BGM: Old Cedar-lined Road
We begin our quest proper on an
Old Cedar-lined Road. It's a nice place to get acclimated to the exploration and combat mechanics of the game. That little critter at the bottom-right of the screen is a
bean bandit, probably the most dangerous enemy in these woods, though that's not really saying much. This one is asleep, making it even more harmless.
You'll notice some funny little geometric shapes on the left side of the screen -- that's the mini-map. It automatically fills itself in as we explore the world. The yellow dot represents us, while the red dots represent other monsters. This is another little hack the
Mystery Dungeon games use to get around the difficulties of creating an interesting and accessible console roguelike. Classic rougelikes will show you the maps of entire floors drawn with ascii art. On a standard-sized computer terminal this would afford us an even
two thousand tiles to display at once, minus 160 or so for the message lines, but the SNES only has room for so many decent-resolution sprites on the screen at once.
Mystery Dungeon compensates with a mini-map on the HUD providing much of the information that the main display would tell you in a computer roguelike.
As Denton attempts to sneak up on the creature, he quickly finds himself surrounded! Not only have his clumsy footsteps awoken the bandit, but other creatures in the clearing have also taken notice of him. Suddenly, the odds are not looking quite as great.
Denton makes a strategic retreat.
While he escapes, a small woodland
mamul nips at his heels! Mamuls, being the weakest enemy on the path to table mountain, pose little threat to our hero -- far less than the bean bandit to the west, which would have gotten a free stab at Denton had he not chosen to take a hit from the mamul instead.
As he passes by, Denton takes a hit from another mosnter as well, this time a
kid tengu whipping at him with its hair.
With a stab from one of the bandits, Denton has already lost over a third of his health. Koppa smugly reminds him not to underestimate small woodland creatures.
After that, though, it apprears Denton is safe from attack! He hurries forward a brisk pace, with the monsters close behind, dancing just out of the reach of their attacks.
And with that, Denton has the high ground! By guarding a choke point,
Denton forces the monsters to attack him one at a time.
His health getting low, he decides to retreat again to buy time...
Aw fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
And with that, Denton's first forays into impasse valley have come to an end. The wilds at their very weakest have bested him. It will surely be a long road ahead.
If you're wondering at all what happened up there, it might help if I explained the turn system of Shiren -- and other classical roguelikes. It's about as simple as a turn-based system can get: time is divided into turns, and on each turn, every standard unit may take exactly one action. They can move in any of the eight cardinal directions, attack in any of the eight cardinal directions, use any special ability, or, in the case of the Denton, use an item or talk to an NPC. There is no zugzwang; both Denton and his enemies may also choose to pass a turn, though few monsters ever actually choose to do this. The whole system is simple and elegant, but deep and engaging enough that roguelikes have been using it for nearly 40 years now with almost no alterations.
Denton decides that maybe his quest can wait for now.
Next update: the mysterious fourth building!
