Draft:Shiren 5 2020:Item

Shiren 5 has a large library of items organized into different categories. Figuring out the many ways that items can interact with other items and Monsters is a key Shiren skill. Players can play hundreds or even thousands of hours of Shiren and still continue to learn additional tricks and tips for how best to leverage items. If an item seems like a bad one that you'd never want to use, there is probably at least one way to leverage it to your advantage.

Shiren can carry 24 items in his main inventory. Pots are items that can contain up to 5 non-pot items, which lets you bypass this limit. (Pots are equivalent to Jars in Shiren 1.)

Every type of items has a primary action, or way to use them. For example, swords can be equipped, and peaches can be eaten. But there are other ways to use items, such as throwing them at monsters, dropping them on the ground, or just selling them for cash.

The Item Book

The first time the player tries the Lots Game in the basement of Hotel Nekomaneki, they are given the Item Book by the Lots Game character. Thereafter, any item the player identifies in any run is added to the Item Book. This allows the player to quickly select the item names when they try to name unidentified items in any run. The Item Book also keeps track of which scrolls the player has ever read, which the player can then write on Blank Scrolls. If the player manages to add all 900 items to the Item Book, they are rewarded with a Trophy.

Acquiring Items

Here's a summary of all known ways to acquire items.

In dungeons

• Items can be found pre-placed on the ground on every floor.
• Sparkly ground tiles can contain either an item or a monster if you're strong enough to dig it up. They usually require 8 or 9 strength.
• Most monsters can drop items if you kill them. Some monsters always drop the same item.
• Some monsters can create infinite supplies of certain items. For example, Scoopies create Dirt, Field Knaves create Weeds, Boy Carts create arrows, Mutaikons create certain grasses.
• Monster houses are rooms filled with items, traps and monsters. They sometimes appear spontaneously as you explore a floor, and you can also create them with a Mnster House Scrl.
• There are 3 different kinds of shops, which let you buy or win items. It is also possible to steal items.
• Some wandering Characters can give you items or other advantages, sell you items, or improve your items.
• Some pots can create items (e.g. Presto), while others can create monsters which can drop items (e.g. Zalokleft). Some pots are pre-filled with charges, though the charges themselves are not items.
• Most dungeons give you a special reward item every time you beat them. The specific reward item is fixed for each dungeon.

Outside of dungeons

• Shops in Nekomaneki Village, Hermit's Hermitage and Sparrow's Inn let you buy and sell items. Some characters help you improve items, or give you items as part of quests.
• You can win items from the Lots Game in the basement of Hotel Nekomaneki.
• You can improve your items and make New Items.

Taking items into and out of dungeons

Whether items can be taken into a dungeon depends on the dungeon's rule.

• Some dungeons let you take items and Gitan in. The challenge is to accumulate valuable items over the course of many runs, craft powerful gear at home, then bring it into these dungeons to help you beat them. But if you fail, you risk losing your best items!
• Some dungeons don't let you bring any items or Gitan in. The challenge is to find a way to survive by building upon items you can find along the way. These dungeons require more skill, but if you fail here, you only lose what you find on that one run.

If you die in a run, your items will be lost. (There is no direct equivalent to the Storehouse Jar in Shiren 5.) To take items out of a dungeon, you must either win the run or find an item that lets you escape from the dungeon. There are two other ways to get items out of the dungeon, both of which only apply to swords and shields:

• You can add a tag to swords and shields. If you fail in your run, tagged items will be returned to you in the Sentry in Hermit's Hermitage (is this always the case?). Also, you may have to buy your items back rather than just be given them back. Beware that selling an item to a shopkeeper in a dungeon removes any tag, and thus sold items will never show up at the Sentry. You can have at most 8 tagged items at the same time. You can untag items for free at Hotel Nekomaneki.
• Untagged swords and shields that you lost have a small chance to appear by the stream in Inori Village (more common) or on a rooftop in Hermit's Hermitage (less common). Each location has a maximum inventory space of 1 item, so you should clear any items from these locations right away to make room for more to appear later. You can talk to the Sentry in Hermit's Hermitage to fetch items off the town's rooftops.

Item categories

Items are organized in the Item Book by category. Swords and shields are further sub-divided into families in the Item Book. The Red Blade family, for example, includes 8 different versions of the Red Blade at level 1-8.

Equipment

Equipment items include Swords, Shields, Bracelets, and Torches. Normally you can only equip a sword or torch, a shield, and a bracelet, though there are ways to equip two bracelets at once. Swords, shields, and bracelets can be Cursed, which means they can't be unequipped voluntarily. Swords and shields have an inherent power level and effect depending on their type. Furthermore, individual instances of swords and shields have an experience level (showing up as green bar next to the icon and number / star on the icon) and an upgrade level (for example +3), and they can have Runes on them.

Stackable items

Stackable items include Arrows, Stones and Talismans. These items can never modified with blessings, seals, or upgrades. Stacks max out at 99 quantity. It is most convenient to leave these in your main inventory, since stacks are merged automatically as you pick up more, and also you can Set these items so you can fire them by pressing a button.

Consumables

Grasses and Scrolls are consumable items that can normally only be used once. They can have beneficial or detrimental effects, and in the case of grasses, you can inflict the detrimental effect on an enemy by throwing at it. A blessed scroll will turn into an unblessed scroll after you read it, effectively letting you read it twice. A blessed grass gives you a greater effect or an effect that lasts for a longer duration.

Pots

Pots have a capacity of 0-5 spaces, and they start with 2-5 spaces. Pots have different effects on the items you put into them. Most Pots don't let you take the items out at will, so you have to smash it against a wall to get the items out. Besides letting you carry more things, pots can protect your items from monsters that can affect items in Shiren's main inventory. But putting items isn't always the best choice, as there are also positive things that can happen to items in main inventory, and inserting an item in an unknown pot can destroy the item or lock it away indefinitely. Some items such as Dirt and flowers can only exist inside Pots.

Staves

Staves have a capacity of 0-99 charges, and they start with 4-7 charges. Most staves fire a magic bullet in a straight line in the direction you are facing, which has different effects on the target. If you try to use a staff with no charges left, nothing happens, but you can throw the staff to get its effect one last time (for most staves).

Food

Onigiri and Peaches are food items. You can eat them to replenish your food meter. Peaches in the main inventory will ripen as you move through floors, and will eventually rot if you don't eat them or put them in a Pot.

Other items

A few items don't fit into any of the other categories, and they are listed under Others in the Item Book.

Blessings, Curses and Seals

Items can be blessed, cursed, or sealed. A blessed item has a greater effect, whereas a sealed item cannot be used or (in the case of equipment items) has its effects nullified. Weapons, shields and bracelets can also be cursed. The blessed/cursed/sealed status appears as a bell icon, skull icon, or red X on top of an item's icon respectively.

Identification

In many dungeons, items can be unidentified, meaning that certain aspects about them are unknown. Some items have their types revealed, but the modifier status (blessed/cursed/sealed) is unknown. The type of the item can also be unknown, in which case the item will appear with a generic name such as Pear Staff or Square Pot. Identifying Items is a key skill in Shiren 5.

All items become fully identified when taken outside of dungeons.

Naming Items

It is possible to figure out the identity or attributes of an item without formally identifying them. For example, after equipping an unknown bracelet (with a placeholder name like Glass Bracelet), you try to walk through a wall and find that you can. Now you know the unknown bracelet is Wall Clip Bracelet, but it will still appear as a Glass Bracelet unless you give it a different name.

You can name and rename any unidentified item in your inventory or at your feet, even if it's owned by a shopkeeper. Any future items found of the same type will show this name as well. If you later identify the item formally, say using an Identify Scroll, any previous name will be overwritten by the real item type.

When naming an item, you can choose a name from the list of items in the same category that you've ever identified. The game also keeps track of whether a certain item type has been formally identified, or has its name chosen, in your current run. (This requires the Item Book obtained from the Lots Game in the basement of Hotel Nekomaneki.)

Prices

Items have a base buy price and a base sell price. For almost all items (New Items being a notable exception), the base sell price is 35% of the base buy price. The Item Book displays the buy and sell prices of any item type you have encountered and identified.

The final price of an item is affected by modifiers:

• Blessed = +10%
• Cursed or Sealed = -20%
• Each staff charge = +5%
• Each empty pot space = +5%
• Filled pot spaces do not add to the pot's price, but the content item's price is added to the pot's price. It is possible to decrease the price of a valuable pot by putting a cheap item into it.
• Each upgrade point on swords and shields increase the price by 5%. Negative upgrade points decrease price by 5% each, down to a minimum of 1.
• Runes increase the price by a fixed amount (listed on the Runes page) depending on rune. This price increase is applied after the upgrade point calculation.
  • For example, Magi-Twister rune has a sell value of 175, while Retribution rune has a sell value of 1750. A Fuuma Shield+1 with both runes can be sold for 2975 * 1.05 + 175 + 1750 = 5048.75, which rounds down to 5048.
  • Innate runes can complicate the calculation, since the prices listed in the Item Book (and on this wiki) already include the value of innate runes. For example, to calculate the sell price of Fine Swordite+4, which comes with innate Uplifting rune, the sell value of the Uplifting rune (350) needs to be subtracted from the listed sell price first, before applying the +20% increase from the 4 upgrade points. The final sell price is (1505 - 350) * 1.2 + 350 = 1736.
  • The price modifier from blessing / curse / seal is applied after upgrade points and runes.
• Tags and experience on swords and shields do not affect the price.
• A stack of items is priced simply as the base item price times the quantity. (There are no bulk discounts.)
• Any decimal amount is truncated.

In dungeons, an item's price is only visible when you try to buy or sell an item. You can place a single item on the ground and ask the shopkeeper for a price check, which can give you an important clue as to what it is.

There are no concepts of haggling, item quality, or item wear and tear in Shiren 5. Every item of the same type with the same modifiers is identical and will always buy or sell for the same price.

Point Card, Gitan, and traps cannot be sold.

Thrown Item Behavior

If an item is thrown at a monster, character or ally, it has an 84% chance of hitting. If the item hits, it will be destroyed. Some thrown items cause an effect to the target. Items that do not have a thrown effect generally do 2 HP of damage to the target. Throwing an item at an character (and hitting them?) will also turn them hostile.

If an item misses its target, or if it ends up airborne in other ways (thrown at a wall, emerging from a broken pot, extracted from a pot via Extraction Scroll, etc.), it will try to find a place to land within 2 spaces, or in other words, in a 5x5 area centered around the point of impact. If there is nowhere for the item to land, it will be destroyed. ("[Item] is damaged in a bad fall") Note that some tiles in the 5x5 area might not be allowed if there is a wall in the way (Need confirmation). Items cannot land on other items, invisible traps, water, or void. If an item lands on a visible trap, it will trigger the trap and try to find a new landing spot.

New Items

You can create up to 64 New Items at Hotel Nekomaneki. Once created, you can use them and find them in a few dungeons.

Items not in the Item Book

Monster licenses don't appear in the Item Book, and are not required to complete the Item Book. Some items, such as Water, only exist inside pots, and they don't appear in the Item Book.

There is also one secret item that doesn't appear in the Item Book. It's an Easter egg! You will probably come across it if you play the game, but if you want to learn about this item, try reading the Final Reward sections of the various Shiren 5 Location pages.

Non-Items

Shiren 5 occasionally refers to things like "the Dice of Fate" or "mom's special onigiri", but they are not actually items and they do not show up in the Item Book. Some of these are tracked as achievements / trophies in your game diary. See Top Menu Icons and Trophies ^Vita for more info.

The N'dubba family monsters pretend to be items and appear as them everywhere, including on the minimap. They reveal themselves and attack you when you try to pick them up or use them. Higher forms of N'dubba can exist in your inventory and even appear identified for extended periods of time. The N'dubba are not items, so they are listed in the Monster Book instead of the Item Book.

The Item Book

The Shiren 5 Item Book has a total of 900 entries, broken down into 15 categories. Categories are listed in their order in the Item Book. The Item Book tracks which items you've ever identified, which can then be used to name items in the current and future runs.

Category	Icons	Count	Notes
Equipable
Swords	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Sword.png	328	Equipment that increases your offense. Can be upgraded and carry magical runes.
Torches	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Torch.png	3	Usually used at night. Takes the place of your sword.
Shields	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Shield.png	296	Equipment that increases your defense. Can be upgraded and carry magical runes.
Bracelets	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Bracelet.png	34	Equipment with a magic effect that can be either beneficial or detrimental.
Edible
Grasses	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Grass.png	34	Consumables with a wide range of special effects; many can be made into runes.
Onigiri	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Onigiri.png	9	Food items. Can rot or be grilled in certain situations.
Peaches	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Peach.png	4	Food items that ripen and rot over time.
Usable
Scrolls	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Scroll.png	53	Consumable items containing a magic spell
Pots	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Pot.png	34	The only container item in Shiren 5. Non-Pot items can be inserted, which are affected in various ways.
Staves	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Staff.png	24	Shoots a magic bullet which travels in a straight line in front of you. Multiple use.
Talismans	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Talisman.png	13	Magical projectiles that affect all living creatures (except you) in a 3x3 grid around the creature you hit.
Arrows	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Arrow.png	11	Projectiles that travel 10 tiles in a straight line. Bows don't exist in Shiren; you can shoot these at any time.
Stones	File:Shiren 5 2020 - Stone.png	4	Heavy projectiles that do fixed damage and can be thrown 3 tiles.
Other
Traps	(Multiple)	33	Can only be picked up in a small number of locations.
Others	(Multiple)	20	Miscellaneous items that don't fit into the other main categories.
Rosetta Stone		All	Quick translation guide between the English and Japanese releases as well as fan translations.

Checklists

Item checklists can help you keep track of which items you've seen so far in a single run. (The game also keeps track of this information, but it can be convenient to have it printed out.) Price data is also included to help with price check.

• Item Reference Pictures

External Checklists

These excellent external references may have better and more complete information that has not yet been replicated to this wiki. (These links have also been added to all sub-pages for item categories for the same reason.) They also have very useful checklists, with prices and other info.

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sxAH3pZOZVdIk92PEJKpEty8FF6ZzlAJag3tsE5GAYM/edit?usp=sharing
• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mGBY1txjWch9mckciV7WqbcO6a5VF1P3exPNOsaK580/edit?usp=sharing

This post links to two additional useful item checklists. These lists are more condensed, suitable for either printing and carrying with your PSVita, or viewing on a mobile phone especially in low light.

• https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/106641-shiren-the-wanderer-the-tower-of-fortune-and-the-dice-of/77134763