Shiren the Wanderer (Franchise) Archives

Shiren the Wanderer 3 Soundtrack (Wii), Hayato Matsuo, 2008

The Shiren the Wanderer franchise is one of those video game series that has generated a surprising number of titles, despite never being blessed with outstanding sales numbers. Upon its release in Japan in 2008, Fushigi no Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren 3: Karakuri Yashiki no Nemuri Hime was the seventh game in the long-running franchise of roguelikes. Making matters rather confusing, in 2010 Atlus USA released the game in the USA as Shiren the Wanderer (not to be confused with the 1995 SNES original). For the purpose of this review, we’ll stick with Shiren the Wanderer 3. Like more or less all other Shiren the Wanderer titles, the game generated respectable reviews and decent sales, without leaving a particularly strong impression either way. What a number of reviewers did remark upon was that the game’s difficulty had been toned down somewhat from its predecessors, making this a more accessible entry in the franchise.

While the first Shiren the Wanderer game had been blessed by what is Koichi Sugiyama’s best work outside of the Dragon Quest series, Hayato Matsuo had taken over franchise scoring duties since 2001’s Shiren the Wanderer GB2. For that score as well as on 2002’s Fushigi no Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren Gaiden: Onna Kenshi Asuka Kenzan, Matsuo had relied extensively on material previously written by Sugiyama. Matsuo took a more individualistic approach on the Shiren the Wanderer 3 soundtrack, which features only a few reprises of Sugiyama’s melodies. The score came at a fortuitous time for Matsuo, hot on the heels of his magnum opus Hellsing Ultimate. Unfortunately, no soundtrack release has been forthcoming for Shiren the Wanderer 3 – maybe developer Chunsoft was wary of releasing a four disc-album for a Wii title that hadn’t been a commercial smash hit.

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Shiren the Wanderer Soundtrack (SNES), Koichi Sugiyama, 1995

It’s a bit surprising that it took publisher Enix a full seven years to create spin-off games for its monstrously successful Dragon Quest franchise. Enix’ first attempt to widen the Dragon Quest universe was 1993’s Torneko no Daibouken: Fushigi no Dungeon for the SNES. The game was successful enough to kickstart its own franchise: Mystery Dungeon. The next entry in this burgeoning series was Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, again released on the SNES. One of the system’s few roguelikes – replete with randomly generated levels and a punishing difficulty level – Shiren the Wanderer in turn sold sufficient copies to create yet another franchise of its own. Looking to put their own creative stamp on the Mystery Dungeon series, developer Chunsoft differentiated the game from its Dragon Quest brethren by setting it in a fantasy version of feudal Japan.

For the game’s soundtrack, Chunsoft sought the services of a known quantity: Koichi Sugiyama, who had provided the music for all of Chunsoft’s previous Dragon Quest games and by this stage was one of game music’s most famed composers. While the Dragon Quest titles allowed Sugiyama to indulge in his fondness for Western classical music, their pseudo-medieval/fantasy settings didn’t give him much of an opportunity to draw upon Japanese musical influences (apart from Dragon Quest III’s “Jurong”). For Sugiyama, the Shiren the Wanderer soundtrack was a chance to remedy this situation, ensuring that his music matched the game’s visually distinct character.