#not pmd

It's finally done! Funny thing I found while finishing this up, Mari's birthday was actually yesterday (March 1st).

Posting this here just it's easier to find the original.

Uncropped version and reference pic below the cut. Palette from here

On the other side...well my life really sucks right now...these past years have been the worst time of my life, this one last year was really horrible and honestly I dont even know how I’m still on my feet.

It's also the first ever mystery dungeon game, released on the snes in 1993!! The game is a spinoff of the Dragon Quest series and stars a merchant named Torneko (Taloon in the US) from Dragon Quest 4. It acts as both a kind of a backstory for how he got his start as a merchant, as well as an explanation for how he got his wares (you can kind of think of it as if it were a pmd game that had you play as Kecleon!)

As you progress through the game, you gradually build up a home/shop/town using the goods you find in the dungeon! The game is semi-permadeath - whereas you always start at level 1 with a new dungeon each time, you get to keep half of the money you gathered in the dungeon upon losing. And there are items you can find that allow you to keep all of it like a safe, or an escape orb outside scroll that allows you to leave with not only all of your money, but your items as well that you can then sell! And once you get the 5th or 6th town expansion, you can build a vault that allows you to store 10 items to later take with you to give you an edge at the start of a new run as a bit of a risk-reward system!

So the thing that sticks out to me with the game is how it’s nearly identical to pokemon mystery dungeon. Like, I realized pmd is just Torneko with a pokemon coat of paint? Almost every mechanic from pmd (minus the pokemon and and their moves) are present. The seeds and orbs from pmd were a reworking of torneko’s herbs and scrolls respectively (blast seeds came from fire herbs, petrify orbs came from Numb scrolls, etc etc etc), a lot of the IQ skills came from effects on equipment, instead of sticky items there were cursed items, bread was turned into apples with moldy bread being grimy food, the arrows were turned into thorns, even the wands in super mystery dungeon are there almost exactly!

The main difference is Torneko is balanced to be more of a permadeath roguelike, and pmd is not. Sure pmd has some more roguelike-y dungeons where you start at a low level and can't bring in items, but not all of the 300+ character options are viable for those. Torneko is balanced with only one character in mind, and it’s honestly one of the best balanced roguelikes I’ve ever played. It’s so consistent in how it gets harder as you get better. It hits that sweet spot of letting you feel like you’re improving at it each run by learning how to approach it more strategically, while the luck based elements add flavor to that. Almost every enemy requires a different strategy and learning how they work is really enjoyable and rewarding ^.^ and every section of the dungeon from early on in the run to late is fun and engaging in it’s own regard.