Shio to Ayakashi no Mori (Shio and the Mysterious Forest) is a dungeon exploration game from my favorite indie developers, Inu to Neko. Normally I portion out their Ishwald games here and there instead of playing them back to back, but shortly after I posted about Rakunou Princess, a power outage destroyed my save progress in that game. I was so close to 100% completion too, aaaaargghh. The pain and anguish sent me running for comfort, and I landed square at the feet of Shio to Ayakashi no Mori. Take responsibility for me, Inu to Neko!
Unfortunately, Inu to Neko’s strengths lie in crafting and simulation games, not in dungeon crawling, so my foray was doomed from the start. When I played Dungeon Shoujo a while ago, I said that I actually want to crawl dungeons and battle enemies in my dungeon crawling games. So to its credit, Shio to Ayakashi no Mori does offer a slightly more traditional experience. Not fully traditional i.e. battles play out automatically and there is no map, but you do get to choose where to go, what the rewards will be, when to fight bosses, you have to manage a limited resource pack and forage for items to craft better stuff, and so on, and so forth.
Pick where you want to go and who you want to fight.
The story (even though dungeon crawlers don’t need stories!) is that monsters are running wild in a previously peaceful forest, so adventurer Shio takes it upon herself to find out why. Eventually she sort of finds out why (rampaging dragon) and solves the problem, roll credits, the end. Simple and short, my kind of story. The game keeps going after that, which makes sense because we don’t know why the dragon was rampaging. in other Inu to Neko games I would keep playing for much longer to try and get the true ending of the game, but with Shio to Ayakashi no Mori, I’m kinda done.
The reason is because normally the Ishwald games squeeze in some crafting and shopkeeping no matter the genre, and that keeps things interesting for me. That same system is present here, but you have to forage for almost everything you have instead of being able to buy it/trade for it/unlock it after selling enough. It’s like Etrian Odyssey or similar games, if you’ve played those. And for me, having to find strawberries and jars and syrup every time I want to make a little strawberry jam got real old, real quick. A little automation would have gone a long way to improving the experience.
To make money, I resorted to selling raw materials most of the time and only occasionally making stuff to sell. Crafting just wasn’t worth the hassle, IMO. Especially since item that hasn’t sold after you come back from the dungeon three times is destroyed forever. Even if it’s stuff like stones and jewels, ridiculous.
To solve that, you might be tempted to just ignore crafting and selling, except to make a few items for personal use. However, without selling stuff, it’s hard to make enough money to unlock new recipes and upgrades. Yes, you have to pay good money to do almost everything in this game, from better weapons to more HP, a bigger inventory, cold resistance, friend abilities, you name it, you gotta pay for it.
Too poor to pay? Then scram!
Not only do you have to pay for it, but you also need materials which may or may not drop when you go exploring. E.g. even if a place is supposed to drop coins, it might not give you the yellow coins you need for an upgrade, or a herb place might not give the Ako fruit you need, etc. It’s a royal PITA trying to get everything together, especially since you don’t feel all that much stronger from most of the upgrades. Collect as many guild tickets and coins as you can and be very careful before selling them, that’s my advice.
All that hassle is bearable in small doses, but it doesn’t encourage me to keep playing once I’ve ostensibly solved the main problem of the game. Still, it’s not all bad. It kept me busy for about 20 hours, and I appreciated both the quick resolution of the story and the lightning speed of exploration (and combat, if you choose). I’m playing SMT V right now and it is SO sluggish, I just wanna cry. For all of its flaws and frustrations, Shio to Ayakashi no Mori is a fast-moving game, with each exploration session taking only a minute or two.
Overall, it was a nice little experience. I wasn’t as addicted as I was with other Inu to Neko games, but I still found myself returning to it repeatedly and never feeling compelled to play. I’m not in the habit of giving number ratings, but this would be a solid 6.5 to 7.0 IMO: respectable, but nothing special. I’m glad I played it, now I’m ready to get back to my regularly scheduled games.
Update: I played about 20 more hours after I said I was done. Haha. It got better after the false end, actually. Harder too, because the weather changes get more extreme, the traps get deadlier and more frequent, and the enemies get harder so you need to keep good weapons and watch your HP. Crafting is still an afterthought, but you can make good money just by selling the better raw materials you get from later dungeons, so that’s good.
IIRC the story was that the dragon we fought went mad… can’t remember why… so the King of Dragons Alicia was going to exterminate him, but Shio got there before he did. As thanks, he offers to train her by letting her fight him. I made my way over and beat him, and he said “That doesn’t count! Now I’m going to get serious!” and retreated even further into the forest. He’s the last boss I have to beat now, and I was getting my ducks in a row in terms of weaponry, support items, etc. when I started playing Romancing Saga Re;Universe and Shining Nikki again and lost interest. Ooops.
I thought I was out of the gacha woods after uninstalling Epic Seven (for now), but you know how nature abhors a vacuum. And regular RPGs like SMT V just aren’t doing it for me. They’re so BORING. Actually the main thing I’m doing right now is replaying Picross 3D Second Round, so even gacha games aren’t holding my attention that strongly. Ahh, Picross. What would I do without you? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some stats to grind in RS.
Will you be trying out their second go at a new Atelier gachagacha? (Atelier Resleriana, I think it was?)
I was going to, but I realized I would have to jump through hoops with QooApp and Japanese Google accounts, etc. and decided not to bother. Nowadays my policy is not to play any game that the developer doesn’t want me to play. “Take your insular mindset and *beeeeep*!”
Okay, it’s out in English now. Giving it a try, but it runs poorly on my phone, and battles take forever so I dunno about this one.