Maybe you've played a Mystery Dungeon game like Pokémon Rescue, or the Final Fantasy Chocobo one. They're pretty good, right? Now, what if I told you that there's something else out there that predates all of these excellent games and is just as good, if not better? And: what if that series was still chugging along to this day, quietly kicking ass without the help of popular licensed properties?

I speak, of course, of Shiren the Wanderer, Spike Chunsoft's roguelike where feudal Japan meets fantasy. Some of you are already protesting because you know all about Shiren, but the reality is that the concept as a whole isn't that popular. The most successful Mystery Dungeon games are the licensed ones, which have sold millions of copies, whereas the latest Shiren game didn't even break half a million sales. That game, which released in 2024, sold better than all the previous entries combined. Let us just say that, if you do know of Shiren the Wanderer you are a connoisseur of taste.

For everyone else, let's put it this way: Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island is my most-played game on the Switch 2. Granted, part of this is due to the fact that the Switch 2 doesn't really have a ton of games yet. But even in the face of games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, nothing on that platform has been able to keep my attention as well as Shiren the Wanderer.

In it, you play a roving ronin who has adventures alongside a talking ferret. You're plonked into a randomly generated dungeon where nothing moves until you do. Every step you take, the monsters in the world also take action. Already, the base concept requires a shift in strategic thinking: it's turn-based, but also kind of not. Sometimes it's a better decision not to move at all and let enemies come to you than it is to take the offensive.

Really, you........

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