Introducing Shiren 5

After my initial post about fighting games, I started to lose interest and motivation right away (lol surprise /sarcasm) and instead of talking about fighting games when I wish I could be playing them, I found other things to waste my time on. So since a couple of my friends have been streaming on NicoNico, I decided to stream as well so I could practice my Japanese and play Shiren 5 at the same time. If you want to watch, you can join my community here. Due to the time difference between America and Japan. I generally play really late at night or really early in the morning. If there’s enough interest or if I have feel motivated enough, I’ll start writing about Shiren 5 instead.

I will briefly introduce Shiren and roguelikes and try to go over anything that’s super important. Since this is probably going to be pretty long as the game is very different now, I’ll just write about the two new biggest features which are the Day/Night system and Point Shop system and save the other new features and my criticism and comments for another time. Since I plunged straight in without doing any research whatsoever, it took me about 12 hours of playtime and talking with people on NicoNico to learn everything that was needed to properly play the game. If you don’t get something, just ask in the comments.

For those of you who don’t know what Shiren is, it’s “Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer,” which is Japan’s roguelike series, and its most well-known incarnation is probably Shiren 2 which came out on the SNES in ‘95 and was ported to the DS in ‘06. There’s also Shiren 3 for the Wii and both the games I just mentioned have English localizations. And for those of you who don’t know what a roguelike is, it’s a turn-based RPG where the dungeons are mostly randomly generated and you typically lose all your levels and items when you die. The enjoyment comes from the sense of adventure since no run is ever the same as another one and there’s always something new to learn.

Now the first and most important feature I want to talk about is the Point Card system which was ironically the last feature I found out about. The Point Card system is a system that allows you to accumulate currency that cannot be lost upon death and is separate from the usual currency which are Gitans. You can accumulate points by stepping on Point Traps which aren’t actually traps since they don’t do anything bad to you but they will appear as traps on the map and unlike real traps, they are completely visible right off the bat. To accumulate points, you must be in possession of a Point Card and it must not be in a pot. If you lose your Point Card, it will cost 1000 gitans to replace it.

You can exchange your points through the Point Shop for useful key items such as the “Once Again Herb”, “Holding Pot [5]”, and the “Melding Pot.” The “Once Again Herb” is a herb that, upon death, allows you to revive with full HP or escape back to town with everything you’re holding. For those who don’t know what a “Holding Pot [5]” is, it’s a pot that can carry up to five items which is key as inventory space in Shiren is extremely limited. If you don’t have pots, you won’t be able to hold very much. The “Melding Pot” is a pot that allows you to combine similar items into one item which lets you stack upgrades or abilities on your armor or you can combine magic wands to combine all their charges together. So by using points, you can effectively keep all your items upon death and keep making your weapon and shield stronger until your equipment is strong enough to handle the more difficult dungeons.

Next is the day and night system which was was introduced in Shiren 4 and was part of the game right from the start but in Shiren 5, you have to clear three mini-dungeons before you will get to encounter it. If you’ve played any other Shirens before, then that’s the daytime experience, and the gameplay is mostly the same. But when it becomes nighttime, the game completely changes. For starters, you practically can’t see anything without a torch and if you don’t have a torch, you are probably screwed because you won’t be able to find the staircase to the next floor unless you stand right next to it and you won’t even be able to read a scroll.

But you will mostly be screwed because all the monsters become incredibly strong at night and from my experience, they will most likely kill you in just one hit or maybe cast some incredibly obnoxious spell and you’ll die anyways. However, just like you, they won’t be able to see very well either! Unfortunately that also means monster will start attacking other monsters and whenever a monster kills anything in Shiren, it WILL level up, even if it only killed a little girl. When a monster levels up in Shiren, it doesn’t just level up in stats but also in appearance which pretty means it just evolved into a stronger monster like a Pikachu becoming a Raichu so it really just gained like 10 levels and it’s usual ability got even more stupid.

Also not only will the monsters literally evolve off of killing each other and will do rather fatal amounts of damage to you, but your physical attacks will do practically nothing to them. However what you can do is cast spells! Shiren can learn spells now! However he can only have up to like ten spells and once you use one, you can't use it agaun until the next floor. I haven’t advanced far enough to know if you’ll be able to hold more spells later on, but for the hard part of the story adventure, it seems that you’re limited to ten spells per floor.

All of this means that unlike daytime, you won’t want to farm and go around killing every monster for exp and searching every nook and cranny for items. Instead, you will want to advance through the dungeon as quickly as possible. You may also run into the problem of possibly advancing through the dungeon too quickly and finding yourself underleveled or undergeared as the monsters will gradually get stronger and harder...

An Introductory Post

Due to the current situation and circumstances in my regional area, the primary focus of this blog will be fighting games. For those who don't know me, allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name is Alex Yau but I'm known in most online communities as dakanya and I've been playing Melty Blood and Guilty Gear in the San Francisco Bay Area for a couple years now. For starters, I will be writing a short series of articles to help dissolve some common misconceptions people might have when trying to learn fighting games. After this, I will be moving on to document my own experiences and growth.

As I've been a relatively niche fighting gamer for sometime, I've come to realize that most players simply do not care enough or do not put in the proper time or energy required to truly become a stronger player. However, it is not entirely their fault. I've witnessed many people claim that they're hungry and want to become stronger and some have truly struggled to do so. But to become stronger at fighting games, there are many factors needed and to be honest, unless you live in certain pockets of the world, you probably do not live in the proper environment to grow stronger. The only solution to this is to create the proper environment yourself.

Obviously besides needing access to the game, you need people to play with. What if you have people to play against but you can only play once every so often?  Here we already have the first problem. Maybe you only get to play once a month? As a result, maybe you aren't feeling motivated enough to practice on your own or study videos? When I started out with Melty Blood Act Cadenza, I was fortunate enough to have netplay so I just grinded almost everyday and that's how I learned. But during my training for the 2010 EVO tournament for Melty Blood Actress Again, I realized how much harder it is when you can't play as much as you want. Unless you have an amazing amount of raw natural talent, you're going to have to be extremely goal-oriented. When you only get to play every so often and you actually want to get stronger, you need to actively make goals and achieve them.

When I mean goal-oriented, I don't mean some abstract undefined goals like losing less games, get hit less, block more, mash less. I'm talking about goals like the moment they whiff a poke, I'm going to either punish it with my own or dash in and start pressuring them, I'm going to train my opponent to respect this blockstring, I'm going to sit right outside their effective range, etc. Obviously general things like getting hit less and losing less games are what you want to achieve but those goals are intangible. You might be thinking about it but how much are you really thinking about it? Drilling thoughts like "if I mash less and block more I'll lose less games" are meaningless and are empty thoughts. Think about exactly how you are going to lose less games, recognize your mistakes, and improve on what you could be doing better.

Thanks to the current level of technology today, you can also learn by engaging in discussions over the internet and watching match videos online. However, many players are often looking for the wrong things or overlook the subtle things that happen. Learning combos and mixups are important but what’s more important is to analyze the neutral game and to understand the reasoning behind every decision made. What’s the point of being able to run them over once you get in if you can never get in? For example, something fairly subtle is dashing forward a little before instant air dashing. Your opponent may react to your ground dash and try to stop you with a low and you’ll be able to get in with your instant air dash! You’ll even be able to get in from farther away than you normally would. When you watch a match video, don’t just look for combos and mixups, break down and analyze the neutral game as well.

As this has become quite long already, I'll stop here for now. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to write about next but I have a few ideas. As an afterword, I’d like to clarify that even though I can be considered to be someone who has risen to a competent skill level, I would not call myself "good" and I must honestly admit that like others, I'm guilty of being lazy and I've never truly given it my all. I've simply been blessed with some good teachers and I've put in more than others to be considered above average for my regional area, but never enough to reach the top. However, you don’t have to necessarily be a top player to understand how to play and I hope I can motivate others to find it in themselves to truly seek strength.