I’m still playing Shiren the Wanderer, on and off, since I’m planning to go on 100 adventures before I quit and I’m only in my 50s. I have long since lost all the equipment I talked about in my last post, but still, a luta continua. One time I made it all the way to the boss of Table Mountain with what I thought was a foolproof strategy -> I had the Bufu staff from completing Naoto’s sidequest. My plan was to turn one of the enemies in the final stage into meat, throw that meat at the last boss and then kill everyone at leisure, making liberal use of my two Staffs of Postpone.

Well, as Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face.” I arrived at the boss floor all right. To my left was a Skull Mage, accursed creature. To my right was one of those Tiger Uho thingies. The boss was right in front of me. I reached into my bag and took my Buff Staff out. It was here that I made a fatal mistake. Instead of swinging it at the Skull Mage, I swung it at the Tiger. Folks, always, always get rid of the Skull Mage first! Always! There’s no telling what it’ll do to you if it gets the chance, but I can tell you what it did to me: turned me into a rice ball, argh! I tried my best to escape, hopping along pitifully, but I was cornered in two moves and that was all she wrote. *sigh*

Still I learned plenty from the experience. Kill. Skull Mages. Instantly. for one thing. More importantly, I’ve come a lot further in this replay of Shiren the Wanderer than I did the first time, where I never even made it to Cryptic Rock Valley, much less Table Mountain. I can also get pretty far with just a rice ball from Canyon Hamlet and whatever equipment I manage to scrounge up in the dungeons, showing that I’ve learned a lot about making my way round in roguelikes. I take better advantage of corridors, for example, and I don’t hesitate to use the “Super Special Item X I was saving for the boss” if need be.

Encouraged by my new-found success, I decided to give Shiren DS 2 a second try as well. I’ve only done about 10 adventures so far, but it only took one adventure to notice the hefty number of great and small changes Chunsoft made to the system. The following is hardly an exhaustive list since I’ve barely gotten anywhere yet.

– The biggest shock to my system was the proliferation of Herbs of Revival, Take Home Scrolls and Sanctuary Scrolls. I never saw a single one of those in Shiren the Wanderer.
– There’s only one town instead of four villages.
– There’s a shop and a blacksmith right in the town.
– The blacksmith can strengthen both weapons and shields.
– Dungeon shops are much more common.
– Armbands are more common too, but are also prone to cracking or smashing altogether if they take enough hits. Armbands can be melded, so there might be an unbreakable mod available later.
– Everything is much cheaper than before, e.g. a Melding Jar costs about 2250 instead of at least 6500. I haven’t had to buy one though, because they’re a non-rare dungeon drop. At the same time money drops don’t seem quite as plentiful.
– There’s a Dragon Quest-style bank where you can store some money before you go adventuring, so you don’t lose it all when (not if) you get killed.
– There are two pre-grinding spots in town. These are places where you can fight bosses, level up and pick up loot before heading into the dungeon proper. For free too, I might add. So you can start the main dungeon at level 10 if you want, though in typical roguelike fashion levels don’t really help.
– There’s a greater variety of enemies and items. Also some enemies are missing, e.g. I haven’t seen a Snaky, a Mini Robber or a Field Bandit yet.
– Enemies hit much harder/Shiren’s DEF is much lower. For example the humble Bowboy is a force to be reckoned with this time, since he hits for about 7 even if your level is high and you have a shield. Enemies seem to have rather more HP as well.
– Compatible weapons and shields resonate, giving you bonuses. E.g. Cudgels go with Wooden Shields, Katanas go with Iron Shields, etc. I’m not 100% clear what these bonus stats are, though. The only thing I know for sure is that Katana+Iron Shield = +20 HP, which is pretty sweet.
– Only one partner can join you per adventure, not three. They’re also surprisingly hardy now.
– The storehouse is much larger (since there’s only one) and is divided into two types, one where you just drop things on a platform and another where you hand stuff to an attendant.
– There’s a shop where you can rent a robot to go adventuring with you. Its job is to get killed (usually by Curse Girls) so it can level the enemy up. That said, every time it gets broken and you rent a new one, you get a more powerful version.
– Enemy encounters in corridors are much, much more common. I couldn’t understand why I felt compelled to fire arrows down corridors when I first started replaying Shiren 1. Now I know it’s because of the abundance of corridor enemies in later games.
– Curse Girls curse your stuff much more frequently. Again I couldn’t understand why Curse Girls were such a figure of dread for me when I restarted the first game, but now I remember why.
– Shiren DS 2 has ties to the Wii release of Shiren 3 and thus pushes you heavily to link the two, e.g. you get rewards for completing Shiren 3 rescues. I have no idea if the Japanese Shiren DS 2 and US Shiren 3 are compatible, though. Probably not.

You might be wondering why I didn’t notice all these differences the last time I played. It’s mostly because over one year passed between playing Mystery Dungeon Shiren the Wanderer and Fuurai no Shiren: Sabaku no Majo. That and I never really paid attention to the system in the first time round. Overall the sequel seems a little easier than the first game thanks to all the super-helpful items. I have a really good feeling about this replay of Shiren DS2. Let’s see if it pans out or not.

Related posts:

Fuurai no Shiren 2 – Sabaku no Majou Fuurai no Shiren 2 – I give up Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer redux – Aha, now I remember why I quit Fuurai no Shiren DS 2 – Finished!