Taloon's Great Adventure

Taloon's Great Adventure was the first in a series of roguelikes featuring Torneko Taloon, the merchant from chapter 4 of Dragon Quest 4. It was released for the Super Famicom only, of course. Torneko: The Last Hope, the PSX sequel, was actually released in the US. (Also noteworthy: The game was made by Chunsoft, not Enix.) Magic-Destiny's fan translation is comparable to any professional US release, in that it's not Shakespeare, but it's nicely thorough and this game doesn't require deathless prose to get the job done. Every item, monster and bit of dialogue is translated, and the NPCs around your store often have advice or amusing things to say between your dungeon runs. In the post-game, several of them mock the translation differences between earlier and later Dragon Quest games.

( Discuss of roguelikes in general, the details of this game, and gameplay tips. )

Overall? It's a fun little diversion, though I wouldn't want to play more than a couple of runs "fairly", because real roguelikes aren't my style. I suppose if you wanted to ease into destroying your life trying to beat Nethack, this wouldn't be a bad set of training wheels.