This game is an old favorite of mine, and I have to provide some (mostly spoiler free) commentary on the content of this episode:
1) There is no edge of the world. There are seas, but they are crossable, and the world wraps around to the other side eventually
2) the different tattoos can provide different benefits, including the ability to actually swim by tapping the jump button repeatedly. This will let you cross the ocean and find faraway lands
3) The flames are lifespan, and having none just means it's full
4) Dan did see most of the animals, they are always in the same places and the same colors (which vary by region). He also saw the weird lizard thing with the expanding mouth and the two legged bird. He just replaced his memories of these things with the word "shoot"
Most of the things this game has to discover don't actually do anything, but it's still very fun to find them. Glad the boys are taking a look at this.
@beard_of_zeus: Shiren is part of the Mystery Dungeon series. They’ve always been roguelikes. In the case of Shiren, there’s even enough complexity to compete with some of the classics of the genre, although it’s usually hidden away in a different endgame dungeon
The glowy red hands thing was a scroll of confuse monster - when you hit that rattlesnake, that's why it started running away ( it was actually just randomly moving because it was confused)
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