Fatal Labyrinth

I started a game of FATAL LABYRINTH on megadrive yesterday. Popped the cartridge in, fought my way through all 30 levels of the dungeon (some levels repeated as I fell into a few pits) and defeated the final boss. Watched the end credits roll. ^_^

I first played this game about a decade ago, and never got very far with it. I kept dying! This week, I decided to buy myself a copy on ebay, started a game and didn't die once! I guess I must be luckier these days than I used to be. Or I have more patience. Or something.

Ah, even though it's easy by the standards of other roguelikes, it feels good to have finished a game that just kept killing me over and over again in the past. That doesn't have any save points or "password" system. That makes you eat to stay alive but the food items (which you can't carry round with you - you have to eat them when you pick them up) may be of any size and if you eat too much you die. Where enemies at the end of the game take anything from about 6 to 99 off your health with each hit and at maximum level you have under 800 health total and have run out of all the potions you had... yeah, I feel like luck was on my side...







Maybe I should attempt Sword Of Fargoal again... I've never been able to finish that either...

Dramatic Dungeon: Sakura Taisen DS

It's an upcoming game for Nintendo DS, featuring characters from all the previous Sakura Taisen games. Looks somewhere between a Sakura Taisen game and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (a roguelike with party-forming).

Info:
http://uk.ds.ign.com/objects/906/906344.html

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehXdnx4VQmA

Official Site:
http://game.sakura-taisen.com/ds/

Mystery Dungeon Shiren DS game heading for the US

I found out that the Nintendo DS "Shiren The Wanderer Mystery Dungeon" game is being translated into English to be released in North America at the beginning of March, so I placed a preorder. ^__^

Shiren is a "graphical roguelike" game which I've heard a lot about but haven't actually played. I could have, since there's an English translation patch for the 2nd Shiren game on Super Famicon released by Aeon Genesis. But, I haven't gotten round to trying it. I'm fond of roguelikes like Angband and games like "Izuna: Legend Of The Unemployed Ninja" and "Azure Dreams" (and to a lesser extent, it's sequel Tao's Adventure for DS). My first was "Sword Of Fargoal" for the Commodore 64 - I think it was one of the best games out at the time! Randomly generated dungeons and the drive to fight all the way through, challenging and unforgiving, I like it.

I bought another 2nd hand Gameboy Advance SP over the weekend, a battered old 2nd hand Charizard flame red one, scuffed everywhere on the outside and with "KYLE" scratched into the back, presumably by its previous owner. Cute. But, it has a perfect screen and that's what's important. It came with a copy of Advance Wars, but I started playing my copy of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team instead. ^_^ I bought the game a few months ago (when I got into the Izuna game) but never tried it out. It's by Chunsoft, same as the Shiren games, and I have to say it's lots of fun, I'm really enjoying it. This game blends Pokemon and roguelike gaming together pretty well. You can recruit friendly Pokemon to join you on your quests, and I haven't played any roguelike where you take a party into the dungeon before; that's new to me. I also like that you can collect friend pokemon - I don't think there's an actual pokedex so you know how far through you are, though.

It's pretty easy compared to most of the roguelikes I've played, but it is a Pokemon game after all. There's a personality test to decide which Pokemon you will be throughout the game, and I turned out to be a Charmander. ^_^ I tend to be fire type in personality tests...

I haven't played any Shiren games before, but I've played "Izuna Legend Of The Unemployed Ninja" for DS, and I was amazed how much the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game looks and plays like Izuna. The Izuna game looks graphically very similar (including the size of sprites how much you see of the map), plays almost the same way (just the weapon / armour / scroll powering up system is different), and even assigns the same buttons to commands - right trigger to easily maneuver diagonals, left trigger for easy access use your projectile/trap weapons, B button to dash in a direction until you bump into something interesting.... So I guess it's a complete rip-off of Shiren. But, at least that means it's a rip-off that's complete. ^_^

I also only found out today that a game I bought on Play Asia years ago super-cheap (like, a fiver or something) - Dragon Quest: Shonen Yangus to Fushigi no Dungeon - is another roguelike. I never even took it out of the box yet, though, hehe. You see, I heard that the Dragon Quest game it spins off from wasn't too great, so I didn't start that, so I never looked into the spinoff game...

I'm really looking forward to Shiren DS. Shiren is famously good and infamously difficult and unforgiving. There's a 50 second trailer for it here. It starts off "From the makers of Pokemon {R) Mystery Dungeon"... ^_^;;

Angband for PSP

I just found a new game to play on PSP that might mean that it's not just my portable-Disgaea-console.

Angband for PSP.

Yay for homebrew! It needs 1.50 firmware to run, seems to run just fine, though. Remembering keys and navigating the mini-menu to each key is a bit of a trial, though.



I've tried it out and got as far as lvl 5, getting killed by "Grip, the farmer's dog".

FOE! FOE! FOE!

I'm going back to Etrian Odyssey; it's not as difficult and cruel! (3rd Stratum, training up my Ronin...)

I called my party in Etrian Odyssey "Angiband", you know... ^_^;;

EDIT: 2007-06-22, 07:35am
I carried on with Angband last night, got to about lvl 8 and then wondered how to do something... entered "?" to get to the help topics, read what was there, and then.... "Hmm." [presses "circle" a few times] [navigates through the alphabet to "Esc" a few times] [presses random buttons] ... I couldn't work out how to get out of the "help" section! [power off] what a terrible way for a warrior to go.

Also... *this game could really do with save points*! I mean, not wiping your player out completely when you die type saves. Officially. At least in the options.