Draft:Shiren 5 Vita:Old Road

Old Road
Information
Entrance Location
Final Goal Floor	38
Total Floor Count	99
Backtracking
Bring Items In?	No
Bring Items Out?	Yes
Bring Gitan In?
Time
Can Find Adventure Allies	None
Rescues	3
Characters
Pre-ID'd Items	Scrolls and Grasses
New Items	Yes
Visibility
Shops	Normal, Elite, Pick-A-Choice
Monster Houses	Normal, Pop-up
Monster Spawn Rate	1 every 30 turns
The Winds of Kron	2,000
Boss

The Old Road is a primary bonus dungeon in Shiren 5 -- that is, a bonus dungeon that was included in the original Japanese version of the game (not DLC in the Japanese version), and that is accessed via a special location rather than the Dungeon Center, and that advances side quests and plot lines. There are special plot points related to both unlocking the dungeon and beating it for the first time, which have special spoiler protection throughout this page. This dungeon is medium difficulty; it's harder than the Tower of Fortune and harder than Inori Cave, but easier than the most difficult bonus dungeons. (E.g. drops in Old Road are more generous and less evil than drops in Destiny's Descent.) It features a unique real-time food consumption element. You can't take Characters, Items, or Gitan into the dungeon, but you can request rescue up to 3 times and you can keep any items you have at the end if you win or escape. The dungeon experiences day and night cycles, and the goal floor is initially set to 38F. After first victory, the goal floor becomes 99F and stays there permanently.

Gaining Access

The entrance to the Old Road is the middle of the south edge of Inori Village. It's the same road you used to enter Inori Village and start the game way back when you first started playing. However, access to the dungeon must be unlocked.

Because there are special plot points related to unlocking this dungeon, full details have been spoiler protected below. If you'd like to unlock this dungeon without spoiling yourself about what happens, a less spoiler-laden version of the instructions is to invite your various allies into your party and level them up, and doing so will eventually unlock this dungeon.

Expand this box for full details on how to unlock this dungeon and related plot details.

• Beat the Tower of Fortune main dungeon
• Unlock the fox sisters (Koharu and Okon) as allies
  • Koharu is the fox sister that you can turn into a weapon or shield.
  • Okon is the fox sister that automatically morphs into a variety of monsters for 1 turn at a time.
  • I don't remember which you meet first.
  • You unlock the first fox sister by letting a fox out of a trap in a cutscene while ascending the Tower of Fortune.
  • I don't recall how you unlock the 2nd fox sister. According to this external page, she shows up in town eventually on her own.
  • Regardless, it's not hard and you'll likely unlock both without trying.
  • If you have one fox sister and not the other, and you've already beaten Tower of Fortune, try talking to all the Characters in both villages, and talk to the other fox sister both in town and in the dungeon.
• Unlock Gen as an ally
  • Talk to a Character in the 2nd house from the left in Inori Village to get catnip juice, then take it to Gen in his house in Nekomaneki Village.
• Level up Okon and Gen to at least level 10
  • Both of these allies gain experience the normal way. Have them in your party, and if anyone in your party kills a monster, you all get experience.
  • Like most allies, Okon fights during the day.
  • Gen fights at night.
• Level up Koharu to be at least a level 2 sword/shield
  • Koharu doesn't gain experience like other allies. Instead, you must change her into a sword or shield and she gains experience like a sword or shield, though much more slowly than most swords/shields.

Once these conditions are met, the next time you return to Nekomaneki Village, you get a cutscene of the fox sisters telling you they are going to get vengeance on their father's murderer. The killer is... Gen! They ask you not to intervene. When you go to Gen's house, you see papers on the floor and you see that they have challenged Gen to a fight on the Old Road. When you go to the entrance of the Old Road, there's an old man who is worried about the 3 who went out there, and he discourages you from following them. He also gives some information about how food consumption works in this dungeon.

At this point, you can access and play Old Road as often as you want. However, be advised that, once the above conditions are met and the cutscenes trigger, all 3 allies (Koharu, Okon, and Gen) are unavailable to recruit until after you complete this dungeon once.

See Final Reward below for how the story ends.

Unique Features

Here are the differences as compared to "baseline play" (e.g. the Tower of Fortune):

• The distribution of monsters and items differs from baseline, though it's hard to be specific. Generally speaking, you can find a wider variety of equipment and pots on early floors than compared to baseline.
  • E.g. You frequently find Hatchets in the first few floors in the Old Road, but not in the Tower of Fortune.
  • E.g. There is a wider variety of pots available on earlier floors than you might find in the Tower of Fortune.
  • But the drop table is not as wide/evil as it is in, say, Destiny's Descent.
• The difficulty seems to ramp up more steeply than baseline, but that may also be just an illusion due to the fact that you can take better equipment into Tower of Fortune and not into this dungeon.
• Food consumption is not based on the number of turns taken but is instead based on the amount of real time that passes.
  • If you leave the game running without taking turns, you will starve.
  • If you save and quit the game and put it down for a long time, this does not burn food.
  • It is not yet known if sleeping your PSVita with the game running burns food in your run. Don't risk it unless you're explicitly trying to test it.
  • If you tend to play quickly, you'll use less food than you would normally.
• Stomach size also decreases slowly over time. [CONFIRM] Your stomach only shrinks sometimes when you change floors. [/CONFIRM]
• Scrolls and grasses are pre-identified.
• There is a special ending for this dungeon after the initial goal floor (38F).
  • See spoilers in the Final Reward section for details.
  • After you beat the dungeon for the first time, the goal floor becomes 99F and stays there permanently, and this special ending no longer recurs.

Final Reward

There is no reward item for completing the easier 38F version of this dungeon. There is also no reward item for beating the harder 99F version of this dungeon. However, there is a special ending for the 38F version of this dungeon, which merits special spoiler protection. You may have more fun trying to beat this dungeon without reading the spoilers.

Expand this box for details on what happens at the end of this dungeon.

When you reach the end, you see the fox sisters accusing Gen of murdering their father and preparing to attack. Gen swears it wasn't him. Just then, another one-eyed hunter also nicknamed Gen appears and brags about having killed the fox sisters' father and so many others. Both Gens are one-eyed hunters, which is why the fox sisters got them mixed up. But rather than being a gruff-but-lovable cat, this new Gen looks like a gargoyle, is called "the demon from the north", and is accompanied by a posse of high-level monsters. The fox sisters state their intention to attack the demon Gen. The cat Gen says he will join them, and you do as well, with Koppa urging you on, of course. After this cutscene, it becomes a boss fight with you and your 3 allies against the demon who starts with 4 tough monster allies of his own, and like other boss monsters in this game, he can summon several more monster allies in a single turn.

Should you die in your attempt, you awake in Nekomaneki Village with Koppa urging you to hurry back, as your friends need your help. On subsequent boss battle attempts, you get a different cutscene where demon Gen and his minions have your allies surrounded and are moving in for the kill. (The fact that your allies may have died during your earlier attempt(s) doesn't seem to matter.) After the alternate cutscene, you get the same boss fight.

Upon victory, you get another long cutscene of demon Gen's near-death—he manages to escape just before you kill him—and you and your allies return home. All is now well between the fox sisters and cat Gen, and you can now once again recruit any of them as your allies for any future dungeon runs.

Once you've beaten the boss, he never appears again on any future run. If you do want to fight him again, you can do so via wishing for it in Inori Cave.

Farming Opportunities

There are no known farming opportunities in this dungeon. (That is, there are no valuable items for which this is dungeon is an easy way to get out multiple copies). You can't take items in which makes it harder to take items out.

Strategies

Strategy tips for this dungeon have been split into spoiler-free tips and tips that would spoil important plot points related to this dungeon. First, the spoiler-free tips.

In this dungeon, food is consumed based on the passage of real time, not based on the number of turns taken. Consequently, don't leave your game on without doing anything or you'll starve. Aborting/saving the game then putting it down for an extended period of real time and restarting does not burn food. It is not yet tested if simply sleeping your PSVita without saving your game stops the consumption of food, so, either test it or don't risk it. Because of this unusual food mechanism, a methodical play style, trying to maximize the ROI of every turn, may not work to your advantage. That being said, it's probably best to just ignore the special food system entirely rather than trying to make yourself play faster than you normally would and potentially make mistakes. Most players will likely consume less food in this dungeon than would in other dungeons anyway.

Your stomach will also shrink as you descend floors. This also isn't really a big deal, but it if starts to concern you, save up several pieces of food and eat them all at once to re-expand your stomach. Food is not a problem in this dungeon provided you keep moving at a reasonable pace.

While this dungeon does experience "normal" day and night cycles based on the number of turns that have passed, because food doesn't burn the same way, you can deliberately find a safe-ish place to rest and hold down the pass turn buttons to cause day/night to switch very quickly, while losing virtually no food. This can be super useful if you're strong at one time of day but weak at the other, or if you need to gain access to monsters at different times of day before advancing floors. For example, both day and night Mixer monsters appear on various floors of this dungeon, but not the same floors, so you may want to look up which floors have day or night Mixers and force day/night to change so you can deliberately spawn some Mixers and do some mixing before advancing floors. One reasonably safe way to pass the turns very quickly is to find a dead end room and "lock" the door e.g. by paralyzing a monster at the doorway or using a Fort. Staff charge or picking up unpaid merchandise in a shop. The game apparently doesn't allow monsters to spawn in the same room as the player, or at least not within the players vision range, so it's reasonably safe to just clear and lock a room then hold down the pass turn key as long as you need. Of course, this trick doesn't work if there are monsters that can phase through walls or walk on water to get into your room, and a paralyzed monster can be re-activated by a Digestiphant behind it. If you can't find a perfectly safe place to rest but still want to pass turns quickly, the next best alternative might be to use the best torch you have (even if it's daytime) and rest in a hallway with just one entrance where you can see monsters coming towards you around a corner. It's not important to find an ideal resting spot. Just find a place where you can see a monster coming from 2 squares before the monster can act upon you, then hold down the pass turn button to pass turns continuously but without burning food. If you have reasonably good reflexes, you can stop passing turns with just 2 tiles of reaction time. Needless to say, having the ability to remotely see monsters e.g. via a Monster Detector bracelet or Navigation Scroll makes bulk passing turns extremely safe.

As this dungeon has day/night cycles, it also has Night-Day Scrolls and Night-Day Traps. Both are very useful. For example, if you get hit with a pop-up monster house in the daytime, or get surrounded by monsters due to a summon monster trap, switching between day and night removes all monsters and respawns them randomly. If you find a Night-Day Trap, you can use it to help you with mixing, or to stay in your preferred time of day longer. (Remember, you can always bulk pass turns without burning food. But if you spend too much time on a floor, Maneaters will start to appear to encourage you to move on, well before the Winds of Kron become an issue. Food consumption differs from baseline play in this dungeon, but Maneaters and the Winds of Kron are both normal, based on the passage of turns not real time.)

Another great thing to hunt for, in dungeons in general, is the UFO-type monsters which drop multiple good grasses if you can kill them. This is especially useful at night as the night versions won't run away from you consistently, and the grasses they drop will be blessed. It's actually pretty easy to get 3x blessed Revival Grasses if you specifically hunt out the right UFO monster at the right depth at night, which is as close to a guaranteed win as you can get in this game.

As with every dungeon, take full advantage of Synthesis Pots and Mixers. Make sure you know all the different runes you can add and what you need to add them -- see Runes and Improving Existing Items for details. Synthesis Pots are fairly easy to find, but it's also possible to find Modder's Pots, so make sure not to mix them up. (Synthesis Pots are far more common and always size 5. Modder's Pots are uncommon and can be size 3-5.) But Mixer monsters can do everything Synthesis Pots can do and more, and they're easier to find and identify. See the Monsters section of this page to find exactly which floors contain Mixers and whether they appear during the day or night. (There is one challenge identifying Mixers, which is that Crow Tengus can pretend to be Mixers, and if you throw your great items at a Crow Tengu by mistake, you may hit it and lose your great items. If in doubt, check the Monsters table and see if Mixers and Crow Tengus can both appear on your current floor. One way to tell them apart is to try to lure the monster over water or air/void tiles; Crow Tengus can fly but Mixers can't.)

Normal mixing strategy and techniques apply. Thankfully, mixing is easier here than in many bonus dungeons because both Maneaters and the Winds of Kron take a long time to appear (which is normal for most dungeons), and because grasses are pre-identified. (For some reason, the game designers chose to use grasses for a lot of runes, especially on swords.) Save up everything you want to mix, including 2x Herb, 2x Otogiriso, 2x Heal Grass, 2x Life Grass, and anything else that can become useful runes. Isolate a single Mixer monster, preferably several steps away. Throw the items into it, making sure you still have a way to kill it safely to get the merged item out again. If one of the items is cursed or sealed, mix that item in first to get rid of the curse/seal. Then stay on the same floor to keep spawning more Mixers until you've mixed everything you want to mix. It's better to use Mixers to do things that only Mixers can do before using them for things a Synthesis Pot can do. You will probably have more possible runes than can fit on your equipment. This is a good problem to have. Obviously, prioritize adding the most important runes first. One great way to deal with having plenty of Mixers but not enough rune space on your equipment is to merge lower priority runes onto spare pieces of equipment, preferably only 1 rune per spare piece of equipment. This way, you can convert everything to runes while Mixers are available, then synthesize them onto your main equipment later when your equipment levels up and gains more rune space, which can be done with either Mixers or Synthesis Pots. If you only have one more rune you want to squeeze on, you may be able to grind on a floor with Mixers to level up your main equipment before leaving.

Monster Detector bracelets are not uncommon in this dungeon and can make a huge difference. Prioritize finding one. An Alert Bracelet may be the next best bracelet. Alert Bracelets are in the 3K tier (buy for 3,000, sell for 1,050) and Monster Detectors are in the 5K tier (buy for 5,000, sell for 1,750). See Identifying Items for more tips and tricks.

It's important to be good at both day and night play. Unlock all the best night abilities you can and configure a strong set of night abilities. See Night Strategy for details.

The Old Road also allows new items. This can make a huge difference in the viability of any given run. If you can't beat the dungeon just yet, craft some amazing new items, especially level 8 swords, level 8 shields, and bracelets, and try again. See Crafting for details. The dungeons seems pretty generous with giving you new items, especially new items swords and shields. One way to really maximize the benefit of new items is to make sure that *all* your new item swords and shields can resonate with one another. This way, when the game gives you any new item sword and any new item shield, you have a strong combo. The Red Pair (L8 Red Blade aka Shugouseki and L8 Red Shield also called Shugouseki) is one good choice, as it's the strongest pair that gives you the ability to dual-wield bracelets. The Pathetic Pair (L8 Pathetic Blade aka Rising Sun Sword and L8 Pathetic Shield aka Rising Sun Shield) is another good choice as it's quite powerful and the resonance sometimes causes monsters to flee from you, which can be helpful if you're trying to race past the more difficult floors to the exit. Crafting excellent new item bracelets can also make a huge difference. New item consumables can of course help as well, e.g. new item Undo Grasses.

Expand this box for tips that involve spoilers for this dungeon.

If you haven't beat this dungeon once already, you will face a boss battle after 38F. It's the most difficult boss fight in the game, or at least more difficult than both Reeva statue boss fights in the Tower of Fortune. At least you'll have Koharu, Okon, and Gen with you as allies for the boss fight. (You can't elect to bring allies with you into this dungeon, but due to the special plot elements related to this dungeon, you get all 3 of them as allies for the boss fight only.) Because you get these 3 allies with you for the boss fight, and because you lose access to all 3 allies once this dungeon is first unlocked, it is mildly helpful (but by no means necessary) to level up all 3 allies as high as you can before triggering the conditions to unlock this dungeon. One way to do this is to grind with Okon and Gen in your party often, to get them to be very high level, but without giving any experience to Koharu. Then use the Level 8 Equipment Easy Trick to max out Koharu's level in a single run. But either way, it doesn't make a huge difference how powerful your allies are, so if this event triggered before you thought you were ready, fear not, your allies are strong enough.

Finding and saving up appropriate items is critical to winning the boss fight. As with the previous boss battles in the Tower of Fortune, this boss can repeatedly summon enemies. Unlike past boss battles, this one seems to be tougher, and even if the bosses are actually equivalent, you can't build up great gear over the course of multiple runs and take it with you into this dungeon, you have to make do with what you can find (or create) along the way, which is significantly more challenging. Scrimp and save everything that might help in a boss fight. Specific things to try to save until the boss fight include Swift Grass, Invincibility Grass, area-effect scrolls of all kinds, possibly talismans as they can affect multiple monsters at once, and of course Revival Herbs and Undo Herbs if you can keep them. An Empathy Staff might also be helpful. One thing that definitely won't help is a Sanctuary Scroll. If you drop one in this boss battle, the game says something about it not working in a mystical place and it doesn't stick to the ground to create the sanctuary you so desperately need. (Working theory: the floor tiles of all boss battles are the same as or equivalent to floor tiles of shops; scrolls that normally trigger by dropping them apparently don't trigger in any of these locations, though in the boss battle there is an explicit log message about it not working, which is not the case in shops.) If you did try dropping a Sanctuary Scroll here, don't risk losing the boss fight to try to pick it up again and save it. Sanctuary Scrolls aren't particularly rare or valuable, and once you've read one of them ever, you can write your own on Blank Scrolls, which you can buy for a mere 200 points from the Points Shop in Nekomaneki Village.

If you find you're needing to use items that would help in a boss battle just to survive and reach the boss, you may be falling behind the power curve. Try to find other creative ways to survive and grow while saving what you need for the boss. If you can pass on dangerous situations in the late 30s floor range, to save more valuable items for the boss, do so.

Once you've beaten the boss, he never appears again on any future run, so you don't need to prepare specially for a boss fight after 38F (or 99F). If you do want to fight him again, you can do so via wishing for it in Inori Cave.

Expert Badges

1. You conquered a dungeon without eating any food!
2. You conquered a dungeon without using any grass!
3. You conquered a dungeon without using any scrolls!
4. You conquered a dungeon without using any staves!
5. You conquered a dungeon without using any talismans!
6. You conquered a dungeon without using any pots!
7. You conquered a dungeon without collapsing even once!
8. You conquered a dungeon without using any special abilities!

Monsters

The types of monsters that can appear in this dungeon have not yet been replicated to this wiki. Here are good external resources:

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C1h9IRPQPLg9g7aE48wlyw8IudHIStawK4mR3kuggto/edit?usp=sharing
• https://seesaawiki.jp/w/shiren5/d/%b5%ec%c6%bb (Japanese wiki page for this location)

Open Questions

• Does sleeping your PSVita without aborting/saving the game prevent food consumption? Confirm and update the Tips section above.
• From what I've read, there is never a reward item for beating this dungeon, but beat the 99F version and confirm.