Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

Though I wouldn't consider it the best entry in the series, I absolutely enjoyed my time with Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate. It's a beautiful, challenging quest with a pleasing soundtrack I wouldn't mind having in my iTunes. With all the love I have for it in mind, I don’t know if I can recommend the game to anyone who isn’t already familiar with the series. Even if you’ve played the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon spin-offs, this is another beast entirely. It’s a game you can play for 20 hours and feel like you didn’t make any progress at all. That’s a type of punishment some gamers just can’t handle. For me, it’s a type of punishment I can’t get enough of.

Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate is one of those releases that could really go either way. If you don't mind repetition and you're not afraid of some tough difficulty spikes, there's a lot of depth and content here to keep you busy for quite some time. If those caveats do raise concerns for you, there are a couple of other Mystery Dungeon titles on Switch that may offer a more palatable experience. Wherever you may fall, Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate is certainly worth your time, and we'd encourage you to give it a look.

An exceptional roguelike with a great artstyle and synergy between gameplay systems, Shiren the Wanderer stands tall among its peers.

One of the best games you can own on the Vita.

For those willing to put their life on the line and set foot in the mysterious dungeons, Shiren the Wanderer marks one of the finest entries to date.

Although Shiren the Wanderer isn't a long title, it's hard to stop going back in and taking on the next challenge that's offered.

Unfortunately the timing of its release couldn’t be worse. With the runaway success of Hades still fresh on the minds of Switch owners, the classic mystery dungeon crawling of Shiren comes off feeling much more older than it actually is.

Shiren 5 is a fun Mystery Dungeon game currently held back by a less-than-stellar PC port. Recommended for fans of the series but may be worth waiting for fixes first.

Shiren The Wanderer is not exactly relaxing, on the contrary: the game is intense and cerebral, like a chess game in many moments. In addition, there is not much to explore beyond its main purpose: constant adventures in dungeons generated in a procedural way. However, this is not exactly a problem. The gameplay of the game is its strong point and, within the specific subgenre of the Mystery Dungeons, it delivers an almost perfect experience.

Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate isn’t a bad game, but the fact that there exist other Mystery Dungeon, more enjoyable (in my opinion, anyway), games made by the same developer certainly works against it. If you enjoy brutally difficult dungeon-crawlers that offer a selection of extremely lengthy dungeons that pull no punches, then, by all means, this game is for you. However, for those wanting something more varied, I might suggest some of Spike Chunsoft’s other Mystery Dungeon titles.