Being let down with Chocobo Dungeon on the Wii, I heard Shiren the Wanderer was having a sequel on Wii, which only meant one thing – Me being very excited.  

It goes without saying how much I enjoyed Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer on the Nintendo DS, it was brutally hard, excellent writing (I laughed out loud at many moments), and these moments where each experience is a story worth sharing. I still pick up the game and play it from time to time, and from the 2 years I had the game I still couldn’t get past the 27th floor of the 100 or so.

I didn’t know what to expect from the Wii sequel, thought it might lose its accessibility that the DS game benefited from (granted that was a SNES remake), later on Atlus introduced a few things that kinda got me worried, I started seeing a cliched anime-style story and boss battles, things I do not want in a game like Shiren the Wanderer.

So like the last Shiren the Wanderer game, you play as Shiren… A wanderer… in fuedal Japan… again… He gets this tip from his Sensei about a hidden mansion on top of a mountain, that is said to be holding treasures for those able to reach it. Later you find out that the mansion is guarded by four mountain guardians that will only open the path to the mansion to whomever can defeat them. As you march on, you stumble upon obstacles in your path that elongate your journey, deja vu?

Rather than being a long string of floors, the floors are divided into locations laid out on a world map, giving it a little more of an action RPG feel than the usual Roguelike. If you have notice I JUST used the term Roguelike in this review just now since the game kind of makes it a little more hidden than your usual Roguelike, sure it’s there whenever you go into a dungeon but it’s nothing like the DS version.

Sure you lose all your items when you die, but your levels sticks and your progress never restarts. Maybe that’s a good thing in a game with this kind of story structure, it feels a lot slower than the DS version, there are bosses which happen to be a nuisance from how pathetically weak they are compared to many of the monsters you face, a story that seems to be fresh from anime cliche mill and “obtain jewels from neighboring dungeons to open the main dungeon” kind of game play. If this game had me restart to the very beginning with these kind of things in hand, I would have shot myself.

AI works a lot differently that it does in the DS version, it’s a lot, for the lack of a better word, dumber. Party members will almost always follow you, and unlike in the DS version where they will wander around the floor to kill monsters, they will stop wherever they are if you go too far away. Though this time you can give them commands to make them do whatever you want them to do from a series from a series of orders, but what I don’t get is why can’t they be more like the DS version? They never got in the way, and they never interfered with your exploration, in this game if they wander too far and attack a monster, the camera cut to them as they attack then get back to you, which is very irritating and will force to stick to having them follow you.

The controls, while being very similar to Chocobo Dungeon, I was kind of disappointed that the vertical wii remote controls that were excellent in Chocobo Dungeon, the only way to play it is in the standard vertical layout.

While the game has flaws, there are a few neat things that I did like. Dual wielding was something interesting in this game, while yes having a shield is something very crucial in the game (as some monsters are ridiculous hard hitters), the double damage seems to be something worth the risk. Something else I enjoyed was that party members were able to equip shields and weapons too, this is a major advantage. One more thing I really liked was the self centered map that shifts around as you cover more parts of it, giving the dungeon floors more scale.

No where near as good as the DS game, Shiren The Wanderer still has some qualities that make this game a quality product more than Chocobo Dungeon.

What We Think: If you’re a newcomer to roguelikes and thought Chocobo Dungeon was a little too simplified, I suggest you give Shiren the Wanderer on Wii a go, but keep in mind it is nowhere near as good (or as brutal) as Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer on DS.

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