Shiren the Wanderer Trailer Explains New Difficulty Settings
Released in Japan in June of 2008, the pending North American iteration retains all forty-plus hours of gameplay chock full of randomly generated dungeons and step-per-turn combat. In response to the crushing difficulty of earlier games in the series which exacted a harsh punishment for dying in the dungeons, this latest version includes an "easy" mode. When playing this way your character returns to the state from their previously saved game, with all items and earned levels intact.
Shiren the Wanderer comes out in North America on February 9th, exclusively for the Nindendo Wii. You can check out the other two trailers here.
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yep, about what i expected. permadeath just doesnt fly with most of the market...
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They should start punishing ingame loss of health with electro shocks and death with a shock that knocks you out for 15 minutes.
No, just kidding. But I would be really frustrated if my character I leveled up for so long would just get deleted. I never tried Diablos hardcore mode for the same reason.-
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its even more than that... one of the core mechanics of roguelike games is one of advancement, not of the player character, but of the PLAYER themselves... the games are very very difficult, and each time you play, you (should) come away with some new knowledge that enables you to eke out a few more floors... every time you think youre getting good at the game, youll move a bit deeper than you had before, and itll throw you a new curveball that results in YASD (yet another stupid death)... but you take something away from that defeat and apply it on the next run...
in a way it really IS like the old-school arcade games i used to play in my youth... every quarter you dropped in the machine, youd get a little better, go a little further, then inevitably die, and repeat the process. its what made the games so much fun, and so satisfying each time you managed to beat your previous best...
i think taking permadeath out of a roguelike game diminishes them immensely. they just turn into boring, occasionally frustrating, and often not terribly interesting randomized "slot machines"... most of the depth in most roguelikes comes directly from the iterative gameplay experience of continual (personal) improvement, and taking that away makes them... well, not roguelike anymore.
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