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64 in 64: Episode 32

By Mento July 25, 2023 2 Comments

Well, here we are at the halfway point. Except I don't think I have any firm plans to extend this series out to 64 entries, as thematically apropos as it would be. I am, after all, running out of Nintendo 64 games I actually want to play, and will be forced to go with the memes and other infamously bad games for the sake of generating a lot of delicious schadenfreude in lieu of enjoying myself. That definitely feels like jumping the shark though, or more specifically jumping into the shark's mouth, so for now I'll put a pin in the distant future of this series and keep up with this monthly schedule for the rest of 2023 at the very least.

Oh right, I almost forgot to say: Welcome to 64 in 64, a semi-arbitrary deep dive into the mostly cursed library of the N64 one (or two) sixty-four minute playthroughs at a time. Somehow, despite regularly seeing the worst this console has to offer, I've found myself really enjoying playing N64 games this year. That extends to crafting a sister feature of sorts that was the Kobayashi Mario, a Super Mario 64 all-achievements run that I concluded earlier this month, and I've since been spending a few sessions here and there playing through some notable collectathon platformer hacks based on SM64 and Banjo-Kazooie, such is my sudden relapse into the glorious pastime that is picking up glowing shit for hours on end. This is all an unintended side-effect of this particular feature, I suspect, so maybe next year I'll get way into retro SNES/PS1 JRPGs as a change of pace. (Didn't Jan once have plans for something similar? I guess he's been a little too busy of late, to put it mildly.)

For now, we came here to play some dang N64 games and playing some dang N64 games is what we're gonna do. Just need a quick rundown of those pesky rules first:

In 64 in 64 we play two or more N64 games for 64 minutes apiece. As Malcolm Gladwell almost once said, it only takes 64 minutes to become an expert on any video game.
The first game is a Pre-Selection, decided by me ahead of time and usually the result of wanting to highlight a childhood favorite, check out a well-regarded game for the first time, or really just the result of whatever capricious whim filtered through this irradiated wasteland I call a brain. The second is a pure Random pick chosen by an algorithm. To think, algorithms have come so far since I started this feature that they can now pick a game and review it themselves.
Each game is accompanied by a series of four live reactions taken sixteen minutes apart, as well as an elucidating intro, a less-elucidating conclusion on how well the game's held up, my own musings on the possibility of a resurrection via the Nintendo Switch Online Premium Subscriber Tier For Awesome Cool Guys, and the state of its Retro Achievements support.
Finally, 64 in 64 won't touch any game already on Switch Online or announced to be added. Nintendo would not be happy if I did that. Though I'm sure they're perfectly fine with my regular haranguing them about not adding a bunch of forgotten dreck, as well as the dubious source of all these screenshots. That's Nintendo for you; very chill and non-litigious.

If you're itching to enjoy some previous episodes before reading any more of this one, by all means pull up a chair to this here table:

Episode 1	Episode 2	Episode 3	Episode 4	Episode 5
Episode 6	Episode 7	Episode 8	Episode 9	Episode 10
Episode 11	Episode 12	Episode 13	Episode 14	Episode 15
Episode 16	Episode 17	Episode 18	Episode 19	Episode 20
Episode 21	Episode 22	Episode 23	Episode 24	Episode 25
Episode 26	Episode 27	Episode 28	Episode 29	Episode 30
Episode 31	Episode 32	Episode 33	Episode 34	Episode 35

Fushigi no Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren 2 (Pre-Select)

Chunsoft / Nintendo
2000-09-27 (JP)
344th N64 Game Released

History: Back in Episode 23 I itemized the sorry state of the N64 RPG library. With only 20 games I could find that qualified, there's even less representation when it comes to RPG subgenres like strategy RPGs (there's two big ones between Ogre Battle 64 and Super Robot Taisen 64) and action-RPGs (depends if you count Paper Mario, in which case there's around five or so). Least represented of all, out of those with any representation whatsoever, is the run-based or "roguelike" genre characterized by its procgen dungeons and harsh full-wipe fail states. As far as I can tell, Fuurai no Shiren 2 is the only option N64 owners had to get their punitive dungeon-crawling on. Fushigi no Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren 2 ("Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 2") is the eighth game in Chunsoft's Mystery Dungeon franchise and the fourth to focus on their original Shiren character, a wandering ronin who finds himself traversing through yokai-infested labyrinths and outdoor areas in pursuit of treasure and glory (and occasionally to save people and animal friends).

Chunsoft, later Spike Chunsoft, is a developer that went through a few thematic shifts over the years with regards to their output. Which is to say, depending on when you first encountered them, they could be known to you for one particular type of game over another. Founded by Koichi Nakamura (the "Chun" in Chunsoft is an alternate reading of the kanji used for "Naka" in his name), the company first rose to prominence with its collaborations with Enix's Yuji Horii, first with the Famicom port of his influential adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case and subsequently with the first Dragon Quest. Chunsoft went on to develop the first five games in the Dragon Quest franchise, simultaneously branching out to pursue its adventure game aspirations with its Sound Novel series (a precursor, or alternative evolution, to the visual novels now more commonplace) starting with Otogirisou ("St. John's Wort") and Kamaitachi no Yoru ("Night of the Sickle Weasel", though officially localized as Banshee's Last Cry). Later they'd become famous for the Mystery Dungeon series, the first of which starred a breakout Dragon Quest IV character, and more recently they've become popular for their adventure games again: Kotaro Uchikoshi's Zero Escape escape room trilogy and its AI: The Somnium Files successors, the delightfully insane live-action 428: Shibuya Scramble, and (through Spike) the quirky Danganronpa anime murder-a-thons. Sadly, this was the only N64 game they ever released so they're going to be a one-and-done as far as this feature's purview is concerned.

I'm not usually one for hitting my head against run-based games for days on end but I realized that the hour-long format of 64 in 64 is perhaps ideal for a quick investigation. I harbor no allusions that I'll make any progress at all in so short a time frame given the steep learning curve with this subgenre, but that's fine: if I crash and burn and wipe my progress a few times over the next sixty-four minutes, that's probably better than having to abandon an RPG playthrough right after its prologue just as it was getting good. Shiren the Wanderer 2 is also one of the few Japan-only N64 games to see a fan localization and I intend to play all of those on here eventually, such is my predilection for obscure-ass Japanese games that I can actually read thanks to hard-working pro bono fan translators.

16 Minutes In

Worshipping a Daruma doll might not make sense, but hear me out: what if we called it VICTORY Daruma?

I didn't get into the story of this game, huh? Too busy gabbin' about Chunsoft. That'll happen. Shiren the Wanderer 2 is actually a prequel that follows a ten-year-old version of the protagonist along with his talkative weasel friend Koppa (he kinda reminds me of Daxter) as they pass through a town called Natane and stop to try the udon restaurant there. While eating, a tribe of rambunctious oni tear through the town and depart after leaving it in ruins; the villagers thereby deciding they'll need to build a castle to keep these monsters out. Shiren gets roped into helping the town after being "chosen" by the village god, a Daruma doll, and his task becomes braving the wilds to procure resources to shore up defenses back in town. The game therefore has a mild city-sim aspect to it, as you simultaneously collect items that will aid in your survival (like weapons and consumables) as well as materials for Natane's new castle.

If you've ever played a Mystery Dungeon, or really any traditional roguelike, the gameplay and controls are essentially the same here. You walk around a grid of rooms connected by hallways fighting monsters and collecting items you can use while discarding those you can't due to strict inventory limits. Each step or action you take corresponds to a single unit of time: everything else moves and fights at the same pace, though nothing moves if you don't. This is a mostly an expository update as I've only managed to get through the prologue tutorial dungeon and explored Natane a bit so far, leading to the first cutscene you see above.

32 Minutes In

Harassed by a cute little ninja as my OCD compels me to fill in the rest of this floor map. Too bad for him I managed to find a sword somewhere.

Soon after that prologue you're given some directions and left to enter the first of the game's procgen dungeons. The castle needs five parts, each needing more materials than the last, and the quality of the materials matters as it determines the fragility of those parts. I imagine early on the oni are going to make short work of whatever I build, but as I continue to hit harder dungeons I'll get better materials and thus a stronger castle. The other wrinkle is that I need the assistance of some secretive tribe that only lives on mountain summits to make these parts for me, so getting defeated in the dungeon—which are ascending towards the mountain summit with each floor—won't net me any progress. I have to make my way through every floor, get to the top, and exchange whatever materials I found along the way for a castle part. Then I have to hope it doesn't get demolished before I work on the next part. I suspect this will be a very slow process.

Happy to see the gameplay is a little more layered than I first anticipated, my console roguelike experience limited to the likes of the paper-thin Fatal Labyrinth. You can collect weapons and shields to wield—the game helpfully lets you examine anything you're holding to get the full details, including the relative strength of equipment and the usage of the thankfully-not-randomized consumables—and I've even managed to find some basic soil for the castle building after five floors of exploring (you'd think that stuff would be everywhere). Enemies are starting to get tougher, but I've managed to find a few healing items so hopefully I can keep my HP up. There's also a hunger aspect to the game: you have to hope to come across some onigiri or something because you'll start to suffer if you don't eat. I've also noticed a strength stat: strength can be increased with certain items, including past its original limit, but can also be decreased via certain enemy attacks (and, I assume without having tested it yet, hunger). As with any roguelike, you stockpile ranged attack items like magic scrolls specifically for cases like those annoying debuff monsters. Best of all is a pot I found that lets me hold onto all my money if I should die; the only downside is that it takes up three whole slots in my inventory. Still, if I want to find out what money does for me I better hang onto this thing.

48 Minutes In

Inventory space is looking a little tight, but fortunately you get two full pages (or twenty slots) to work with. The storage pots also help. Oh hey, they namedropped Otogiriso too, nice.

Well, I have some additional answers after another sixteen minutes of playing. Upon reaching the seventh floor, I was instead taken to the Shuten Halfway village: this location offers both a trader and a blacksmith, allowing you to spend some of the money you've found. The blacksmith will upgrade one weapon once per visit but also offers to repair broken bracelets (don't have any of those yet) or remove a seal (which provide special buffs on certain pieces of equipment). You can also sell things to the trader, so that's enough reason to pick up items until you fill your inventory even if you don't think you'll use them. Obviously, once that inventory's full, you'll have to make some decisions regarding whether to leave an item behind because it's too cheap or too useless (though many items are both). I bought the stronger Katana weapon from the trader along with an Identify Scroll: I've not found anything yet I couldn't identify, but if the scrolls exist then I have to imagine powerful items that need identifying do as well. I also made use of a storage pot: these take up one slot in your inventory but let you carry five extra items, provided they're small enough to fit inside (so no equipment or other pots like the money saving pot).

The floors after the halfway village have become considerably more annoying. I've tripped two Rust Traps while I've been up here, dropping the power of my equipment (including the katana I paid the blacksmith to upgrade, which as you can see from the screenshot above is now down to -1). Enemies here include treants that make you hungrier with a sinister dance, little purple blob things that steal items from the level and warp away, and the hard-hitting centaur ronin. Even if I don't die en route to the summit there's a good chance I'll not make it before we're done here, so I'm going to spend less time fully exploring each floor and try to see how far I can get.

64 Minutes In

As you can see, the materials you've found so far determine what you can build. Going by that progress bar, each part's going to need four steps to complete it as well. That's a minimum of twenty successful dungeon runs, and that doesn't include anything that gets broken in the meantime.

I needn't have worried. Though I got close to dying a few times, the final floor of the "Easy" route to Shuten Village was only the tenth, not the twelfth (which is what I anticipated, since the halfway village was after the sixth). The other half of the game's loop came into play up here: I was able to sell the items that won't carry over to the trader up here though I wasn't able to afford any of the castle part materials he was selling (they were all of "good" quality, the middle of three, and priced at 15,000 a pop, which was around double of what I had). I could also deposit the money I'd made in a bank to make it easier to afford materials on my next visit. After that, I just had to see the carpenter up here to get my castle parts once I'd traded the right materials. Each of the five castle parts have to be completed in multiple stages so it's going to take way more than five full trips to get everything finished, though being able to store excess parts for later will help. After that, I took a raft back down to Natame town and spent the night actually building the damn thing. There have to be some child labor laws prohibiting all this...

I'm glad I got to see a full loop of the game, though I was running on fumes just by following the default Easy path to the summit. I imagine harder routes increase the number of floors and, as such, the difficulty of the monsters and danger of the traps; the upside is that I'm more likely to find high quality materials, which will become a factor after the first few altercations with the rampaging oni. For now, I can be proud that I didn't let some little kid get chopped to pieces by mountain monsters and made what may or may not be progress depending on how well this newly built castle holds up. All the same, we're done Wandering for now.

How Well Has It Aged?: Hopefully As Well As The Castle I Built. Shiren the Wanderer 2 greatly resembles Natsume's Harvest Moon 64, not just visually with its pre-rendered melon-headed character sprites but in how it followed a very specific long-form genre model that was more or less polished by this point after its formative salad days during the 16-bit era. The addition of the castle-building, giving the player a game-wide goal that isn't just "keep going in the dungeon until you stop dying", makes it a more palatable (that is to say, less pointless-feeling) experience in a similar way to how modern run-based games will retain some semblance of progress across even failed runs. It's also remarkably accessible and forthright compared to other games in the same genre without necessarily sacrificing a decent challenge level, which has frequently been a strength of the Mystery Dungeon series in particular. Most roguelikes haven't changed since the 1980 game that lent the genre its name, so it's hard to argue any of them have "aged" too badly if they're still making them.

Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: A Mystery. Spike Chunsoft are active and they have a good relationship with Nintendo—their latest, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, is presently a Switch exclusive—so I'm sure the two could arrange something without much issue, though it's debatable whether they'd make the effort to localize it (or get the fan translators involved). If we ever get another wave of N64 games announced for Switch Online I wouldn't be surprised to see this on there.

Retro Achievements Earned: N/A.

Ready 2 Rumble Boxing (Random)

Point of View / Midway
1999-11-16 (NA), 1999-12 (EU)
=261st N64 Game Released

History: Let's get rrrrrrrrrready to... suck at boxing. Considering a quarter of all N64 games are sports related, it's a little strange that there's barely any boxing on there. N64 was the first (non-portable) Nintendo console to not have a Punch-Out!!, for instance, and its only other boxing games include Knockout Kings 2000 and this game's sequel, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 (I've just now realized how awkward they made things for themselves by putting a 2 in the title of the first game). All three are ports as well—Knockout Kings was originally a PlayStation franchise and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing is famously associated with the Dreamcast, the first being one of its launch games outside of Japan—so the N64 never really had a pugilism sim to call its own.

Point of View was an Irvine, California-based developer that frequently worked with Midway, EA, and THQ on some of their long-running sports series. Founded in 1996, they'd be a little more prominent in the console generation that followed, but on N64 they developed both Ready 2 Rumble Boxing games for Midway, the non-astro bowling game Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling for THQ, and NFL Blitz Special Edition again for Midway. I'd be perfectly happy not encountering any of them as a random pick. (For those keeping track, this is the seventh Midway game we've covered so far and there's many, many more remaining.)

Of all the sports genres, boxing's fairly high on my list of "most tolerable". I was never the Punch-Out!! fan that our own Dan Ryckert is, not even close, but I enjoyed it and its SNES sequel well enough in their day and playing the boxing mini-game of Lost Judgment recently has me curious to go back and see what the genre was like around the turn of the century. I know Ready 2 Rumble Boxing is very much built with the same goofy spirit as Punch-Out!! so in that regard it should be a good time; my one concern is that it's a Dreamcast port that must have been downgraded quite a bit, since the N64 didn't have anything like the chops of that system. I'm trying to imagine what playing Soulcalibur on a N64 would look like and I don't think I'm into what I'm picturing.