Is that DS ejecting a cart in your pocket? Shiren

(tags game, RPG, Dual Screen, Shiren)

To tell you the truth, I haven't been playing Shiren since last Friday. On that day, I decided to chance an epic adventure through many floors I haven't seen. Unknown floors, unknown danger! And I got past them with luck and skill on my side, even while escorting a NPC. I think it was floor 16 or something, where I got to the third town. I felt really satisfied with Shiren, despite the constant fear of losing my progress while on my concentration-breaking commute.

Anyways, I had to put away the DS for a moment, so I closed the cover while the power was on and stuffed it in my bag. The next time I checked up on it, though, the cart was sticking out. Oh no! Yes, I lost my progress, because "this save game is corrupt so resetting your save to level 1". Argh! I don't carry epic swords any more, but to think that all that time levelling up gone made me... not turn on the DS for a week. Haahhaha. :-/

It's a Monster House!

(tags game, RPG, Dual Screen, Shiren)

In Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, I recently playing through the same floor 8 over and over again. I found that the usual room corridor room layout was replaced with one huge room filled with baddies. This configuration is called a "Monster House" in game. I got away from one Monster House through luck, and the second time around, though I was totally surrounded by Spike Bombs, I got through one using some skill. Yay me. Then again it's only floor 8.

I am getting impatient because I don't know if I have enough progress (XP and/or items) to handle the next unknown floor. And the next unknown floor will definately kill me, since I play like I'm in Zelda and not a Rogue-alike. Pretty much when I die, I suspend exploration to re-level up my character, which is pretty much lost time.

I am reminded of the Slashdot thread "Have Modern Gamers Lost the Patience For Puzzles?" Perhaps my Final Fantasy gaming has caused me to first consider overpowering any game tactic with brute force. Then again I still like Sudoku (even though I am never going to play it again) and Rubik's Cube.

Unfortunately I keep on bouncing between floors 1 through 10. I only get the rank of "Baby Adventurer" so I must be missing out on a lot of the game. I need more gold to build better weapons, or I need more weapons so I can get rid of or get pass enemies, but this game doesn't drop enough stuff.

I am not looking at a Gamefaq, though. No matter how many times that thought comes to mind I am not going to give in. I will either quit the game or keep trying.

Three in a day: fight, shmup, tile rpg

(tags game, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Dual Screen, Soul Calibur, Geometry Wars, Shiren)

I started off the day realizing that I can't be moving forward in Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer without scraping the earlier levels for experience. Or at least that's the rationalization after losing my +8 sword of brilliance from a merely innocuous foray into the next area. To think that I hate games that lose more than 15 minutes of my progress, and here I am trying to play this game more. The DS needed battery charging so I let it sit out a day.

Geometry Wars 2 on the brain. Pacifism mode is the total bomb, worth the 800 XBLP alone. I have stick control, if only before my hand tremors set in. Yesterday, I scored my personal best, 140+ million. I really love "sticking a fork in it", which I describe the technique of "popping the dumbbell" when embedded in the blue diamond blob. This is totally risky play, of course. Geoms are the "crack" I can't stop picking up, and slipping through the gaps of incoming blue blobs is pure delight. The other modes are shoot shoot shoot which is nice, but my dissatisfaction with the tighter spray in comparison to GW1 irritates me. Then again in GW1, I always liked the tighter mode instead of the spray because the former was faster. Today, I have trouble breaking 70+ million so I let it slide after probably an hour of effort. Erratic performance.

And Soul Calibur 4. An online friend got all of the Achievement Points before me, which makes me irritated. Online is something I give up, but I can't figure out how he got through the Survival mode (I can only get to 5) and Mission mode (I can only get to 20). Or how he got all the goods. There must be some gold laundering scheme in the online, that's got to be it. In any case, I am continuing to unlock the swords and costumes in single player. At the same time I'm trying to set the Style level for each character to max. This is work, not fun. And I do it for the Achievement Points.

Nothing special: Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer

(tags game, Dual Screen, Shiren)

Another import game from the recent shipment was the Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer for the Dual Screen. On my blogroll, Insert Credit IRC fellow and I POST ALL CAPS blog titles "Sub" posted a pwnage review of this game recently, and I decided to get the game in English. Just 45 minutes and I've already been killed 3 times, got 80% of my gold stolen, reset hard and fast. But this is intriguing. I'm not yet frustrated! I'm still one of those coddle gamers, though. Losing special items kinda hurts, but I let it go, because they are not special, right?

I am reminded of the recent in store display of Shiren across various consoles at a used game store. The Dreamcast version of Shiren was going for a pricey 6800 yens, while other versions were at a pretty low price, relatively. Plus, I learned just recently that the Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon games were also made by Chun Soft. I wonder if these are relatively easy Rogue-alikes?

Before I sleep, I'm going to try to make it to the next village. Again.

Shiren Adventuring and other fantasies

(tags game, Dual Screen, PlayStation Portable, Shiren)
(originally written: 2008-06-24 22:24)

I commented on Sub's Shiren's Mysterious Dungeon win. SMD is an Rogue-alike that puts forces you to consider gambling, as in gambling your life. Anyways his post made me want to get the English version of this DS game. Okay, the Japanese version is 2500 yen now bargain binned, but I rather play these inventory-heavy games in English. Play Asia sells the one I want for 3500 yen. Hm, no buy. I checked A-Too in Nipponbashi, and there was nothing. They are surprisingly strong with import console games, but not portable games. So anyways, I got the PC Japanese "Internet-enabled" version from 2003, just to get a feel. It was only 500 yen unopened. But I don't really like gaming on my PC anymore. Watch me track down the DS english version again.

Which reminds me, on Saturday I picked up Monster Hunter 2nd and Jeanne D'Arc for 880 yen and 1280 yen respectively. I gave the first MH a shot months ago but the first hour didn't hook me. The recent news about MH2G uplifting PSP hardware sales made me give the series a second chance. So I started evaluating MH2 but it feels so slow. "Now Loading". Everything is slow in this game. I'm sure PSP Lite won't fix all the loading screens. I feel my concentration ebbing, my brain becoming lethargic.

My Rubik's Cube hobby has poisoned my expectations by giving me feeling of completion, every minute.