Today's installment is a big one, and one of my all time favorites. Read on to find out why!

For previous entries in the series, go here

Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

Time Spent: over 170 hours

Completion: Finished main quest and just over half of the post-game dungeons

Platform: Switch

My first Shiren game was Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer on the DS. I bought it on the strength of its box art and its unique take on the Rogue formula. I ended up with over 300 hours played, completing not only the main quest but nearly every post game dungeon including Fay's final puzzle. It remains my favorite DS game and turned me into a devoted fan of the Shiren series. I even like the Wii title, even though i'll freely admit its flaws.

When this was announced for the Switch, I instantly preordered it. I put over 100 hours into it before finally moving on to something else, but I always meant to go back to it.

Thankfully, I've been able to do just that over the last month, finishing up a few more of the postgame dungeons and filling out more of the item and monster book. I remain as enchanted by it now as I did when I first booted it up. It's truly special.

Shiren is both very much like Rogue and very much its own experience. It's a turn-based dungeon crawl with permadeath, unidentified items that can be beneficial or harmful, and dangerous enemies that can end your run in an instant.

It also has several ways to make things easier for you. You can tag weapons or shields so that they'll show up in a "lost and found" rather than being lost forever. You can meld swords and shields together in order to combine their attributes, and further upgrade equipment and store it away for a future run. It's even possible to abandon your run and escape with all your items through the use of escape scrolls or Undo grass, giving you a huge head start on your next run. You can store items in various warehouses along the way, so that you can use them the next time you get that far.

Powerful equipment alone won't guarantee your success unless you're clever and careful. There are enemies in the later game that can kill you in one blow no matter how strong your shield, knock your gear away, seal its special abilities, or even turn it into riceballs. You need to use every trick at your disposal to survive, and even that might not be enough.

How well does it reward experimentation and improvisation?

There is a phenomenal amount of depth to the systems in Shiren games. I've played this one for over 170 hours and I'm still finding out new ways to use items and deal with enemies. Some of them I found through logical deduction, others through reading the lore in the bestiary or item book, and still others through blind luck. The monsters follow basically the same rules as Shiren, and that's the key to understanding how to find and exploit secrets.

With one or two exceptions, every item in the game is useful. Items that give benefits to your enemies can be used to your advantage under the right circumstances, and items that harm you can be turned on your enemies. I won't eat poison grass, but I'll throw it at a dangerous enemy to slow them down enough to give me time to flee.

Some things that heal you can be deadly to certain enemies. An Antidote will restore your strength if you're poisoned, but it will instantly kill some enemies that poison you. Monsters that turn your items into rice balls will choke on one if it's thrown at them.

Seemingly useless items can turn out to be incredibly useful in the right circumstances. There's a bracelet that's cursed to make you miss every time you throw an item. This is not great! However, it allows you to do some things that are ordinarily impossible. Monsters can't trigger traps, but an item that's dropped on the trap square will trigger it. Items that miss will drop on the square under the target. Lure a monster onto a trap tile, throw something that misses them, and you'll trigger the trap! I found this out completely by accident, and it saved me from a potentially lethal situation.

There are so many things to learn, and ways to use items in combination to get out of seemingly impossible situations. It's remarkable how much complexity the developers created out of seemingly simple systems.

How well does it teach you from your failures?

Shiren is a textbook example of a game that is "tough but fair." Every death is a learning experience. In almost every case, you'll notice something you could have done differently to survive. Perhaps you should have used a different item, or prioritized different monsters, or even run away. Maybe you learned that a particular status effect doesn't work on that monster, or you discovered that its special ability was more dangerous than you thought. You file that away for next time, and hopefully remember it the next time you encounter a similar situation.

Not every failure is fatal. The first time a Swordsman knocks your sword away into another enemy, destroying the sword and leaving you with only your fists, you learn to fight them with your back to the wall. When a Gazer hypnotizes you into throwing your equipment away, you learn to neutralize them quickly. Once a confused monster defeats another one and levels up into a more lethal form, you learn what a double-edged sword a confusion scroll can be.

The more you play, the more you learn. And there is a LOT to learn.

What's the risk/reward calculus?

Everything carries some sort of risk/reward choice. Fight or flee? Use a limited-use item to ensure victory, or take a chance with melee combat? Explore each floor fully in order to get everything you can, risking more and more dangerous battles, or rush towards the exit?

You can only hold onto 24 items at one time. There are pots that can hold multiple items and expand your carrying capacity, but you can't plan on finding too many of them in any given run. You'll fill up your inventory pretty quickly, and at that point every new item you come across forces you to make a difficult choice. Is this new item going to be more valuable than one you already have? What are you willing to give up to get it? This gets harder and harder the more you play, since you want to be prepared for every eventuality.

What's the "just one more run" factor?

It's extremely high. You want to put your newfound knowledge to use, and see more of what the game has to offer. During the main story you'll run into different characters that need your help or offer to help you. Some of them only show up in specific floors, and they won't always appear . You often need more than one run to complete their tasks, and the rewards for doing so are always worth it. It's a compelling loop that keeps pushing you to try one more time.

After finishing the main story, there are a huge number of dungeons to unlock and explore. Some of them are quite standard, while others change the rules to create a whole new experience. They offer some extremely valuable equipment that can't be found in the story dungeons, giving you a great reason to keep trying.

Where does it rank?

It's one of the best of the genre, and does almost everything right. If you are at all interested in the genre, it's a must-play. It's the new number 1!