Collection essentials #193: Fushigi no Dungeon 2: Fūrai no Shiren / Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer (SNES)

I have covered one game that could be considered a “roguelike” so far, that being the first ToeJam & Earl. These games are inspired by the old computer game “Rogue”, and the premise is that you’re trying to get through a randomly-generated dungeon using whatever weapons and items you can find, and surviving to the end is usually quite difficult.

Roguelikes have always been a bit of a niche genre, appealing to a certain type of gamer who wants a challenge and enjoys the variety that comes with randomness, though the style has gotten more popular thanks to indie games in the past decade. “Mystery Dungeon” has long been one of the biggest names in the world of roguelikes, with Pokémon Mystery Dungeon probably being the most popular, outside Japan at least. The first Mystery Dungeon game was on the Super Famicom and featured Torneko from the very popular Dragon Quest IV. After that game, the developers did what was perhaps a gutsy move in making the second mystery dungeon game ditch the popular IP and go for entirely original characters. Enter Shiren the Wanderer.

How does Shiren the Wanderer play? If you look at a screen shot of the game, it looks like an overhead-view action RPG with combat perhaps comparable to Zelda. But it’s actually a turn-based game. You can press a direction to move, but if you don’t move, the enemies won’t either. The game’s areas are divided into square spaces, and moving one space takes up a turn, as is taking a single action like swinging your weapon. This makes gameplay highly strategic, and rewards players who try to optimize using their turns to the fullest, such as moving in such a way that you will get the first strike on enemies rather than them taking a chunk out of your health first.

I’m not going to explain all the gameplay elements at work here because it’s too much. But basically, there are all kinds of useful items, weapons and shields to find along the way. They can be scattered randomly on the ground free to be picked up, or you might find a shop in the middle of nowhere where you can purchase things. There are also towns every now and then in which you can do various things like rest, shop, have a blacksmith improve your weapon, and more. 

As I mentioned before, the game’s dungeons are randomized every time you play. Once you get through 30 areas, you’ve beaten the game. It probably takes roughly two hours to get that far, assuming you’re successful. But that’s the thing; you’re not going to be, not right away at least. This game is super hard!! You are going to die over and over again. Sometimes you’ll have a great run and lose it to a stroke of bad luck, or one wrong move. It can seem brutal and frustrating.

But this game is absolutely exhilarating. The randomized nature of it makes every run feel fresh. There are so many interesting situations you can find yourself in, and I just love figuring out how to best survive in each one. Dying can be so sad, but when you’re hooked on this game, you want to just get right back on the saddle and have another go. And the thing is, when you die, you learn a little more about the game. When you do better in this game, it’s usually because you earned it, and that satisfaction feels so very good. This game also will gradually make things marginally easier for you over the course of your runs, as you can find permanent upgrades or make friends with non-enemy characters who will join up with and fight for you whenever you see them after being befriended. 

It is remarkable how well they nailed it with this second Mystery Dungeon game. I first played it in 2013, and I believe it was the third roguelike game I had played up to that point, and this was the one that truly sealed my love for the genre. They have made very many Mystery Dungeon games since this one, and one even came out earlier this year. But none of them that I’ve played deviate super far away from the formula that this game established, nor does this old game feel outdated or irrelevant in comparison, in my opinion. Mystery Dungeon 2 is not only one of my favorite SNES games (which is saying a lot), but one of my favorite games, period. A golden essential.