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[slayn]

Is there any way to prevent enemies that can disarm you from knocking your shield away? It doesn't seem like they can knock away anything in your right hand, so I just always equip my best weapons there, but I'm a bit leery to spend any money upgrading a shield since anything held in the left hand is one unfortunate corridor encounter away from oblivion.

Those guys can knock away both your weapon and your shield (although maybe the lowest tier only does shields?). The only thing I know to do is to put your back to a wall when fighting them so that it doesn't fly into something else and get destroyed.

They were especially bad in Shiren DS on the floors that didn't have walls

 

[ixix]

Those guys can knock away both your weapon and your shield (although maybe the lowest tier only does shields?). The only thing I know to do is to put your back to a wall when fighting them so that it doesn't fly into something else and get destroyed.

They were especially bad in Shiren DS on the floors that didn't have walls

The lowest tier is the only one I've met and they only seem to target what's in your left hand. I've lost shields and left-handed weapons to them.

I've got no problem dealing with them when I meet them in the open, my main problem is when I run into them in a corridor, they go first, knock my equipment away and smack my partner in the face with it. At this point I've lost more gear I wanted to keep to them than to anything else.

Super reassuring to know that later on even holding things in my right hand won't stop them from destroying it.

 

[bon]

The lowest tier is the only one I've met and they only seem to target what's in your left hand. I've lost shields and left-handed weapons to them.

I've got no problem dealing with them when I meet them in the open, my main problem is when I run into them in a corridor, they go first, knock my equipment away and smack my partner in the face with it. At this point I've lost more gear I wanted to keep to them than to anything else.

Super reassuring to know that later on even holding things in my right hand won't stop them from destroying it.

I guess you could unequip the shield (or switch to a spare) before entering a corridor, just in case you bump into one of them, then re-equip it once you make it to a room. That's the best strategy I can think of.

 

[d+pad]

Eagerly waiting for GameStop to send my copy. Hopefully it'll ship soon, 'cause I *really* want to play it!

 

[ixix]

I guess you could unequip the shield (or switch to a spare) before entering a corridor, just in case you bump into one of them, then re-equip it once you make it to a room. That's the best strategy I can think of.

Juggling equipment every time I enter a corridor would quickly drive me mad.

What I've been doing is keeping two sets of equipment on hand, one set is what I'm tempering up and the other set is basically the best of whatever I've got lying around. The good set is equipped to whoever I'm controlling most of the time, the backup set is on the AI-controlled character. When I start heading down a long corridor I just switch characters and have the one with the expendable equipment lead the way.

It wouldn't be nearly so annoying if it weren't for the fact that any item that hits your partner is gone forever. They really need to work on their catching skills.

 

[slayn]

Yeah, I never did like the fact that you can't see down hallways in shiren. Plenty of monsters can screw you over just as badly. A gaze could hypnotize you and make you throw your weapon at it. That one doesn't even require a partner, just catch a gaze at the wrong time and poof weapon gone.

The absolute best defense against that kind of cheapness in Shiren DS was an armband of sight so that you could track monster locations and know if you were approaching something in a hallway. But I have not found one in this version yet. I hope they still exist.

 

[ixix]

Shiren getting hypnotized by an eyeball dude while dual-wielding and almost killing Pinky with one attack was what made me give up on dual-wielding entirely. Shields 4 lyfe.

I'd imagine that the good armbands aren't available until pretty late in the game. The first ones don't show up until, what, a half dozen or so dungeons into the game? And then they're all lame-o status effect preventers. The rather limited per-dungeon item availability is grating on me a bit as I get further.

 

[slayn]

Finished story mode. Last 1/3 is surprisingly epic with cg cutscenes galore. They *badly* needed voice acting though. Not having voice acting throughout is fine, but CG scenes with character's mouths moving but no sound is just... bad. give me some bad voice acting at least.

Final Level: 51
Final equipment: Fang Sword +22, Iridescent Shield +19
Total Deaths: 4

The sword and shield were far more powerful than anything anyone should need for the main storyline. I steamrolled the 2nd half of the game with those. I just reached a point where I stopped exploring because I felt I probably had everything I would ever need and just dove for the stairs without even going back to the shop to offload.

 

[ixix]

also, what does the little bell next to some items mean?

So did you ever find out the answer to this? 'Cause cooking my Katana+20 in a Dragon Orb made one show up. Does it mean the weapon can break when you use it? I see it shows up on Pickaxes, which makes me a little wary.

 

[jaundicejuice]

Still haven't gotten the copy I pre-ordered at EB, if it doesn't arrive by next Friday I'm just going to cancel the order and buy it off of Amazon.ca. Anyone else in western Canada having troubles landing a copy of this game?

 

[slayn]

So did you ever find out the answer to this? 'Cause cooking my Katana+20 in a Dragon Orb made one show up. Does it mean the weapon can break when you use it? I see it shows up on Pickaxes, which makes me a little wary.

It means the item is blessed. What being blessed does though... no idea.

 

[SavoryCade]

Met my first death at the hands of Tengu. I had to have been a hit or two away from killing him, then I screwed up and shot a recovery staff bolt the wrong way and Shiren was killed the next move. I hadn't been using the storage so I lost everything.

While I appreciate the roguelike-ness of losing all my items, it's more annoying than it normally should be since Tengu's dungeon assumes I'm equipped to handle it so now I have to go grind for new stuff before I go back. At least in a standard roguelike everything would be back to square one so I wouldn't necessarly feel like I had to waste time. Lesson learned: Don't Die.

 

[LordGek]

nevermind it happened. Seems its just something that randomly happens instead of getting a +1. It put a thing on my weapon taking up one of its slots called [steal] - damage increased against all monsters except those of the steal family.

Oh, weird, I had always thought it helped WITH that family, not everything but (although, again, I never really got very far in this regard with the import as the whole orb thing is a fun but completely optional bit of fun in this game).

 

[LordGek]

So did you ever find out the answer to this? 'Cause cooking my Katana+20 in a Dragon Orb made one show up. Does it mean the weapon can break when you use it? I see it shows up on Pickaxes, which makes me a little wary.

Yeah, it means the item is blessed which is a good thing! It does a little extra damage and does extra damage against undead folk but, sadly, it is usually only temporary and eventually you'll "knock" the blessedness off your weapon.

Blessed scrolls and herbs, however, mean the items do cool EXTRA crap!

Take the fire breathing herb. Normally it would only hit a single opponent but blessed it will mean it blasts all the way across the room potentially hitting multiple opponents.

 

[LordGek]

Those guys can knock away both your weapon and your shield (although maybe the lowest tier only does shields?). The only thing I know to do is to put your back to a wall when fighting them so that it doesn't fly into something else and get destroyed.

They were especially bad in Shiren DS on the floors that didn't have walls

Heck, eventually they'll even knock off armbands as well! ;-P

 

[slayn]

Interesting, is there a way to bless things? Or are dragon orbs the only way? Putting an herb on a dragon orb seems kind of a waste when you could instead get like a +5 on your shield. Do blessed spells have increased accuracy? Spells would be so much better if they were reliable.

Also, it seems you can eventually build the ultimate swords/shields of awesomeness + everything. After beating the story last night, I noticed the blacksmith gained a new ability: add slot. The cost, though, was something like 10,000 gitan + a victory herb.

edit:
Now you got me thinking about this all nethack like at work. I wonder if I could put a scroll a bless in a dragon orb, get it blessed, then read a blessed scroll of bless. What would it do I wonder.

 

[LordGek]

Interesting, is there a way to bless things? Or are dragon orbs the only way? Putting an herb on a dragon orb seems kind of a waste when you could instead get like a +5 on your shield. Do blessed spells have increased accuracy? Spells would be so much better if they were reliable.

Also, it seems you can eventually build the ultimate swords/shields of awesomeness + everything. After beating the story last night, I noticed the blacksmith gained a new ability: add slot. The cost, though, was something like 10,000 gitan + a victory herb.

edit:
Now you got me thinking about this all nethack like at work. I wonder if I could put a scroll a bless in a dragon orb, get it blessed, then read a blessed scroll of bless. What would it do I wonder.

I think there are also scrolls of blessing, a monster that blesses a random item once you kill him, and other ways to bring this about. Did any Dragon Orb do this blessing thing or is it only with the Light orbs? If a side effect of light guess what happens with a darkness orb?

Have you figured out how to make and use Blank Scrolls yet?

 

[slayn]

Yes, now that you mentioned it it was probably a light orb that caused my stuff to be blessed. As for blank scrolls, no I hadn't. Maybe put them in a water orb? I might have to try throwing one into water and then reading a scroll of drought to try to get it back. I don't think rust traps attack anything except what you are wielding, so that is probably out.

I have put something in a shadow orb but I don't remember it getting cursed because of it. Maybe it cursed it but it didn't register in the UI as cursed until later so I didn't make the connection? I know it was shadow, because my armband got a feature 'occasionally prevents the special abilities of shadow monsters from triggering.'

I noticed that explosions will toast your riceballs. It would probably be such a waste but that would be kind of funny if you put a riceball into a fire orb to get a toasted riceball.

So many things to experiment with

edit:
come to think of it, I was wondering why scrolls of drought were so expensive when they seemed largely useless. I wonder if the entire point of them is to be able to dunk things in water. What else could water effect...

 

[LordGek]

Yes, now that you mentioned it it was probably a light orb that caused my stuff to be blessed. As for blank scrolls, no I hadn't. Maybe put them in a water orb? I might have to try throwing one into water and then reading a scroll of drought to try to get it back. I don't think rust traps attack anything except what you are wielding, so that is probably out.

I have put something in a shadow orb but I don't remember it getting cursed because of it. Maybe it cursed it but it didn't register in the UI as cursed until later so I didn't make the connection? I know it was shadow, because my armband got a feature 'occasionally prevents the special abilities of shadow monsters from triggering.'

I noticed that explosions will toast your riceballs. It would probably be such a waste but that would be kind of funny if you put a riceball into a fire orb to get a toasted riceball.

So many things to experiment with

edit:
come to think of it, I was wondering why scrolls of drought were so expensive when they seemed largely useless. I wonder if the entire point of them is to be able to dunk things in water. What else could water effect...

You're on the right track but realize there are ways to get stuff from water without having to dry it up.

 

[slayn]

I can think of a few potential ways, but drought scroll is the only way I have actually come across. I imagine a walrus jar might work. Or fish meat, possibly meat of a flying creature. But I've not come across meat or a walrus jar yet. Or some sort of armband that lets you walk on water.

I once found a cursed scroll of ice I tossed instead of bothering to uncurse. That has potential.

 

[LordGek]

I can think of a few potential ways, but drought scroll is the only way I have actually come across. I imagine a walrus jar might work. Or fish meat, possibly meat of a flying creature. But I've not come across meat or a walrus jar yet. Or some sort of armband that lets you walk on water.

I once found a cursed scroll of ice I tossed instead of bothering to uncurse. That has potential.

This is what makes games like Shiren so AWESOME is how you are free to find your own way to solve problems, unlike most standard RPGs where there is the one scripted solution.

 

[slayn]

Roguelikes in general are usually pretty good about this and is, in my opinion, their greatest strength. I consider nethack the epitome of this line of thinking considering it even goes to the lengths of implementing puns. The amount of things you can do with a kitchen sink in nethack are baffling. Shiren's monsters are much better/more creative than nethack's though.

 

[LordGek]

Roguelikes in general are usually pretty good about this and is, in my opinion, their greatest strength. I consider nethack the epitome of this line of thinking considering it even goes to the lengths of implementing puns. The amount of things you can do with a kitchen sink in nethack are baffling. Shiren's monsters are much better/more creative than nethack's though.

The Shiren creatures, while I guess often based somewhat on Japanese mythos, don't even have to make sense and often not only look but posses very surreal abilities!

 

[Hobbun]

Finished story mode. Last 1/3 is surprisingly epic with cg cutscenes galore. They *badly* needed voice acting though. Not having voice acting throughout is fine, but CG scenes with character's mouths moving but no sound is just... bad. give me some bad voice acting at least.

Final Level: 51
Final equipment: Fang Sword +22, Iridescent Shield +19
Total Deaths: 4

The sword and shield were far more powerful than anything anyone should need for the main storyline. I steamrolled the 2nd half of the game with those. I just reached a point where I stopped exploring because I felt I probably had everything I would ever need and just dove for the stairs without even going back to the shop to offload.

How long would you say it took you to complete the game? Seems pretty quick unless you have been playing it non-stop since you got it.

 

[slayn]

Probably around 15 hours or so. Hard to say because my game clock reads 30 hours but I tend to leave games running even if I'm not home. But I have played a *lot* of roguelikes and I played the crap out of Shiren DS so I knew exactly what to expect and how to approach the various scenarios and monsters 90% of the time.

Picked it up friday after work. I was out friday and saturday night but other than that, yeah pretty much all day. I'm a binge gamer

And I haven't touched the post game stuff yet of which it sounds like there is a lot.

 

[Hobbun]

Ok, that's good. The fact is you knew exactly where you were going and also have played a lot of the weekend. I was concerned at first the game was really short.

For me, someone who is not an experienced rogue player, I can see it take me at least 25 hours for the main quest.

Now how much post content is there? You say a lot, as much as the actual game? And is there additional storyline as well? Or is just gameplay? I know rogue games aren't known for their story, but would be nice to have some story for the post game content, especially if there is a lot of it.

 

[LordGek]

Ok, that's good. The fact is you knew exactly where you were going and also have played a lot of the weekend. I was concerned at first the game was really short.

For me, someone who is not an experienced rogue player, I can see it take me at least 25 hours for the main quest.

Now how much post content is there? You say a lot, as much as the actual game? And is there additional storyline as well? Or is just gameplay? I know rogue games aren't known for their story, but would be nice to have some story for the post game content, especially if there is a lot of it.

While I can't recall the exact number of further dungeons, there are a few post game little quests that will open new dungeons/events some of which need to be somewhat cleared to then open up even more stuff (realize clearing a dungeon doesn't always mean reaching the bottom floor some 99 levels deep, but simply getting to some specific level to fulfill the given side quest).

 

[ixix]

It means the item is blessed. What being blessed does though... no idea.

Yeah, it means the item is blessed which is a good thing! It does a little extra damage and does extra damage against undead folk but, sadly, it is usually only temporary and eventually you'll "knock" the blessedness off your weapon.

Well hell to the yeah, then. Seeing it on Pickaxes made me all nervous and I thought I'd ruined my best weapon. Looks like that bad boy's coming out of storage.

Did any Dragon Orb do this blessing thing or is it only with the Light orbs?

My sword got blessed by a Fire Orb, so I'm guessing any of them can do it instead of tempering. I put the Katana in for 5 cycles of powering up and when it came out it had gone from +17 to +20 and had gained the Blessing and an ability that makes it do more damage to anything that isn't a fire creature.

 

[LordGek]

My sword got blessed by a Fire Orb, so I'm guessing any of them can do it instead of tempering. I put the Katana in for 5 cycles of powering up and when it came out it had gone from +17 to +20 and had gained the Blessing and an ability that makes it do more damage to anything that isn't a fire creature.

Oh shoot, so if you simply leave an item to "cook" through multiple cycles the benefits go up an up!?

That is cool!

 

[slayn]

Yeah its every so many turns before it 'dings' and you get a message about the dragon orb shining with power or whatever. Generally you are bound to only getting about 5 or so power ups before you start getting warnings about the strong winds.

Unfortunately, it can and will give you duplicate powers. The sword I mentioned getting the [steal] seal? It got like 3 of them filling the sword up of all its slots

 

[SavoryCade]

Question: When the crow enemies steal your stuff, can you get it back? I see they leave a pile of feathers on the floor, but I can't do anything to it.

 

[LordGek]

Question: When the crow enemies steal your stuff, can you get it back? I see they leave a pile of feathers on the floor, but I can't do anything to it.

You can get that stuff back, but what you have to do seems far from intuitive...

Spoiler

Zap said pile of feathers with any wand and your stolen item will appear again. You can't just toss something at it, it must be some sort of wand.

My favorite predicament here is when crows have already stolen a couple of items. Say your super bitchin' weapon and a weed. There is no telling WHICH item is under that pile so you may in fact be wasting a charge on that useless weed you were just about to toss anyways. At least when you know crows are about be sure to bring a few spare wands of anything.

Edit: Now revised with cool-ass Spoiler Tag!

 

[slayn]

you can do spoilers by typing [spoiler ]spoilers be here[/spoiler]

just remove the space I added in the spoiler tag
example:

Spoiler

spoilers be here

 

[SavoryCade]

You can get that stuff back, but what you have to do seems far from intuitive...

Ah, thank you! Ironically enough, it stole my

Spoiler

jar full of staffs

so I was SOL. :lol

 

[ixix]

Wow, you guys weren't kidding about the blessing being temporary. One swing and it disappeared.

I also discovered an important fact about Dragon Orbs: you can only erect a barrier around them if all the squares around them are empty. I wasted two scrolls trying to cook an item in one that appeared in a corner.

 

[LordGek]

Wow, you guys weren't kidding about the blessing being temporary. One swing and it disappeared.

I also discovered an important fact about Dragon Orbs: you can only erect a barrier around them if all the squares around them are empty. I wasted two scrolls trying to cook an item in one that appeared in a corner.

Ouch, yeah, there is that. Don't they give any basics in "orbing" in the manual or via in game help?

 

[ixix]

The in-game help gives you the basics of sticking an item in, erecting a barrier, and waiting. Now that I look at it, the manual has a better tutorial on how to do it on page 24. With pictures and everything! Neither mentions the little positioning caveat, though.

More interesting, though, is that according to the manual you can erect multiple barriers around an orb to make the item cook faster. Gonna have to give that a try.

 

[LordGek]

The in-game help gives you the basics of sticking an item in, erecting a barrier, and waiting. Now that I look at it, the manual has a better tutorial on how to do it on page 24. With pictures and everything! Neither mentions the little positioning caveat, though.

More interesting, though, is that according to the manual you can erect multiple barriers around an orb to make the item cook faster. Gonna have to give that a try.

Dang! I never knew half this shoot when playing the import, cool beans!

 

[slayn]

Man, and here I thought it was going to be easy to make myself a bunch of blank scrolls.

Spoiler

found myself a water jar and I was all 'hell yeah blank scrolls here I come' but instead it made 'soaked scrolls'

hmm, I thought for sure letting a dragon breathe fire on me would help that but alas, no effect =\

edit:
I am going through the full portal dungeon and some of shit you can find on floor 30+ is damn cool.

 

[ixix]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only person whose first idea was to get hit by fire upon discovering that item.

So my first attempt at a multi-barrier went flawlessly. Got two barriers up around an orb and cooked a sword for seven cycles before the wind started blowing. A double barrier takes up a 5x5 grid, so the positioning gets a little delicate.

Probably should have used something better than a Bronze Sword for the test, but oh well. I wasn't really sure it was going to work.

 

[LordGek]

Man, and here I thought it was going to be easy to make myself a bunch of blank scrolls.

Spoiler

found myself a water jar and I was all 'hell yeah blank scrolls here I come' but instead it made 'soaked scrolls'

hmm, I thought for sure letting a dragon breathe fire on me would help that but alas, no effect =\

edit:
I am going through the full portal dungeon and some of shit you can find on floor 30+ is damn cool.

You're damn close there, Slayn!

 

[slayn]

holy crap a monster house of gitan mamels :lol

edit:
taking a break on floor 88

Its been pretty tame thus far, but I luckily rushed the floors with the hyper gazes (starting in the room with the stairs). But now the Ark Dragons are out in full force. I've lost 1 herb of revival to the ark dragons, thinking I could get to the stairs with the use of an invisibility herb (stupid stupid), and the other to an early floro gaze that made me eat my herb. Still have two left.

Mentally need a break so I stop doing wasted actions with ark dragons around.

 

[Lost Fragment]

So I know you can't go into the first floor of the first dungeon and find an armor ward or a really good item like you could in Shiren DS, but what about jars of change? Can they still give you pretty much any item in the game?

 

[ixix]

I somehow have a Blank Scroll but I don't even know how it got that way. Does a

Spoiler

Soaked Scroll just eventually dry out or what? I didn't do anything in particular, just carried it around for a while.

So I know you can't go into the first floor of the first dungeon and find an armor ward or a really good item like you could in Shiren DS, but what about jars of change? Can they still give you pretty much any item in the game?

I don't know for certain, but Jars of Change seem to have a fairly limited selection of what they can transform things into. I've been sticking junk into every one I find for the entire game and haven't once gotten anything I couldn't get sitting around on the ground somewhere.

Maybe I'm just unlucky though.

 

[tetrisgrammaton]

um probably overlooking something here but is there a way to select multiple items? all I see sort

 

[slayn]

couldn't do it. Had to escape on floor 91. The ark dragons were too many.

Came out with 65000 gitan

Spoiler

Air Slayer
Misfortune Staff - delevels monsters
Heavy Shield
Ration Shield
Walrus Shield
Meteorite Shield
Raging Staff
Invisible Staff
Blank Scroll
Explosive Armband - The wearer may spontaneously combust :lol
Rustless Armband
Security Armband
Warp Armband (damn cool band, with 4 slots)

not a bad hall I spose. Still would've liked to have made it to the bottom though.

um probably overlooking something here but is there a way to select multiple items? all I see sort

On the classic controller its R to multi select. No idea if using the wiimote.

 

[ixix]

If you're using the nunchuk then the Z button selects multiple items, - button for horizontal remote, B button for vertical remote.

 

[LordGek]

I somehow have a Blank Scroll but I don't even know how it got that way. Does a

Spoiler

Soaked Scroll just eventually dry out or what? I didn't do anything in particular, just carried it around for a while.

Soaked Scrolls can dry and once dried are Blank Scrolls.

Spoiler

Every time you take some stairs to a new level all of your Soaked Scrolls out in the open have a 1 in 20 chance of drying or a 100% of drying if blessed.

Oh and Slayn, I'm willing to bet the Portal Dungeon's 99 floors is one of the more "polite" 99 levelers at the end there. :lol

 

[slayn]

Oh yeah, its pretty clear the portal dungeon is meant to give you stuff. I mean floors... I wanna say 60-80 were completely tame and just stuffed with mixer enemies and gitan mamels meant to make sure you walk out with tons of money and good equipment.

I just had 0 defense against Ark Dragons and got very unlucky on stair placement. I've yet to find a dragon shield, and my assumption that invisibility herbs would last for the entire floor were completely wrong. In Shiren DS my usual approach to ark dragons was to have plenty of meat of invisible enemies.

Not ready to try again tonight just yet though, because the last thing I did before bed was take on one of the post story bosses and died to some stupidity on my part when I wasn't watching my health

Need to build up another sword/shield and want to try putting a fire element seal on my shield and see what that does.

 

[LordGek]

Amazon came through so now I can rejoin my brethren!

It's pretty freaky revisiting a game I felt I almost knew like the back of my hand without knowing what anything was actually called or what anyone was saying.

A lot of, "So this is what the guy was going on about for 3 bubbles of text?"

It will be interesting to see what they call the many items as I had my own set of cute 6 letter names often based on my own weird little inside jokes.