Thanks to Spike Chunsoft for the review code

Title: Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island
System: Nintendo Switch
Price: $59.99
Release Date: 02/27/2024

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Prelude

You know, I never thought this day would come. The day I’d review a Mystery Dungeon game pre launch in any capacity, let alone a Shiren game of all things considering how long that branch of the MD series has been on hiatus. The last Shiren of any sort came out in 2010, as Shiren 5, before later getting localized to Shiren the Wanderer: Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate for the Vita, followed by a Steam and Switch port.

As one of the defining Roguelike series in Japan, and a series that changed my life forever in the form of the Pokemon branch of the series, I grew a huge appreciation for Shiren, Mystery Dungeon, and Chunsoft as a whole in the years since, and have dabbled in prior Shiren titles a little bit like Shiren GB2, the original SFC entry, and soccer spinoff NETSAL. So when Shiren 6 was announced I was super excited to see how they could make a new original Mystery Dungeon and if Tomie-san’s team would be able to pull off the feat of feeling fresh and recapturing that addictive feel of prior MD titles, with some modern sensibilities and polish.

Well, I think they might have.

Story

Taking place after the events of the first Game Boy game, Shiren and Koppa leave the Moonlight Village, hearing about an island in the distance known as the Serpentcoil Island. Filled with treasures and mystery, the two set out, only to get wiped out by a terrifying force, and thus having to deal with a long trek back to the core of the island, all while helping the various villages and townspeople along the way, as Shiren investigates the mystery of the island itself in the process…

Overall, I found the main story to Shiren 6 to be a pretty fun tale with a lot of charm to it. Sure, the bulk of the game consists of your attempts at the main dungeon, but throughout that dungeon are various towns and rest areas containing a variety of NPCs, each with their own thing to say and some with sidequests to offer you, leading to completely new routes in the dungeon opening up the longer you attempt the main 32 floor gauntlet.

It was here in these sidequests where I felt Shinichiro Tomie’s writing truly shined in the way I recognized, as the character interactions here were very well written and showed wonderful growth, with each arc I came across having a good moral to reflect on. Still, the main narrative is fine enough as is, just don’t expect anything super in-depth like his Pokemon Mystery Dungeon work, and instead take it for the fun adventure tale it is, and you’ll have a blast with the writing. The localization team did an especially good job here, too.

Presentation

Considering the last Shiren game was originally a DS title, which itself was based off the visual style used in the DS remake of the very first Shiren game, it should come as no surprise that Shiren 6 goes for a more modern look, one that returns to the 3D nature of Shiren 2/3, but much, much better looking than the latter game, with a style more akin to the N64 classic of Shiren 2. Everyone is in 3D again, and the characters look delightfully goofy, and while it may seem a bit jarring at first going from gorgeous sprites to somewhat chibi models, the game manages to pull it off and look excellent when you’re in the dungeons, with great visibility, faithful monster designs, and distinct environments. It also brings back the handy stream-friendly UI option that Shiren 5’s Switch port introduced, making for a very helpful display option if you want absolutely everything on screen.

Generally, I much, much prefer the way this game looks over Rescue Team DX solely due to not having a weird filter slapped on, and the game isn’t shy from incorporating some funny animations during cutscenes or certain status effects. The game definitely knows when to be a looker during certain cutscenes as well, and over the course of the adventure you can gain in-game achievements that unlock a variety of key art for the title screen menu, all of which look outstanding and done in a classical 2D style akin to the game’s box art. Really the only complaint I have to give to the visuals comes from how plain certain towns of the game can look, as some of them look rather flat compared to the more striking dungeon biomes. Still, the game itself runs pretty damn well, so if that was what it took for the performance to be so good, I’ll take a few flat looking towns and textures.

Audio wise, I am overjoyed to say that Keisuke Ito has knocked it out of the park once again. Just like his godlike work in Super Mystery Dungeon, he comes back with a whole new range of compositions, a lot of which are brand new to the Shiren series and are very, very well done. His somber musical style echoes through in a lot of the biomes you’ll traverse during the adventure, boosting each attempt through the dungeon with a musical treat to the ears, and even the story scenes have some pretty impactful music, while boss fights and monster houses have truly epic songs fitting of the situation. Sound effects are pretty typical for the series, including a couple of SE you might recognize from the 3DS Pokemon Mystery Dungeon titles.

Considering how I felt Shiren 5′s OST was a lot less memorable than earlier entries, this is an absolute return to form in the best way imaginable, and is honestly one of my favorite Mystery Dungeon soundtracks as a whole, and my new favorite OST in the Shiren series, barely managing to squeak past that of GB2’s OST, and Ito did outstanding work here that I cannot praise highly enough. Definitely a soundtrack to buy whenever it comes out on CD.

Gameplay

Being a Mystery Dungeon game, the core concept is simple, especially if you’ve played a spinoff, prior MD (like the Pokemon ones) or clone of this before. You go into a top-down dungeon of randomly generated floors, find your way to the exit in a turn-based format, and proceed to the next floor until you reach the end of the dungeon. Sounds simple, but Shiren 6 is punishing, and Shiren 6 demands your full, undivided attention if you ever hope to clear the main 32 floor dungeon. You start at level 1 when entering the dungeon, will often start with nothing unless you manage to have an item saved at the storehouse, and have to build your experience up and manage the situation each new floor will throw at you, one level at a time.

Yes, this means you can easily end up in situations where you start a run with no weapons or shields in sight on the first several floors. Yes, you can still find items to survive despite this. And yes, sometimes you can even end up bricking yourself if you let enemies surround you or go down a bad route and are low on resources. Unlike the Pokemon branch of the series, (where the only thing remotely close to this difficulty were post-game level reset dungeons), every move counts here, and that leads to tons of fun strategies and careful planning. You might think it’s a good idea to rush into a crowded room to beat up enemies for EXP, only to get cornered and have 3 attacks come at you in one turn to obliterate you. Back to the starting town you go!

Of course, one might wonder what on earth the point of dying and having to redo the whole thing would be if you don’t get to keep any of your items or Gitan money upon death, but thankfully Shiren 6 offers a bunch of incentives to keep at it and get better and better. Each run reveals the enemies you met on each floor, along with adding whatever items, statuses, traps or enemies you encountered to a bestiary, leading to each dungeon run being a means to buildup your collection! There are also towns along the way, each with their own batch of NPCs, shops, warehouses, and even sidequests to discover, with said sidequests often leading to their own separate dungeons or alternate routes that offer unique challenges, serving as great practice for that main dungeon and short bits you can feel proud of conquering even if the main dungeon still gives you trouble. Each death basically is a learning experience, ala old-school arcade games, and I absolutely adore that.

It also helps that even if you die a bunch of times in a row very early on, you’ll still discover new stuff and features to play around with, such as a practice room where you can generate your own dungeon room of enemies and traps to challenge yourself with, the ability to encounter companions that you can recruit if you run across them during the main dungeon, or shopkeepers and NPCs that may do a handy favor for you such as trading an item you don’t need or taking one of your items from your inventory back to the warehouse in the starting area. (meaning you can start a run with a strong item, especially if you stuff a bunch of them in a pot and just deposit that) There’s so much variety to experiment with, and the random dungeon generator really helps to cut down the repetitive feel that these games often spark when you revisit the same floors over and over again.

Oddly enough, I seldom felt that way, especially when the items you stumble upon can be so drastically different between runs. One time I got crazy lucky and found three revival grasses almost back to back midway through the dungeon, only to get cornered by a Minotaur shortly afterward, while on my winning run, I got two invincible grasses, encountered a very helpful companion, and stocked up on room-clearing windblade scrolls to pretty much steamroll my way through the second half of the dungeon.

The Shiren team definitely took notes from their more recent MD efforts, and refined the gameplay loop into a ludicrously good balance that brings back the arcadey aspects of prior games, while not going overboard on the more frustrating aspects, making this game flat out addicting, moreso than any other MD title I’ve played to date!

Even if you end up with no weapon for several floors and it seems hopeless, there’s always the urge to grind against enemies and scout a full floor for goodies just in case you might get lucky and find equipment to turn the tides, and considering how even items like arrows and pebbles can prove especially useful when unarmed, there was never a moment I felt like giving up on a run, even when dealing with seemingly impossible situations like the Behemoth Gates, which spawn a gigantic enemy on a floor that can be killed from behind, but will more likely than not just hunt you down until it grows bored and vanishes into thin air.

The amount of times I felt bricked, only to realize an item I seldom used beforehand like knockback wands or a sleep scroll saved me in the nick of time led to so, so many fun moments of satisfaction, and even if those runs ultimately ended in failure later, they were still fun and great teaching experiences, just as a good roguelike should be.

All of that gushing about the mechanics, and that doesn’t even get into the crazier stuff Shiren 6‘s post game will throw at you. The main dungeon may be tricky, but you’ll at least know which items will do what save for some bracelets now and then, but once alternate routes and post-game dungeons start showing up? Hoooo boy, I hope you like having every single scroll or weapon be completely unknown before identifying it, leading to lots of instances where you may put a sword on only to find it’s terrible and cursed and cannot be unequipped, or using a scroll that you think might help you, only for it to do something completely unexpected. This is where the true hardcore challenge lies, and only masters will be able to make it to the post-story ending, which I was unable to do in time for the review.

Still, you have an absurd amount of content and more things to do as you work through the post-game at your own pace, and as more facilities and features open up, clearing the main Serpentcoil Island is just the beginning of a grand assortment of fun, challenging dungeons to tackle, and with a bunch of in-game achievements and unlockables and bestiaries to complete, you’ll have tons of extra opportunities for addictive fun.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I am so, so happy to say that Shiren 6 managed to do what the prior Shirens I liked just couldn’t accomplish; breaking the barrier of entry without resorting to just being an easy game. A lot of prior Shiren games were super fun and enjoyable, but darn tough to beat, and even the best of runs in a few of them could feel like they came about due to sheer luck alone.

Here in Shiren 6 though? This gameplay loop is near perfection, and the addiction factor manages to be very high here. I always got a bit of that feeling Super Mystery Dungeon’s challenge level gave me in prior Shiren entries I tried, but Shiren 6 is the first to truly replicate the joy I felt strategizing escape scenarios and item management, and being overwhelmingly satisfied when a miracle was pulled off. Lemme tell you, using a wand to zip through a wave of enemies and sneak away to the stairs is just as delightful here as it ever was, and Shiren 6 is just full of those fun moments, even if you will die again, and again, and again. Still, you’ll be unlocking side quests, building up your bestiary, and learning better strategies with each defeat, so even losing manages to be fun and offers incentive to just keep at it!

The fact this game manages to do a good enough job easing new players in despite all that, and offers some much needed help in the form of warehouses to store goodies and NPC companions to aid you in combat (often rewarded by completing said sidequests, making the detour dungeons feel satisfying to discover and complete), really do make this feel a lot closer to the earliest Shiren games, but with a modern QOL touch, and I can’t help but admit that I was just flat out addicted to this game throughout my entire review period as I worked at the main dungeon, before finally nailing that perfect run and feeling like a champ.

Even if it took a good while to finally beat the main story dungeon, each attempt was super fun, whether that was because I was discovering new items for my catalog, trying out risky strategies with items to see what worked and what didn’t, or slowly building up the warehouses on the path to prep for that perfect run, Shiren 6 has it all, managing to nail the roguelike feel to near perfection and becoming almost arcade-like with its addictive factor. Add in a super challenging post game where the more classical rogue elements are featured, and you easily have a content packed game where the main story is just the start of a grand challenge, one I’ll easily be diving into to fully perfect for many months to come. Seriously, those in-game achievements and the bestiary will take a good while to fully complete, and cataloging each floor’s monster lineup is almost as addicting of a goal as the gameplay loop.

And for that, I definitely think Shiren 6 succeeds at being a new high point for the MD series as a whole, along with being the perfect Shiren game for newcomers to start out with! Whether you’re a PMD fan who loved the challenge dungeons and wanted more of that thrill, a roguelike fan who just likes to try again and again until you nail that perfect run, or even one of those old school fans of Torneko on the PS1, this is definitely a phenomenal roguelike and easily the best Mystery Dungeon game on Switch as a whole, and one of the best roguelikes on the entire system, hands down.

Even when I initially thought of Shiren 6 as a very good Mystery Dungeon game that focused on gameplay over story, I was quickly blown away by just how much depth there was to this island, and the sheer amount of extra stuff there is to do after beating that main dungeon is just proof that addictive, well-balanced gameplay is the best quality a game can have. If you’ve ever been curious as a Pokemon MD fan on what its inspiration was like, then Shiren 6 is absolutely the best possible starting point for anyone craving more Mystery Dungeon action, and easily will be a game I’ll keep going back to again and again for many moons to come.

I give Shiren The Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island a 10 out of 10.