Shiren the Wanderer 3 soon to punish Wii owners

by JC Fletcher { Sep 7th 2007 at 9:45AM }

Chunsoft's ridiculously difficult Roguelike series, Fushigi no Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren, is getting a new installment on the console that we kind of thought would be the least likely destination for crazy-hard games. The new edition, Fuurai no Shiren 3, will be in (very nice-looking) full 3D, and will contain a new item-growth feature in which items left in certain spots will improve after a certain number of turns.

Perhaps our favorite thing about this game is that it renders a common criticism of the Wii invalid. As of right now, the Wii officially has the most "hardcore" game of any next-gen console. We do feel a little bit bad about Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon, which is pretty much redundant now.

Tags: chunsoft, fuurainoshiren, mysteriousdungeon, roguelike, shirenthewanderer

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

ELIJAH @ Sep 7th 2007 9:59AM

Is it me or have they started making games easier especially on the wii, I believe this conspiracy was concocted to appeal to casual gamers. Declining difficulty cant be blamed on my intellect no longer.

samfish @ Sep 7th 2007 10:03AM

Making games easier? Pfft – games have been easy and effortless for well over 10 years now.

It's nice that we're finally seeing games being announced for the Wii, though. I was starting to worry that it'd be Port City until the lack of games just burned the Wii out.

ELIJAH @ Sep 7th 2007 10:18AM

What i meant is even easier than the state its in now. We are going back to pong difficulty styled games and i wasnt even born then.

ELIJAH @ Sep 7th 2007 10:20AM

What i meant is even easier than the state its in now. We are going back to pong difficulty styled games and i wasnt even born then.

Jeremy @ Sep 7th 2007 10:58AM

Yeah I do have to agree that games are getting dumbed down. I guess it has to reflect to the lack of good education in this world. That is the main reason I even left the Final Fantasy series behind. After FF8 the games have gotten so damn easy that I just had to stop playing. Maybe with better graphics comes less game play.

Ghen @ Sep 7th 2007 11:01AM

I love roguelikes. Angband being one of my top 5 games of all time.

James @ Sep 7th 2007 11:11AM

I weep to think that this game has basically no chance of ever making it stateside. If they made it real time and added chicks in metal thongs (*cough*Diablo*cough*), it would sell like hotcakes here.

I thought we'd stop getting screwed on import releases after the SNES era, but I guess I was wrong.

JC Fletcher @ Sep 7th 2007 11:27AM

Don't be so sure. Sega's releasing the DS version of Fuurai no Shiren here.

Patrick @ Sep 7th 2007 1:29PM

@Jeremy:

FF10 had some challenging bosses and FF12 is definitely one of the most difficult FF's to come out in a while, one of the most difficult RPGs that have come out in a bit.

I do wish games were more difficult, Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox made me throw my controller at the tv. Crazy stuff.

James @ Sep 7th 2007 3:51PM

@JC: Wow, I can get some portable Roguelike love without trying to get Nethack to cross-compile? Man, I am *really* looking forward to that. Do we know what they're going to translate the name as? I can't find much info online...

JC Fletcher @ Sep 7th 2007 4:13PM

http://nintendo.joystiq.com/2007/08/09/shiren-possibly-wandering-to-the-us/

Although the Gamestop/EB listing seems to be gone now. Hmm.

Zan @ Sep 8th 2007 12:04PM

Jeremy:

You mean "the lack of good education in america". kthxbai.

JC Fletcher @ Sep 8th 2007 2:26PM

Why would the change in difficulty of Japanese role playing games, developed for the Japanese market, reflect the level of education in the US?

Sorry to ruin your cheap shot there.

LordGek @ Sep 9th 2007 1:00PM

I still feebly hope we'll see this here in the states!

Several months ago they revived the Shiren series by releasing Shiren DS. It was still pretty hardcore but many of the subtle tweaks made since the original SNES version made for an easier main game (the dungeons opened up after the main quest is completed are still fairly hardcore, but its still a greatly toned down difficulty compared to the original). I hope they don't nerf the game even more with this upcoming Wii version. Losing all of your stuff and having your level reset to level 1 when you die is half the fun and what makes this series so compelling...but at the same time I *KNOW* this feature would never sell here in the States. My only hope is that if it becomes a huge enough hit in Japan they'll just port it over anyways and let the addiction take hold even with these features intact.