About

In a fantasy setting based on the Shenxian Zhuan (Japanese name: Shinsenden), there are 4 human kings who rule the world, each entrusted with a sacred sword that was created by splitting the power of God into each. The peace of their kingdoms is disrupted by the invasion of a wicked alien who seeks God's power by corrupting the hearts of the four kings to gain their sacred swords. When the game starts, all but one - Byakko - have fallen. Byakko's retainer carrying his sword is on the run, backed into a cave. When all seems lost, he and the pursuers are unexpectedly encountered by the protagonist (who you name) and his partner Raichi who were going through the same cave for their initiation trial. So begins your involvement in this typical fantasy world-saving quest. Shinsenden has some traits to make itself identifiable from other RPGs that follow Dragon Quest's formula. The random encounter rate is noticeably higher than the majority of its Famicom peers while the item drop rate is also much lower to counterbalance the encounter rate. Character stats grow randomly upon leveling up, more similarly to Fire Emblem games. "Skills" and "Spells" separately and respectively consume TP and MP, and there is no item to restore either of said points. You can only refill TP and MP by resting. The probability of success of the Escape command is inversely proportional to the number of enemies in the encounter. Outside of battle, it has a run button, predating most known Dragon Quest-style RPGs that have this feature. Most notably, Shinsenden is one of the earliest games to have a monster capture mechanic, and it provides 2 ways to do this: a spell or the special item Crimson Gourd. A weakened enemy can be captured by either of these methods and up to 3 captured monsters can be summoned to fight on your side. Each of these methods has its own pool of 9 monsters you can store.