One last set of videos for today, though you’ll need to travel to an external site to watch them, as I’m having a difficult time embedding these Dailymotion clips.

In this second-half of Game Center CX’s latest two-part challenge, show host Shinya Arino continues his quest to complete the original Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer for Super Famicom. Even if you don’t understand Japanese, so long as you’ve played a little Shiren and have a grasp of the game’s basic mechanics, you should have no trouble following the episode.

Now that your belly’s full of turkey and other fixins, why not close your Thanksgiving by watching Arino learn (the hard way, naturally) why you should kill Skull Wraiths as quickly as possible? Or by enjoying his reaction when he realizes a monster levelled up just a few spaces away from him? Will he manage to complete this notoriously difficult roguelike? Watch and find out!

As with the last episode, Arino takes a break and plays several Game Boy titles, one of which is Meldac’s curious shoot’em up Mercenary Force. I’d never heard of the game  before, but this shit looks banoodles.

Import: Game Center CX 2

Buy: Retro Game Challenge ($19.49), Shiren the Wanderer DS ($13.39!!!)

See also: Shiren DS Ending (With Oryu and Kechi)

[Thanks, Teasel!]

tags / game center cx / retro game challenge / chunsoft / mystery dungeon / shiren the wanderer / super famicom / imports / sega / ec

Almost fifteen years since its release in Japan for the Super Famicom, Falcom’s Brandish 2: The Planet Buster is finally playable in English, thanks to a patch released today by Synchronicity Translations.

Unfamiliar with Brandish but still curious to play a 16-bit dungeon crawler that never made it to the States? HG101’s piece on the series is an excellent starting point.

According to Synchronicity, the translated script is “absolutely 100% faithful to the original”. And the game, from what I hear, is also absolutely “not for bitches”.

On a related note, I love Brandish 2’s PC98 box!

[Thanks, denpanosekai!]

tags / brandish 2 / snes / super famicom / synchronicity translations / imports / patch / falcom / homebrew / koei / ec

After releasing a v0.2 patch last September, Xvirus took a break from his Shiren DS 2 translation efforts, citing difficulties with replacing the Japanese dialogue:

“The main reason that it was put on hold was that there were odd things happening when I translated the dialogue. I’m not sure how it happened, but after I translated the dialogue in a building, it would lock you in there and let you clip through walls.

There has been some more work done on the game though, particularly with the in-dungeon text. I just think it needs to be a bit more polished before a new version gets put out.”

The v0.2 patch is still useful even without any dialogue or monster/item descriptions, as most of the menus, monsters names, and item names are translated. Almost half of the in-game messages are also in English. It’s your best option for playing Shiren DS 2 for now, lest Atlus decides to pick it up for North America like it did with Shiren 3.

In Shiren DS 2’s stead, Xvirus is working on another project that fans of Chunsoft roguelikes will appreciate: Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko no Daibouken 3 Advance. Starring Dragon Quest IV’s lovable shopkeeper Taloon (Torneko), the GBA game has the merchant exploring dungeons for items to stock his store with.

This is the last untranslated Torneko roguelike. The first Super Famicom game, which you might recognize from John Harris’s magnificent playthrough diaries, spawned the Mystery Dungeon series and received a fan translation. The second Torneko title, released to PS1 and GBA, somehow made it to the States as Torneko: The Last Hope (only the PS1 version, though).

Xvirus’s team, Orenji Translations, is looking for help with the Torneko 3 patch, so if you have any Japanese translation skills, please volunteer them for this project!

One last bit of roguelike news — look at what came in the mail, courtesy of JC and his recent Tokyo trip:

It’s the original Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer! It has a “2” on it because this is the second Mystery Dungeon title, following right after the first Torneko game. Now, all I need is a Super Famicom to play this with.

Import: Shiren the Wanderer DS 2 ($48.90)

Preorder: Shiren the Wanderer Wii ($39.99)

Buy: Shiren the Wanderer DS ($17.99)

See also: Shiren the Wanderer 4 JP official site

tags / torneko / gba / shiren the wanderer / homebrew / xvirus / orenji translations / translation / patch / imports / chunsoft / matrix software / super famicom / ec