Chances are, you've not heard of Shiren the Wanderer. It's an old rogue-like title that was first released for the SNES, then re-released on the Nintendo DS with a new wifi rescue feature. Now, the sequel is being developed for the Wii, and developer ChunSoft is making sure that it's more than just a simple graphical conversion.

Aside from the updated 3D visuals, I've been told that the new Shiren is much more forgiving than previous titles. Gone is the game that effectively restarted all your progress every time you died. The new Shiren is more akin to the Chocobo Mystery Dungeon title for the Wii, in which when you perish, you lose all your items, but not your experience levels. I'm told this is to open up the title to people who would be turned off from the complete reboot experienced at the end of your life in a typical roguelike. While I'm certain it's going to annoy a lot of the hardcore RPG enthusiasts, I too remember the frustrations when that would happen, and think that this sounds like a better idea.

Throughout the game you can also have other followers accompany you. These people, who will temporarily follow you due to plot reasons, have their own set of equipment, their own abilities, and their own levels. They attack enemies that they can (you can adjust their AI to an extent), and can also be equipped with whatever items you want. If the situation demands it, you can also control them individually, switching control between them and Shiren after completing each of their turns.

With a story that involves Shiren's past, you'll be wandering between a number of dungeons as you play the game. Each dungeon, much like Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon, is a series of self-contained floors. If you fail, you're simply brought back to the exit sans items. Also added is the ability to dual-weild weaponry, trading the valuable defensive bonus from shields for an extra attack every turn. You can also use item growth, in which you must defend an item behind a barrier from encroaching enemies so that it can upgrade its abilities and become stronger for you.

Shaping up to be a fun and less-frustratring roguelike lite (or rogue-lite, if you will), Shiren the Wanderer will be coming to the Wii early in 2010.