 Sssssssss... That's drunk! One question I get a lot is, how the heck do you find these games? Well, in the case of Torneko No Daiboken Fushiji no Dungeon, or Torneko's Big Adventure Mystery Dungeon, this game's music was featured in part 3 of the Orchestra Game Concert series performed by the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, and I really liked what I heard. So I figured, hey let's see if this title has a translation. And lo and behold it does, created as a team effort by the kind folks at Magic Destiny, who also had a hand in translating Glenis II, the sequel to Paladin's Quest, and Feta, the emblem of justice. So these folks have definitely done some quality work in the past, and have gone on to merge with stealth translations to form dynamic designs. A name you've heard many times throughout these Super Famicom videos this channel has featured over the years. You may recognize Torneko, the main character in this game is known as Talun in North America, and he's the merchant from Dragon Quest IV. And sure enough, this game was made in 1993 by Chunsoft, the same group of folks who made the first five Dragon Quest games, so they decided not only to give this fellow his own spin-off game, but in the process to create the very first Mystery Dungeon game. For those unfamiliar, the Mystery Dungeon games are rogue-like RPGs, or in other words, gameplay that centers around exploring huge randomly laid-out dungeons with random enemy placement with the emphasis on random. So every single playthrough is totally different, obviously giving Mystery Dungeon games, and this game in particular a lot of replay value. So how does this work? Long time viewers may remember a video on this channel about the game Sheer and the Wanderer, a game that came along a few years after Torneko's big adventure, and the gameplay between the two is pretty similar. Like I said, it's a top-down action RPG complete with the usual upgrades to your weapons and armor that you can obtain throughout each area of each dungeon. But the thing is, this may look like an easy pick-up-and-play game, but I should warn you, the combat here is a little wonky. The game is pretty upfront about this from the get-go, because when you go talk to the king about exploring the Mystery Dungeon to find treasures to stock up your store, he says, Not so fast, my friend, and tells you to complete a trial dungeon where you recover the king's missing jewel. So you get there, and you die. And you die again. And you die again. Every time you enter one of the two randomized dungeons in this game, you start out at level 1, so you really have to be careful while you learn the combat system. This may look like real-time combat similar to something like Link to the Past or Secret of Mana, but it's turn-based and tile-based, so you go back and forth with each enemy attacking each other and jockeying for position. If you go full Rambo and just charge in and face enemies head-on, you're gonna have a bad time. You gotta take care to put yourself in a spot where you can succeed and attack enemies from the side or from behind when the opportunity comes up. I gotta say, it's pretty cool and it's a nice change of pace from the usual hack-and-slash stuff, but it does take a bit of getting used to. The random nature of this game doesn't stop with just the maps you explore, the spells you find are also random, meaning you have to use them to see what they are. The items are all random, it's pretty nuts, and have I mentioned this game is brutally difficult? Even the initial trial dungeon, which is only 10 floors, is ridiculous. Not only do you have enemies to deal with, but you also have to manage a hunger meter, just like in any other Mystery Dungeon game, and you do that by stuffing your face with bread. Too many carbs, man, mix in a salad once in a while. You can occasionally find items like a scroll that reveals what spells you have before you use them, as well as a scroll labeled outside that will warp you out of the dungeon so you can go back to your shop and keep the gold you've collected, which, if you do often enough, will eventually let you keep some of the stuff you collect. But again, who the heck knows if or when you can find that particular item? I should mention quickly that there isn't really a final boss in this game. Instead, you complete the game by finding a certain chest that should appear after the 25th floor or so. The style in which this story is told is kinda cool, since Torneko is from the Dragon Quest series, they show his story as if it were ripped straight from Dragon Quest 4, complete with the 8-bit style and color palette. The music is done by Koichi Sugiyama, the same fellow behind all the Dragon Quest music, and this soundtrack actually got an official CD release from Sony. It's really good and very distinct, the kind of stuff that gets stuck in your head and drives you insane months later because you can't put your finger on where you've heard it before. So yeah, when you boil it down, Torneko's Big Adventure Mystery Dungeon is a pretty simple game. You show up in a randomized map, collect all the stuff you can find and use it accordingly, wipe out any enemies you come across, find the passage to the next floor, and keep going as far as you can. And when you die, and you will die, you lose absolutely everything and have to start over from level 1. It's frickin' brutal. I mean, there are some instances where you just won't find any bread at all and your hunger meter plummets and your health drops with every step you take, and that's it. You're dead. It's all the luck of the draw. I will say though, there is a funny cheat available in the Trial Dungeon. You have to die exactly 21 times there, and the king will start to feel bad for your sorry ass and give you a really powerful sword and shield. So if you have trouble getting into this one, at least there's that to look forward to. Otherwise, as brutally unforgiving as this game is, it's pretty good. It's got a lot of personality, the music is great, and the mechanics are solid once you get used to them. If you like randomizers like this, then you should definitely take the time to check this one out. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day!