Genesis REVIEWS: Shining Force

The Shining Force series is generally considered Sega's counterpart to Nintendo's own SRPG series, Fire Emblem. For as long as the two games existed together, the Shining Force series actually had more of a Western presence.

Unfortunately, the series was one of the many victims of Sega's exit from the console market. However, its games can still be enjoyed today. While the series initially started as an unfortunate dungeon crawling game. It changed gears into an TRPG with the second game, and it was an excellent start to the series.

43- Shining Force:

Year: 1992.
Genre: SRPG.
Publisher: Sega.
Developer: Climax Entertainment, Sonic Software Planning.

"No matter what the cost, the mystery must be solved, and Runefaust's plan foiled"

As with other early 90s RPGs, Shining Force does not try to tell a complicated story. The evil nation of Runefaust have been plaguing the land, the Shining Force will need to fight to stop them. Still, it does more in its story than other contemporary games.

It tries to cram in as many cool moments and cliches as it could. In fact, it is one of the games that founded those moments into the well-worn tropes used today. The noble enemy knight, check. The imprisoned enemy king, check. The hero's sacrifice, check.

At least you don't begin the game on bed

It is surprising how much story the game actually manages to convey in limited dialogue. Take for example the many cities you visit. One of them immediately stands out because you don't see any adults. By walking around and talking to the kids, you realize that a lot of the adults ran away from the impending Runefaust army.

Still, I wish the many character's that join your army had more lines to say than the two or three they currently have. This was a common flaw in TRPGs, and it was a shame in Shining Force which had an interesting looking cast.


"What's a youngster like you doing moving around? Get out and fight evil!"

One thing that is weird about Shining Force is that it doesn't progress the same way TRPGs usually do. Sure, the game is basically a series of battles. However, the story doesn't progress once you finish a battle.

In fact, the game first starts as an RPG, with your character moving around the town and overwolrd. This allows you to interact with your own cast of characters (limited interaction) as well as the good townsfolk of all the cities in the game.

This is a small part in the game compared to the battles, but it does add something, and it differentiates the series from others in the same genre.

Walking around the world, you can also recruit characters to your army as well as well as buy and sell equipment.

Once you go into battle, its into TRPG gameplay. You will end up controlling up to 12 characters, with many different classes. In a character's turn, they can move and attack an enemy based on their class. Some classes can attack from two spaces away, but most must be adjacent to the enemy. Unlike the Fire Emblem series, the enemies do not counter attack, meaning you can kill enemy units before they get a chance to retaliate.

That centaur unit can be ganged up on and defeated quickly if you don't move units to cover his side

In all of the game's stages, the goal is to defeat all enemy characters while making sure the main character doesn't die. You characters level-up based on their performance, which means you need to make sure all of your characters are engaged in the battle.

Its a solid gameplay system, and the stages all pose a satisfying sense of challenge without being overwhelming. Some stages are simply too large, and those take a longer time to finish, but most are well-balanced and actually do not take too long.


"Burn... You'll serve as an example to all who dare oppose Runefaust"

One thing TRPG veterans would have noticed me say is how characters need to participate in battle to level-up. This is usually the case for TRPG games, and it affects how you play the game. Strong characters that can easily kill enemy units should not hog all the experience, and sometimes you need to make purposefully disadvantageous moves to get a weaker character the killing blow.

Also, this usually means experience points are limited throughout the game, and you could be in a bind if you level-up the wrong set of characters. With character promotions, and leveling up of each character going into different trends, this could happen in any TRPG.

This is not a problem in Shining Force.

First, because the game is not particularly hard, through natural progression, you can get your heroes to a decent enough level. Only near the end of the game does the difficulty spike, and it does so mostly by giving the enemies magical attacks that completely ignore your defenses.

Second, because you can actually repeat battles before finishing them, if you want to level-up, just cast Egress with your MC and you retreat from battle, keeping all the exp you earned while fighting. This is a huge game changer, as this allows you to train weaker characters, and basically allow you the luxury of creating your favorite team.

Or you could simply have all of your extra characters hang out in the bar like bums

Of course, if you abuse this, your team will simply grow too strong, removing any challenge in the game.

Making up your team can be really fun. You can have a full squad of Centaur Knights to rush the enemy (won't work well in forest terrain), and if you are going to use Centaur Knights you shouldn't ignore Arthur who grows up fast from weak beginnings. There are flying units, which you can to scout ahead and pick apart mages and healers. Then of course, there is the weak Dragon unit which grow up to become the most fearsome of them all.

Half the fun in battle is how different they are based on your team composition.


"In ages forgotten... light fought darkness for control of the world"

Immediately, Shining Force aims to impress the player. A young elf girl, nearly filling the screen, and animated in a way unique to Genesis games, introduces us to the game. From then, we see the colorful graphics used to make up the world and its inhabitants.

While repetitive, the game's graphics are colorful and detailed. They also always try to do more. For instance, battles are animated, and the effects of both attacks and spells are nice enough. Sprites are detailed, and character art is cool.

I really like the short battle scenes

Its the classic 16 bit look that remains pretty today.

Unfortunately, the same care did not extend to the game's soundtrack. While the songs are ok, they are very limited, especially for an SRPG.

When a battle can take up to 30 minutes, listening to the same music track that has little depth gets boring.


In Conclusion:

This first TRPG Shining Force game is an excellent start to the series. It easily became one of Sega's best exclusive games, and one of their winning IPs. At least, that is the case critically if not commercially.

Any fan of the genre would enjoy this game, and yet be sad at playing it. Sad that the series is now dead, and its once rivalry with Fire Emblem is of the same fate as Sega's with Nintendo.

Final: 8/10 (Recommended)

Pros:

• Good Story and Setting
• Interesting Side Notes
• Walking around like in an RPG
• Solid Gameplay and Good Stages
• Ability to Replay Battles
• Varied Character Classes
• Good Graphics and Character Design
• Good animation

Cons:

• Limited Character Stories
• Limited Music

 

Tips:

1. You should try and level up Arthur (the main character), he is really good.
2. If you need to level your characters up, Egress during battle and continue to fight with your weaker characters.
3. You can do the same if you need money.
4. As with other SRPGs, promoting your characters early is not a good idea. Generally promote characters that reach level 20.
5. Main Character dies, and its gameover, make sure to protect him.
6. Domingo is a character with high priority, meaning that enemies will attack him most, and he is a tank.
7. There are hidden characters, search suspicious places in the environment.

Next Game:

This an excellent start to the Shining Force series, and one of my favorite Genesis games so far. Its worth noting that Sonic! Software Team are now called Camelot Software, and they have been making good games for Nintendo. I am looking forward to Shining Force 2.

Next game in the series is Quackshot at #40, a platformer starring everyone's favorite duck. The working man's duck, the only good Donald I know, Donald D. Duck.

Stay Tuned

This blog was originally posted in Destructoid Community Blogs on August 21st, 2016. The blog was slightly edited to fit my newer review format.