Draft:Shiren 5 Vita:Monster

Monster Families

Monsters are organized into "families". There are usually 8 monsters in each family, one at each of four power levels, x2 for day monsters vs. night monsters. Family members are substantially similar to one another in both appearance and other attributes, though higher-level monsters within a family tend to be much tougher, tend to be worth more experience points, and tend to have more dangerous capabilities. Pay attention to the color of the monster you are facing so you know which level it is and thus which specific capabilities it has.

Day Monsters vs. Night Monsters

Shiren 5 has the concepts of day and night. Day plays like most games in the Shiren series and like other traditional/classic roguelikes, while night is a different gameplay mode unique to Shiren 4 and Shiren 5 (so far). See Day & Night for full details on the differences. But one of the key differences is that there are different versions of every monster for the day and for the night. The day and night versions of a monster are substantially similar to one another, but they count as separate monsters for the Monster Book. Day monsters only exist during the day and night monsters only exist at night; when day and night switch, all monsters are removed (dropping the items they would have ordinarily dropped but not giving Shiren any experience) and new monsters appropriate to the new time of day spawn randomly across the floor.

A monster that kills another monster levels up immediately. (There is no concept of a monster needing to accumulate enough experience for the next level; a single kill of any other monster will do it.) Monsters normally don't target other monsters, so this doesn't happen very often, though the player can manipulate monsters into killing other monsters and leveling them up that way (e.g. by inflicting them with status ailments such as rage, berserk, fear, confusion, etc.). In addition, the player can level up or down a monster directly via the use of certain items (e.g. Glorious Staff, Unlucky Staff, etc.).

When a day monster levels up, it transforms into the next higher form within the family, and is also completely healed and has all status ailments removed. A day monster that levels down is transformed into the next lower form within the family and is also completely healed and has all status ailments removed. There are no higher forms above level 4, so if a level 4 monster levels up, it doesn't change to a different family member, but it is still fully healed and still has all status ailments removed, and it gains a suffix such as Abyssal Dragon2, which means it's more powerful than a normal Abyssal Dragon. Attempting to level down a level 1 monster has no effect. There are a variety of tricks that involve forcibly leveling up or down day monsters in certain situations, such as finding a Mamel (level 1) on an early floor and leveling it up to a Gitan Mamel (level 4) and killing it with a rock (which does fixed damage and thus defeats the Gitan Mamel's inherent defenses) to gain a massive experience boost and 2,000 Gitan early in the run. Night monsters, on the other hand, do not change forms when they level up or down, but do heal, do remove status ailments, and do change the numeric power suffix. For example, if a Dark Mamel levels up 3 times, it does not become a Dark Gitan Mamel but becomes a Dark Mamel4 instead. Consequently, tricks involving forcibly changing a monster's form are not possible with night monsters. This also complicates completing the Monster Book and getting the associated trophy, as you must find and kill each night monster form individually, you can't find one in the right family and level it up or down to the form you need.

Most day monsters prioritize moving towards and attacking the player, and always move as quickly as they can to do so. Night monsters, on the other hand, behave like berserk Pumphantasms. They are berserk in that they will attack any creature near them, and they probably prioritize moving towards and attacking the nearest creature (not just Shiren) when they have a choice. But like Pumphantasms, they also move chaotically about 2/3 of the time, only choosing where to move about 1/3rd of the time. Because of these behavioral changes, night monsters level up much more frequently than day monsters. This can streamroll quickly, with a single night monster becoming incredibly powerful and dangerous after just a few random encounters with other monsters on the floor. On the other hand, it also means it's easier to run away from night monsters, and, you'll frequently find extra items dropped on the floor because night monsters defeated one another (and items dropped by night monsters are usually blessed as well).

No matter what equipment you have equipped, direct attacks only do 1 point of damage to night monsters. The only known exception to this is via the extremely rare Night Ward bracelet. Instead, the player has access to Abilities. Shields do provide normal protection against night monsters, but the protection is reduced (or the monsters hit harder) if you don't have a light source such as a torch. And of course, beware that the Day Shield (or Diurnal rune) are helpful during the day but harmful at night, whereas the Midnight Shield (or Nocturnal rune) are helpful at night but harmful during the day. If you're used to dealing with monsters by overpowering them, you'll need to develop different strategies to deal with night monsters; see Night Strategy for details.

Day Monster Behavior

When you're not in the same room as a monster, it will choose one of the exits of the current room at random and move towards it. They'll move diagonally towards their destination until they're lined up in a straight line with their destination, then they'll move straight towards the exit. If a monster just entered from one hallway, it will choose a different exit at first. If you stand in the hallway immediately outside a room, you won't be able to see what's in that room (normally), but the monsters in that room can see you and will change their destination to your hallway. You can use this to your advantage by stepping on the threshold of a room then stepping back into the hallway to lure monsters into your hallway to fight them one at a time. But as monsters walk towards their planned destination, and if they can't see you, they sometimes (~10% of the time) change their minds and head towards a different exit instead. So if you're trying to lure a powerful, slow creature out of a room, be careful to count turns and make sure not to advance towards the room until you're certain the creature has changed its mind and is headed elsewhere.

You can determine a monster's destination by observing their movements on the mini map if you've used a Navigation Scroll, have a Monster Detector bracelet, or in a few other ways. Further, if the monster is headed towards a series of rooms with limited exits, you can predict their likely travel path through many rooms. This can be useful for getting in front of fleeing enemies like Snacky, FO-UZ, or Froggies that have stolen Gitan.

Some enemies can be identified by how they appear or move on the mini map. A group of three in a triangle is probably a Floaty type. If it's stationary, it might be asleep or a Moseal, or possibly a Bored Kappa standing on an item. If it's moving two spaces per turn, it could be a variety of monsters that are normally hasted, or it could be a non-hasted monster with a haste aura. Whatever it is, if you want to run into it, it's probably better to meet it by itself in a hallway. If you've mapped the area where the monster is moving, you may also see it walk over water or air/void tiles and get a hint about what it is that way.

Moving around Metalhead types and Pop Tank types is a skill worth practicing. There's a lesson in the Beginner House where you can practice with Metalheads. The speed of Pop Tanks, in particular, affects the way you move around them. They can only attack every other turn. On a turn where they can attack, make sure you're not aligned with them and not standing next to a wall where they can hit you via splash damage.

Monsters with straight line ranged attacks won't use them on you if you're in a hallway, because they can't "see" you. This is true even if they "should" know that you're still at/around a given location because you haven't had enough turns to run away; their behavior doesn't account for this and so they still won't use a ranged attack. However, monsters with direct ranged attacks such as a Porky or Abyssal Dragon can use those attacks on you even if you're in a different room, and even if they're moving away from you, so long as you're within their attack range.

Monster Types

Monsters can have zero or more special types, each of which corresponds to different capabilities and/or vulnerabilities. All members of a monster family share the same set of types.

Monster Type		Weapon	Shield	Rune	Notes
English	Japanese
Plant-type		Scythe Type		(Anti-Plant)	It's unclear what other special abilities they have.
Exploding-type		Crescent Katana Type		(Anti-Explode)	They can also explode if they get very low on HP without dying.
Metal-type		Copper Cleaver Type		(Anti-Metal)	They can also be weakened by splashing them with water from a Water Pot.
Magic-type		Magic Masher Type		(Anti-Magic)	They tend to have special magical attacks.
Floating-type		Sky Splitter Type		(Anti-Floating)	They can also travel over water and air/void tiles.
Draining-type		Drain Dagger Type		(Anti-Drain)	They also tend to have special attacks which degrade your stats (HP, strength, etc.)
Aquatic-type		Water Cutter Type		(Anti-Aquatic)	They can also travel over water tiles.
Cyclopean-type		Myopic Masher Type		(Anti-Cyclops)	Unclear what other special abilities they have.
Dragon-type		Lizard Lasher Type		(Anti-Dragon)	They also tend to be able to blast you with fireballs at long distance, sometimes even from other rooms.

Monsters with none of the above special types are normal-type monsters.

In addition to the equipment and runes listed above, there are also secret pot effects that interact with these monster types. See the Runes page and the Secret Pots & New Items page for details.

List of Monsters in the game

Below you can find a link to all monsters that appear in the games, basic info about them and their abilities. Day forms first, followed by their night forms.

Special Enemies

For all non-standard enemies such as shopkeepers and bosses.

Shiren 5

The list of Monsters present in the Nintendo DS release of the game.

Shiren 5 Plus

The list of Monsters present in the PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows release of the game.

External References

There are some excellent external resources about monsters linked on the Shiren 5 main page. Most of this external info has not yet been migrated to this wiki.

English and Japanese monster names.

Almost all of the content on the monster table was taken directly from the in-game text.