Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island Reviews
All in all, Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island provides a thoroughly enjoyable and constantly engaging adventure. It updates the presentation and online features of the series, while stubbornly sticking to the tried and true mechanics that have worked since the SNES era.
Even when I initially thought of Shiren 6 as a very good Mystery Dungeon game that focused on gameplay over story, I was quickly blown away by just how much depth there was to this island, and the sheer amount of extra stuff there is to do after beating that main dungeon is just proof that addictive, well-balanced gameplay is the best quality a game can have.
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island maintains the series' challenge and ads plenty of dungeons.
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island certainly succeeds at providing just enough clues of what’s possibly at the other end of the wall to make the arduous journey to climb it one that you’d want to partake in. It’s the sort of game where your investment won’t necessarily equal a tangible result no matter how much to kick and scream at it. Instead, it’s something that feeds our curiosity, and in that, there’s something to be said about having this be your entryway into this, one of gaming’s obscure and at the same time most influential of series.
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island is a brutal, uncompromising game. It carries out all of its unconventional and punishing rules with conviction and smart consideration, making for an unsuspecting RPG that’s one of the most consistently thrilling I’ve played in years. Couple this with dramatically improved presentation compared to past entries, and you have an excellent example of how to modernize an old series without sanding off the edges. It says a lot that after finally completing my first playthrough, I was ready to jump back in again for another round. If you’re feeling brave, enter the dungeon and take a roll of the dice with this excellent iteration on the Mystery Dungeon genre.
The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island is a triumphant return to the Shiren series, roughly 14 years after the last mainline entry. It benefits from an ever-expanding story, a cast of colorful characters, a revamped asynchronous multiplayer mode, and, most essentially, the same challenging tactical gameplay and extraordinary replay value that has defined the franchise for generations.
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island doesn't re-invent the wheel, but adds a new entry in a solid, dependable series of rogue-like adventure games.