The Eternal Cycle of Death, Resurrection and Frustration

I think I've just found my new time-sink: Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer

I have a sort of soft spot for dungeon-crawlers like this, games more properly known as Rogue-likes. This soft spot is one of the reasons I played Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II for as long as I did, the reason why I keep coming back to Nightmare of Druaga no matter how intent on punishing me it seems to be, and the reason I bought Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja about a year and a half ago.

What makes a Rogue-like work is a matter for some debate, but the basic concept seems to revolve around the player controlling a single extremely customizable character through a series of ever more difficult randomly generated dungeons. The gameplay is generally turn-based (but not always), which gives the player time to think about what he should do next in tight spots.

And there will be tight spots. Count on it.

Still, Shiren the Wanderer is a little bit different from any of the others I've played before. As with most Rogue-likes, I die a lot. And, also true for most Rogue-likes, death means a total loss of your inventory, money and equipment. Yet, Shiren goes one step further, and strips you of all your experience upon dying also.

It's at this point that most RPG enthusiasts walk away in disgust. What's the point of playing if, in a game where death is easy to come by, every demise reduces the player's avatar to his beginning state?

But that's really the game's point, which the frequent resetting of inventory and experience levels tries hard to drive home: You don't make progress by making Shiren a stronger character. You make progress by becoming a better player. In a sense, you are the one "leveling up." Your understanding of the game grows, and you begin to see the possibilities and options available to you for every situation.

The other Rogue-likes I mentioned are somewhat more forgiving. Dying in Nightmare of Druaga or Izuna wipes out your inventory... except for weapons you've specifically imbued with the power to resist that loss. And in addition to not taking away your experience levels upon dying, Nightmare of Druaga gives you a guaranteed escape hatch so that you can exit the dungeon at any time if things get too rough. And dying in Phantasy Star Online... Well, it isn't even really a penalty, just kind of an annoyance. The only thing you lose is money. All of these games hold your hand.

Cruelty toward the player is not what seperates Shiren the Wanderer from the other Rogue-likes I mentioned. Yes, it's considerably more difficult, but the difficulty is only a part of it. You are certainly more vulnerable, but that vulnerability is the trade-off for the level of versatility you as the player command.

Here are some examples:

Killing a monster with the appropriate items yields monster meat. Eating monster meat turns you into the kind of monster you got the meat from, granting you all of its abilities. While this sounds like an excellent way to temporarily take on the strengths of some of the tougher monsters, you can work the system both ways. If you have the meat of a low-level monster - a Mamel or a Chintala, for instance - you can throw it at another monster. This turns the monster into whatever kind of of enemy the meat came from. So the big, intimidating Popster Tank that spelled certain annihiliation a moment ago gets reduced to a pathetic little Mamel that can only do a single point of damage to you if it hits.

Or you can use a Jar of Hiding. There are many kinds of jars in the game, with many different uses. This one has two. On the one hand, you could jump inside the jar to hide from roving monsters for a while, and hope that by the time it spat you back out, the coast would be clear. Or you could throw it at a monster, trapping it for a number of turns and allowing you to pass by unmolested.

Or...

I think you can get the point. And really, I'm only scratching the surface. The game offers a near-endless variety of ways to tackle the problems it presents you, and encourages you to be clever. Most Rogue-likes are content to let you attack things endlessly, maybe inflict an occasional status effect. Shiren the Wanderer wants you to think outside the box, and rewards you for it.

I might talk about the story, but that will only take a single sentence. Ready? Here we go: A ronin named Shiren decides to set out to find the Golden Condor in the lost city of El Dorado, which lies atop Table Mountain.

That's it. You might ask yourself what the fabled City of Gold is doing in Japan, but really, what's the point? We're playing a Rogue-like, here. The story is, in most cases, simply an excuse for why things are happening. It's there to give some reason for the endless smiting so many mosters will receive at your hands. The goal exists simply so that you can say, upon reaching it, that you've beaten the game. You can feel finished, if you like, although personally, the prospect of unlockable dungeons has me thinking I'll be playing this well after I've beaten the "main" section of the game.

Shiren the Wanderer is a game where learning how to play and learning how to win are two very separate tasks, and that's what makes it so interesting to me.

Sure, you'll die a lot on the way to figuring out how to handle all the scenarios the game can present to you, and you'll lose more good equipment than you care to think about. But in the end you can't ever really get too pissed off about it, because you are the one who screwed up.

It's all your fault, really.