[Notymenow]

Now this is a story all 'bout how - I learned to love the rare Roguelike... anyhow, It starts back in '06 (guess-tamation, time's a slippery-ass concept, when it comes to me.) In those years past - Elementry (I threatened a friend's life, beat that one Devon) or so; gaming to me was the simple Platformer; an Rpg now and again; never did touch a Puzzeler in my short time; an SNES port of a bad (seriously, how good can DBZ: Super Butouden 2 be on Nintendo's second console?) Fighter. I may love me some Shin Nihon Kikaku, but Fatal Fury came a fair bit later in my gaming career.



Anyhoo ~ grade 6 I had your usual time in middle-school (right after grade five and the death threat; left mayhap 3 friends to my
name) Given; I was your average Poké-mans fan (ahh, weren't we all...) and shit, what do I find on a trip to the mall - but a game, one that'd take me literal years to mark the genre of - aside from my praise of Soul Blade (the opening CG might have made it worth-while) not just that, but all the Tekkens (3 at the time...) on what was a friend's old PlayStation (nope, no PS2 for this cat...).



Yea, anyway, I knew not of Games beyond your common GameFaqs-lingo, at the time... (forums didn't exist 'till my RPG-Tsukuru phase); so this one was kind of neat as... well, altogether, different; see, in Pokémon - it was your common RPG minus, ya' know, story - that thing
that makes an RPG an RPG. (May god be thanked for FF5.) But in this strange -New, to me anyhoo- genre, it was basically an a-rpg, with the
added bonus of actual (real) stratagy all on that Gameboy. I loved me some Zelda; sadly, Melissa - my older sister - got it for the N64
(yea, I was an N64dian, sue me....) and beat that one, followed by us getting Gameboys; Link followed in an Awakened manner, then Majora had his mask-ive adventure on N64 - and neither of us beat that one. So, ah yea, I fell in love with this game; genre-ever-elusive. And me being
the most stupid kid ever said to my best friend (at the time, may still be, ask someone who cares...) 'Yo, guess what; I got a game (for me
a true rarity, atleast pre-knowledge having...) - and it's...good!!!'



'Well, what genre is it?' - he asks, thereby I explain how I have no F-ing clue, 'but, but - it's like Pokémon, but, with swords and shit!;
and even a dating sim thrown in for good measure' I give mayhap 5 months to a Ben Lewing, and he (buys, and) fricking beats it
-of all things, before me; given my head start, et all- I carry on to the end of that school year in a rage, I find the elusive-game-with-no-genre and my best friend F-ing apes the win from me.

-The story takes a break here for some years...-

In nearly 2 years I discover that the game I had loved all that time ago, was a frickin' sidequel (still, with no genre), to of all things a Playstation game. (Ben, having a Ps2 all those years ago, gave me his old PSX...) So I buy this Game; and ever the idiot give my friend another chance to race thru this Arpg/Dating sim and prove me a slow old fool.

You think I learn my lesson; nope, anyhoo - He beats me to beating this game once more. (I learn my lesson though, and never suggest another
game to him).



Anyway; SelectButton enters near the next part - I play games, yea... anyhoo, Mr. Apol - RE-(yes, re-)introduced me to the grand rarity of Net-Hack (a game suspiciously a-kin to elder-Azure-Dreams) Genre naming; here we come, a Frick-ing Rogue-like. (note: I have actually played Net-Hack once and only once...)



I later got to enjoy Cave Noire, translated by a one Ghideon Zhi; and on my DS - Shiren, though I'd have loved it on the SupraFami just as
well and oddly enough (for this place) and I fricking love Shiren Wii.



Ah, "What is a Rouge-lite?", you ask; good question - anyway Nethack and such are miles beyond my (nearly-casual, sadly) gameplay acumen, so, um, a Rouge-lite™ is a (Roguelike-like) game (as I say) that can be beaten by a nigh-casual (ability-wise) such as myself...
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[schroeder]

Is "Rouge" a persistent typo or too much subtlety for my oafish brain?

[Notymenow]

no, It's a reference to the DOS game Rouge; first of the games likened to Rouge....

(I think, could be marginally wrong...)
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[The Blueberry Hill]

It's Rogue, you goose ;^)

[Notymenow]

[The Blueberry Hill]

He's not the worst Howard, at least.

[schroeder]

Hey man, Dwight's gotten better.

[mauve]

nethack is not good. i mean, it's got everything, but it's purely a rote knowledge game no matter what it says. there's a few specific routes you can take through the game and most of the effort's in figuring them out in the first place, not actually doing them. i ascended in it mostly so i could brag that i did but i'm not real proud of it.

I think a lot of the old classic roguelikes are just kinda grander in scope and breadth than in quality. you might try something like Brogue which pares it down to the bare minimum, for better or worse.

Shiren needs more pull out west. The original SFC version is still a surprisingly solid game even after 19 years, had a slightly tweaked DS release out here some ways back. good stuff. hoping someone hits up Asuka sometime.

the modern trend of action "roguelikes" is interesting to watch but often don't have that much to do with rpg-style gameplay.
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twit

[Notymenow]

[Loki Laufeyson]

shiren the wanderer is one of myall-time favourite games, and is tota;;y essential for all ds owners (especially since you can get it for almost nothing now)

for some reason the tower of druaga roguelike refuses to install on my hdd-modded ps2, and it never came out in europe. boo-hoo

eternal quest is a ps2 roguelike that got released in europe. it's shit though
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[scratchmonkey]

In terms of roguelikes that you should actually play, the list is pretty much:

- Brogue
- Shiren the Wanderer (either version, really)
- Crawl (Stonesoup version)

And I say this as somebody who has been on rec.games.roguelike.* for over two decades. And I've beaten Angband, which is the forgotten "canonical" roguelike, overshadowed by Nethack, which mauve has already adequately covered (although I believe Apol has a shine for the game and would possibly have a defense for it) -- in any case, Angband is really transcended as an experience by the above list and there was a great blog post going around a while back that detailed somebody's fictional life of playing Angband that summarized it pretty well. Unfortunately I can't find it anymore -- the gist of it that was that there's an Angband Borg, a program written to play Angband in the mid-90s and the Borg is arguably a better player than most actual players because what really gets you success in Angband is incredible amounts of patience. You need to grind, run away from anything dangerous and then achieve a certain amount of things that are only available from random drops before advancing the game. Most human players die simply because they actually take risks, which will eventually go against you.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

I wonder if Japanese roguelike fans are as frustrated with the sheer number of (relatively) inaccessible English computer roguelikes (as seen on sites like Roguebasin as we often are by the numerous untranslated Japanese releases for consoles and handhelds (and mobile platforms, for a while now). Probably. There's always been foreign fans of the more hardcore titles in the genre, and I know most of the major "canon" titles have gotten Japanese releases/localizations in some form, largely due to the open-source nature of many projects. ASCII even got away with selling their own apparently tweaked version of Nethack for the PC-98 by packaging it with a hefty guidebook (which was the actual thing you were buying). And of course, there's the dream/nightmare that is Elona...

Speaking of Japanese-only, light-weight and commercial, someone has started a project to translate the Sakura Taisen game for DS, which is a Shiren-alike by Neverland (who also co-developed Shiren Gaiden) with a heavy focus on party-based combat (which I guess isn't quite as interesting after all those Pokemon Mystery Dungeon titles). Who knows if anything will come of that, though. The script for Milandra has apparently been done and insertable for years....

Like the situations in the games themselves, the discussion of roguelikes just requires the right thinking, approach and utilization of resources. But actually pulling it off can be quite tricky.

[The Blueberry Hill]

Have you played Voyage to Farland, scratch?

[scratchmonkey]

I have not! It looks pretty interesting, although I find the aesthetic to be atrocious.

[The Blueberry Hill]

I understand why people think it looks a bit naff, though I quite like it. Obviously the guy's really stretching himself, which I find really charming.

I remember his Youtube videos being interesting, I liked hearing him talk about Shiren mechanics.


Notymenow, tell me more about your

[Notymenow]

[mauve]

[Mikey]

[scratchmonkey]

That's it! A bit different that I remembered; pretty great though.

[Notymenow]