asobimashou

[asobimashou]

The following was originally posted to Maidens of the Kaleidoscope. This post is only an archive and may contain responses to, questions for, or quotes from the originally forum thread, which, as of this writing, may be found here.

I vote that Denton is still wearing his nametag from the Valley Inn PTA meeting, so while he intends to go with option 2 and stay silent, it ends up as option 1 anyway.

-- dosboot

Parent-Teacher Association meeting? I didn't know Denton had kids. I thought he was a wanderer/ronin/UNATCO augmented agent.

-- AzyWng

It was a poorly thought out undercover/blending-in operation.

-- dosboot

I like this idea. I'll go with something like this idea.

Denton opts to stay quiet for the time being. The bartender seems rather disappointed. An awkward pause passes before the bartender notices the name tag on Denton's vest.

"And teh weasel's called Koppa. Well, you better know in advance that the trip through Impasse Valley is pretty rough. Better not overextend yourself trying to get there. Here's some food for ya. Take it with you."

Denton got Big Rice Ball!

Denton awkwardly thanks the bartender for the gesture. It looks like this whole "mysterious stranger" schtick isn't working out as well as anticipated. Denton's gaze soon begins wandering around the room restlessly, as is its wont.

"You'll be just as powerful as you were before, but you can use that monster's 'Skill' as well. If you want to use a skill, you can pick it with the X button, or just use it directly with the L button."

How strange! What Dreamland might the beasts of impasse valley come from? Denton vows to get to the bottom of this mystery, but immediately begins to feel that this attempt at apply logic to this strange land to be a wild condor chase.

Denton then turns to an elderly looking-man and attempts to make smalltalk, when... Aw hell nah. Seasoned wanderer Denton already knows all about the workings of magical pots -- he doesn't need to hear it from this geezer! Denton leaves before the man even realizes that his pot-addled pedagogical ramblings have fallen on deaf ears.

Finally, Shiren listens in on the conversation of two a grubby-looking men sitting next to the pot aficionado. "I tried to steal something, but the shopkeeper was darn powerful. And when I tried to get past him, I suddenly had even stronger guards and guard dogs after me... if you run into them, you'd better not try and face them straight up."

"If you're gonna steal, you gotta use your head, man! If you can think up a good plan you can get away with stealing easy," replies his companion.

Ah, good ol' Izchakian justice. Theft is a roguelike mechanic introduced by Hack, and depending on the game it can be anywhere from easy-cheesy-bordering-on-broken to prohibitively suicidal. This game hits a happy medium at "dangerous for the unprepared."

Satisfied, Denton leaves the now-familiar pub with a stride in his step.

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[asobimashou]

You All Meet at a Valley Inn

The following was originally posted to Maidens of the Kaleidoscope. This post is only an archive and may contain responses to, questions for, or quotes from the original forum thread, which, as of this writing, may be found here.

Seeing nothing else of interest in the town, Denton decides to check out the bar.

Listening in, we hear two men talking at our right: Adventurer: "Have you gotten past Tenma Pass?" Traveller: "Nah. It takes me everything I've got just to make it to the stream. Shit, if only I had a buddy to take with me, it'd be a lot easier..."

Oh, foul-mouthed fansubs. Whatever would we do without you?

Turning to us, a scruffy-haired wanderer speaks: "Strangers that pass out in the wilderness always end up getting sent back here to the Valley Inn. And nobody yet has made it to the Land of the Sun." He explains to us a bit of how roguelikes work.

From the far corner of the room, a fellow rain-hat-wearer catches our gaze and blurts out to us in the boisterous mumble of a drunken man: "*Hic*... I believe the stories! I believe the Golden Condor legend passed down from generation to generation here in Impasse Valley!"

Ignoring him, we continue to look about the r-

My my, who have we here?

"...Ah, sorry! But take a look around, there are nothing but grubby guys here, you know? And a lot of dirty old men too. So I'm glad to see a young guy like you for a change. Pleased to meet you!

"Talk to my dad, he'll give you some food."

Taking the girl's advice, we stop by the counter, speaking to the elegantly mustachioed gentleman we can only assume is the father of as fine a girl as present company.

Shall we tell him, Maidens, or shall we remain silent, fitly for an mysterious drifter like Denton?

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[asobimashou]

Inn the Beginning

The following was originally posted to Maidens of the Kaleidoscope. This post is only an archive and may contain responses to, questions for, or quotes from the original forum thread, which, as of this writing, may be found here.

BGM - "Valley Inn"

This is the Valley Inn, the beginning area of the game. After every death, of which you will undoubtedly see many over the course of this Let's Play, we get sent back here. Although it doesn't serve much purpose mechanically, It's a nice, comfy little area to start our quest each time we die horrible, and really helps add to the flavor of the game -- there's no real urgency to our hero's quest, no looming threat to the world that must be taken care of as soon as possible; Denton has all the time he needs to tackle Table Mountain. This allows the game to maintain plot continuity between runs -- if you get halfway through the dungeon before dying, any progress you make on any sidequests along the way is remembered by your save file, and is considered canon to the story. This stands in contrast to classic computer roguelikes, where "permanent death" means that every time you start a new run, you're creating an entirely different character -- even if most players will just reuse the same character template over and over. In this game, on the other hand, no matter how may times we splat, it'll still be the same Denton waking up in the same Valley Inn for a different day of horrible torture on the same road to the Land of the Sun.

Koppa: "It's a memento of his friend's. True that you don't see many Wanderers wearing them nowadays though." Man: "Whoa, you're a talking weasel! That's pretty uncommon too!"

Yes, very astute observation of you, Mr. Unnamed NPC. Any other smart remarks?

Hmm -- an inn in a town called "Valley Inn". Fascinating.

The man to the right is the warehouse guard, who explains to us how to properly take advantage of the warehouse -- but we'll be leaving him alone, because I'd rather explain it myself.

Warehouses are the first of the game's "mercy mechanics" as a console roguelike. Anything you stash in here will be saved between runs, leaving all its special properties intact, allowing you to hoard the best loot from your runs before equipping it all at once and heading for the Land of the Sun for real! This mechanic is probably the most important one out of all the mercy mechanics in the game, and the one that most distinctly sets it apart from more traditional mainframe roguelikes. There are some caveats to this mechanic, but we'll cross those bridges when we come to them.

In roguelike jargon, rules that keep track of some kind of progress between runs rather than during are called metaprogression. The most traditional of roguelikes have no metaprogression at all, so this can naturally be a very heated topic among roguelike purists! By the standards of indie neo-roguelikes, the metaprogression mechanics in Shiren the Wanderer are actually pretty weak, in that they don't have a significant impact on the overall gameplay experience, but by the standards of traditional roguelikes, the metaprogression elements in Shiren are quite strong.

The kanji for "warehouse" or "storehouse" is painted on a banner to the side of the door in elegant calligraphy. Denton stops to admire it. The localization in the DS release of the game changes all kanji signs to small pictures, like a sword or a mug of beer, hinting at the nature of the business inside, but this fan translation leaves all the kanji in for flavor -- and, presumably, the convenience of not having to edit any sprites.

No inn town in an RPG would be complete without a bar, of course. To our left is another kanji banner, this time with the kanji for sake on it -- this is the one that would be replaced with a slightly setting-inappropriate mug of beer if we were playing the DS version.

"You've got promise. So I'll tell ya something. Equip your arrows, then use the L button... and fire! Fire!! FIRE!!!!!"

Oookaaay. If I ever find any arrows, I'll keep that in mind, sir.

Denton takes note of the pub and reminds himself to come back to it later if he needs a little something to forget the horrors on the road ahead.

Heading east, his attention is drawn to a sign hanging out in the middle of the path. Denton stops for a moment to read it. It appears to be a scoreboard of some kind -- perhaps for a local gambling tournament. Wait... who was that Shiren person anyway?

The last object of interest in the town is this one last building. There don't seem to be any people standing around by it, and it has no sign with a name on it -- only another banner, with the kanji "番" -- ban, meaning "turn", "round", or "number of a series". I wonder what goes on in here?

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[asobimashou]

Annoying one-time expository backstory post, part deux: Image dump incoming!

The following was originally posted to Maidens of the Kaleidoscope. This post is only an archive and may contain responses to, questions for, or quotes from the original forum thread, which, as of this writing, may be found here.

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[asobimashou]

Annoying one-time expository backstory post, part the first: Rwise fum yo Gwave!

The following was originally posted to Maidens of the Kaleidoscope. This post is only an archive and may contain responses to, questions for, or quotes from the original forum thread, which, as of this writing, may be found here.

AHAHAHAH HAHA AHAHA HAHA HA

O YE OF LITTLE FAITH

Story

His name was Denton. Heeding a friend's dying wish, he started out on a long journey. It's been half a year since we met. Though we're constantly bickering...

Denton! Over there!

Come on! Let's go!

Koppa's theme

I'm Koppa. I'm one of a rare breed of "Talking Weasels." It was me that suggested we come to impasse valley. That's 'cause I heard the rumors of the Golden City. But getting this far has been really tough! Well, I was just sleeping in the luggage...

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[asobimashou]

Free as the Mountain Wind: Let’s Play Shiren the Wanderer!

The following was originally posted to Maidens of the Kaleidoscope. This post is only an archive and may contain responses to, questions for, or quotes from the original forum thread, which, as of this writing, may be found here.

This is ill-advised to say the least. I have just enough experience with this game to beat this game with a whole lot of grinding (although I suppose it isn't technically grinding -- more on this later), and I have ZIP ZILCH NADA GOOSE-EGG experience with Let's Plays, screenshot or otherwise.

Ah, what the hell; let's do this.

Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer is a console roguelike developed by Chunsoft for the Super Famicom in 1995. It was never exported to the US until a 2008 DS remake, which I won't be playing because of personal nitpicks, mostly about the loot generation tables.

The game is a classical roguelike, which means that it's got all of the standard roguelike conventions beyond simple permadeath and procedural generation: turn-based and grid-based exploration and combat, item identification, and hard-as-balls difficulty. Being a console game, it's got a few concessions to make the game easier for the kids, but funnily enough, those very things that make the game easier just make the game more painful to play. If that doesn't make sense to you, you'll see what I mean soon enough. Perfect for a filthy masochistic bitch like me, and perfect for filthy sadistic LP readers like you. Mark my words, there's a world of delightful agony in store for us.

The plot is simple enough that you've already seen most of it. What's really endearing about this game fluffwise is its cast and setting. We'll be introduced to both soon enough, so I won't waste any bandwidth on either here. Our hero is an enigmatic ronin samurai, about whose past little is ever revealed. That's really all you need to know to give him a name:

What shall it be, Maidens? 6 characters max.

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