to. I'd like to tell them that if they go two floors back they should ask the Kingy10: the Kinslayer, Eater of Children.
Other nuttyness:
There's an enemy that changes items on the dungeon floor into Weeds, which have no value.
There's an enemy that can randomly change an item in your inventory into a riceball when it hits you.
fuck, you convinced me. i was already leaning towards buying this soon but now im going tomorrow.
you bastards hate my wallet!
Holy crap! That game rocks, and looks awesome. I tried the OS X version, but I'm going to try it on my girlfriend's DS as well. Thanks for the tip!
O_o Bargain bin? More like out of print! I really want to check this out because of that write up on GameSetWatch (and the whole series of columns on roguelike games) but too many Wii games this month for me. A reason to buy now is because the rumor is that Shiren 3 (for the Wi - pretty trailer) will be localised if the sales for the DS game is good. We might get it anyway but if you are a fan of RL games and have Shiren DS on your list already...
You, good sir, know little of poetry, but much of epicness.
Hopefully I can at least find this used or something for a deal, because now I'm hooked.
A concern I had not anticipated. I always figured it could be found online or something. I guess this one might be too niche.
Ah, but weeds are the perfect item for a change jar! Put stuff in that you don't want, and see if it changes into something better! Also, there's a higher level riceball beast that will turn you into a riceball!
1934-4237-4812
Fruit: Peaches, perhaps coconuts soon too!
more difficult, but also much more rewarding.
here's what 1up's jeremy parish had to say about the game in his review:
The high-level riceball beast you can encounter quite early on courtesy of said Evil Spirits
My original intent with the Weeds and riceball monster was to hint that Weeds actually do have value, because by using them as inventory filler, you can avoid having valuable items being turned into riceballs... instead, nigh-worthless weeds become tasty riceballs!
I like how the game hints at ways to steal from the stores.
There's one thing I do wonder about... there's a jar that you can Insert yourself into, resulting in the jar lying on the ground with you vanished (this, btw, makes your companions sally forth on a killing spree rather than hanging around you). I wonder... if you hop into that jar, and then the Field Bandit comes across the jar, will it change it into a Weed and kill you instantly?
Someone should try that out! It would be awesome if it worked and there was an adventure log acheivement for it. Having been slain as a Riceball before, I wonder if all of the riceballs strewn about in dungeons are actually the delicious corpses of fallen travelers.
1934-4237-4812
Fruit: Peaches, perhaps coconuts soon too!
Interest++. Played the hell out of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, which uses a very similiar system - at least for the items. Powder looks nifty, as well. I'll take a look.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Same here, or at least considering it... Despite still only being on Floor 7 of Etrian Odyssey and playing Brawl, I might go over and acquire Shiren today because god damn I love a good roguelike, considering one of the first games I ever played, and played an absolute shit ton of, was Rogue.
Well if my local Gamestop is any indication, the DS version is selling well for a niche game as apparently I was the 3rd person to pick it up today, and the guy ringing me up had never heard of it and planned on checking it out due to the sales. Looks like word on the game is spreading, theres a chance yet for a US Release of Shiren 3.
It pleases me to see this game doing well, even antidotally. Also, the Shiren 3 trailer makes me want to buy about 10 copies of the DS just to inflate sales. Looks like I'm going shopping tomorrow.
On a side note, does the DS's technology really bring anything to this game? I haven't seen any utilization of the touch technology, or the second screen beyond some sort of large-scale map. The wi-fi features look awesome though.
you can configure what you want to show on the second screen -- dungeon map, section map, message log, or character stats. i use the character stats with the dungeon map overlaying the main screen.
the music is really great -- i've been playing during my lunch breaks at work, in my car, so i hook up a tape converter into the DS's headphone port and play the sound through my car speakers. i suggest you do this too, if you ever have the chance!
I too, thought that it was too risky to try the touchscreen- good thing they didn't force its implementation. Also, I really like the idea of the top screen configuration, the screenshots I had seen all had an underwhelming map on the top and I was worried that 50% of my DS would be rather useless.
Hm... I do have one of those old jack-to-tape converters somewhere too...
3351-3825-1572