is a video game series of roguelike and role-playing games developed by Spike Chunsoft (formerly Chunsoft). Unlike licensed crossovers within the Mystery Dungeon franchise, this series features original characters, including the eponymous rōnin protagonist Shiren and his traveling companion and talking weasel Koppa, with a plot and the location set generally in feudal Japan, and though indicative of the core games, which is navigating through a randomly generated dungeon using turn-based moves. As of January 2024, there have been multiple games across Nintendo and Sony platforms, mobile devices, Windows, and Steam, as well as few other medias released throughout the years.
These games are based on procedural generated dungeons ("mystery dungeons"), which are dungeons with unique corridors and rooms for each floors every time the player enters in one. In dungeons, they have to fight monsters while collecting items to survive throughout the adventure, whether to protect against stronger foes, avoid unseen traps and hazards, or avoid starving, with the goal of exiting the dungeon after a fixed number of floors.
Gameplay
Most Mystery Dungeon games center around exploring a dungeon with randomly generated layouts and fights. These are in a turn-based manner, where the player's every action such as attacking or walking is met by the opponents' action. Chunsoft described the gameplay as being like chess. Escape from the dungeon is allowed in certain places or using certain items. In most games from this series, when the player loses the game by fainting, they lose everything and have to start from scratch. Features distinct to the Shiren the Wanderer series include the "Melding Jar" which allows players to synthesize items and weapons into more powerful ones.
A unique gameplay element that first appeared in Shiren the Wanderer GB2: Magic Castle of the Desert and later in the Mystery Dungeon franchise is rescuing other players via passwords. They went with the idea of player sharing passwords instead of using the Game Boy's Game Link Cable in order to help others, as there were not many owners of the cable. This idea was expanded in Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka the Swordswoman with the addition of online support. Within the online support, players could receive new dungeons, called either "Weekly Dungeon"; a dungeon that could be played online on a weekly basis, or "Challenge Dungeon"; a more difficult dungeon where useful items appeared rarely. Another gameplay that was introduced in this series was the ability to collect monsters in dungeons via an item in Shiren the Wanderer 2: Shiren's Castle and the Oni Invasion, along with a place to let the player see their collection. It was later reused in the Mystery Dungeon franchise, notably in Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon with an item, and the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon as a core gameplay element.
Koichi Nakamura explained that the appeal of the Mystery Dungeon series is that every game is different and that players skills are constantly being challenged, which helps the player feel deeply involved. Seiichiro Nagahata, who supervised and planned the development of the Nintendo DS version of Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, explained that the Mystery Dungeon series is all about "tension" and "reasoning".
Development Before the series' creation, the Mystery Dungeon franchise had only one game known as Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon in 1993. It was Chunsoft's first try on bringing the roguelike genre to home console after Sega's attempt, of which the latter was met with little success.
History The company wanted to work on the new features and gameplay mechanics featured in NetHack, a variant of Rogue, with one of them being able to steal items from a shopkeeper. This, however, was not possible to convert the new content from NetHack with characters from the Dragon Quest series; one case was with Torneko, who is himself a merchant in the series. The scenarios present throughout the series were written so they would not interfere too much into its core genre; its story length is noticeably smaller than the other crossovers, but also intriguing for each title as they are mixed with the genre's difficulty. Two years after the release of Torneko's Great Adventure, Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer was released as the company's second work for the Mystery Dungeon series, with a new world setting and unique characters.
Although the first game was not as popular as its predecessor, the company kept working on it later on. Many titles from this series were developed simultaneously throughout the years, where one title was focused on creating original features in its gameplay for home console, while the other was remaining basic, respecting the "traditional dungeon types" for which they were forced to due to the limitations of handheld console: Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer on Super Famicom and Shiren the Wanderer GB: Monster of Moonlight Village on Game Boy, and Shiren the Wanderer 2: Shiren's Castle and the Oni Invasion on Nintendo 64 and Shiren the Wanderer GB2: Magic Castle of the Desert on Game Boy Color. Shiren the Wanderer 4: The Eye of God and the Devil's Navel and Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate were also developed simultaneously, albeit both of them were released on Nintendo DS in 2010 and exclusively in Japan. Other contributors outside of the company have participated in the series, such as Akiman for the Nintendo DS release of the first game, who he himself requested to Nakamura to do some artworks for the characters, of which one of his arts was featured in the Japanese's box art.
After the release of The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate in 2010, the series entered a dormant state. Numerous indications of a potential revival of the series appeared before 2023. In 2018, Mitsutoshi Sakurai, Spike Chunsoft's current president, answered for potential ports of the series in the future, although it will be a challenge as employees said it will not be a success. In 2020, Shin-ichiro Tomie has left a secret message in the Nintendo Switch and Steam ports of The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate, indicating he is still able to work on the next games if there are enough voices from the fans to green-lit a new Mystery Dungeon game within the company.Tomie: ...! Hey! Did you just push the switch on my back!? You're supposed to read the item description before you use it! Every wanderer knows that! It clearly says "DO NOT PUSH"! Geez, how did you make it this far? ...Well, might as well say my piece since you're here. My name is Tomie. I'm an old hand at Spike Chunsoft. So old that I'm nearly retirement age. Shiren the Wanderer, Banshee's Last Cry... I've seen some titles in my day. We devs got along good over the years. Old, young, age doesn't matter... They work us to the bone, all the same. Hasegawa... You may not know the name, but you know his art. His version of Shiren is iconic! And Nagahata, he's the only know who knows what to tweak under the hood to keep the game balanced. Then there's me, worrying about making a new Shiren the Wanderer. I gotta consider the budget and the needs of the company. Can we do it? More importantly, should we do it? I'm too wishy-washy to take the first step. If only... If only someone gave me a push. ...? Wait, didn't somebody just do exactly that? Ah, I'm going senile... Can you give me one more push? ...No? You can't? In that case... Can you make your voice heard? If all the Shiren fans across the world speak out, surely someone will hear... Who knows, your voices might make it all the way to the people in charge. Wouldn't be the first time our overlords got fired up over fan demand. Anyway, if a sequel gets green-lit, you can bet I'll give it my all. The series has a reputation to live up to. And the fans expect nothing less than the best! I won't let them down. Ah, this is all hypothetical, of course. But it's nice to think about, isn't it? Until we meet again, I'll be here, dreaming... Of a new Shiren the Wanderer title. - F A R E W E L L - (Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate) This worked as the Switch port of The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate was well received in reception and sales, thus green-lighting the development of the sixth numbered game, Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island.
Music
The soundtracks were composed by late Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama, and Hayato Matsuo for this series. Sugiyama made use of East Asian elements for the series, compared to his more European-styled Dragon Quest compositions, using instruments such as a shakuhachi flute. This theme would remain for the series' next titles. Hayato Matsuo later became the main composer for the series, starting in the Game Boy Color release of Magic Castle of the Desert in 2001. Sugiyama asked Matsuo not to have his music arranged too much; he had to modify them enough to differ his scores with Sugiyama's for the series.
Prior to his death, Sugiyama would occasionally return to contribute only a main theme and some battle themes. After his death in 2021, noisycroak employee Keisuke Ito took the role of main composer for the series. As he previously contributed to the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, his compositions were inspired of the previous composers, while adding his own themes as "a link between the past and the future".
Design New titles are released with unique gameplay for each one, with Seiichiro Nagahata balancing the core games based on how players and employees would complete a dungeon. Early into the series, some content were sharing similarities with those of the Dragon Quest series, as its predecessor in the Mystery Dungeon franchise was a spin-off of the latter. Hence, data and its user interface were recycled in the first game. Gameplay was balanced with the use of sheets from Microsoft Excel by Nagahata, in order to understand data for items and monsters better in dungeons.
Shin-ichiro Tomie, the series' scenarist and sometimes director until the spin-off game Shiren Monsters: Netsal, has suggested to set the series's story in feudal Japan, compared to the previous Mystery Dungeon title. Character designer Kaoru Hasegawa later took part during the production of Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer after his first contribution in Chunsoft's Kamaitachi no Yoru (Banshee's Last Cry) as an artist. In an interview with the company, they wanted someone who could work on the then sequel to Torneko's Great Adventure, but he was not familiar with the title, nor the roguelike genre at the time of the interview. After being interested in the genre by playing through the game and being employed in the company, he was able work in the game, with respecting the theme Tomie imposed to the game instead of a western art style, like Akira Toriyama's Dragon Quest characters. Many drafts were made for the silent protagonist of the eponymous game, and its mascot monster the Mamel; most of them were lost. Since then, he has contributed to the series as a character designer, occasionally as an art director like in Shiren's Castle and the Oni Invasion.
From the Wii release of Shiren the Wanderer to The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate, the lead scenarist was replaced by Masato Kato, as Tomie was working on the other branches of the Mystery Dungeon series, most notably in the Pokémon branch, before reprising his role in The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island.
Games