Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island Review (Mommy~)
This is basically peak Shiren the wanderer, everything I could ask for in a sequel to the original and more. If you've never played Shiren the wanderer, it's basically ultra-hard pokemon mystery dungeon. They're made by the same company, Shiren is just Chunsoft's own IP.
If you haven't played pokemon mystery dungeon, well basically this is a traditional roguelike (grid based, turn based, permadeath, random generation...) with a heavy focus on accessibility (compared to the rest of the genre anyways), resource management, and imagination stimulation/explorer appeal. Accessibility in that anyone can pick up and play it, it's not marred by overly math driven gameplay. It is however gruelingly difficult, as the genre tends to be. At it's core you must learn how to manage your items, the lifeblood of your run, well enough to survive the long and arduous dungeons the game offers. Beyond that figuring out what all the enemies do, what the items do, and generally how the language of the game works is important to success, which is also where the explorer appeal comes from. Similar to Spelunky, a lot of the fun is just figuring everything out, the joy of exploring the unknown. The game leans into that very well, and for newcomers there's definitely plenty to see, and plenty to see there is because there is a loooot of content in this game, as is almost tradition it feels like with this series.
Shiren the wanderer is my favorite series of games, and Serpentcoil Island is my favorite Shiren game. I'd easily recommend it to anyone who likes difficult strategic games, anyone who loves pokemon mystery dungeon, roguelite or roguelike fans in general, and especially folks who love figuring out the secrets in games like Spelunky.