Tiny Q&A: Atlus on Shiren the Wanderer’s ordeals
Shiren the Wanderer, Atlus’s localized release of Shiren the Wanderer 3: The Sleeping Princess in the Clockwork Palace for Wii, takes its turn in stores this week, ready to punish and delight fans of the ronin and his weasel pal.
We spoke with a team of Atlus staff, including project lead Scott Strichart and editor Clayton Chan, about bringing a hardcore RPG to a new audience. And while they didn’t offer us any information about localization prospects for Shiren on PSP, Shiren DS 2, or the Koppa Wiimote stand, it’s hard to be too sad about that when they offered us so much fascinating discussion about the new game.
Shiren is a really different game from most other RPGs. What about Shiren the Wanderer, in terms of the experience more so than the systems, do you feel it offers that other games don’t?
Scott Strichart, Project Lead: “Different” is a great word to describe Shiren. What I think Shiren offers is a real juxtaposition between the classic rogue-like genre and the mass market JRPG. It’s got the challenge you’d expect from a rogue-like, but its story, characters, and visual style make overcoming that challenge a real joy.
It’s not easy for a game to please both sides of the fence – the masochistic “hurt me more!!” type who want a rogue-like that is going to do everything in its power to give them a game over, and the more mainstream (if you can call them that) JRPG gamer who just wants a great story and a fun battle system. I think this iteration of Shiren is one of the first games that can successfully straddle that fence.
tags / atlus / chunsoft / sega / roguelike / shiren the wanderer / interview
