If you’ve ever wanted your roleplay gaming to be a little more competitive or your book club to be more video game-y, then SHIRO! has the Community Challenge for you.
Throughout September, SHIRO! Discord server members will compete alongside one another in the Realms of Lore, as this month’s Community Challenge centers around the SEGA-published Saturn tactical RPG “Mystaria: The Realms of Lore,” also called “Blazing Heroes” in its North American reprinting and “Riglordsaga” in Japan.
“We are doing an RPG book club in the guise of a community challenge,” SHIRO! Community Challenge founder and organizing committee member Gregori Rasputin said in an interview.
Rasputin said the committee settled on five separate awards for the challenge.
Any participant who completes the main storyline of the game within the month of September will be crowned a “Blazing SHIRO!”
The first participant to complete the main storyline will take home the title “Mystarian Pioneer.”
The participant who clocks the lowest time to complete the main storyline receives the moniker “Blazing Fast Hero.”
The beefiest Aragon, the participant who grinds out the highest total stats for the main protagonist within the month, shall be known as “King Aragon.”
The participant who accrues the most gold within the month claims the “Rich Hero” prize.
In addition to those five challenges, five mystery awards also will be presented.
The committee will award all participants who complete one or more of the challenges with a custom-made patch for the occasion, designed by SHIRO! co-founder SaturnDave and made by community member Moosetrack.
All the awards require photo evidence. Participants are permitted to use emulation in addition to real Sega Saturn hardware and optical drive emulators, though no Action Replay or PseudoSaturn cheats are allowed.
“We want to prevent this thing (SHIRO! Community Challenge) from feeling samey,” Rasputin said. “We want people to be surprised and intrigued even by the games selected and the challenge accompanying them.”
He said the out-of-the-spotlight RPG — and really, most Saturn RPGs — “do not really get spoken of enough, so we are addressing that with this choice.”
“We chose Blazing Heroes for the same reason we have selected the games in the past, it is a solid game that does not get enough attention,” he said.
He said the game’s length, accessibility and playability factored heavily into the decision.
“We are hoping to attract more people to participate in these challenges,” Rasputin said. “Not everyone wants to grind away at the same course for sub-second changes. This selection will hopefully appeal to those competitive mainstays from the previous months with the merit-based awards and speedrun category, as well as some others who just wanna play a good RPG and chat about it.”
The group’s last challenge, held in July, saw participants jump behind the wheel of a “High Velocity” and “Touge King 2” mashup. A record number of submissions, 242, were sent in by nearly two dozen community members.
My brother and I played this as Mystaria at the time, and even if it was quirky in some ways, the game hooks you!