Shining Force

[The NZA]

 

right, then: Shining in the Darkness was a fantastic dungeon-crawler for the Genesis, with a really unique atmosphere due to its art & sound (both impressive for their time, early in their generation), and got this series rolling - despite actually happening after Force 2, but let's get into that later

 

Shining Force is a strategy-RPG series, like nintendo's Fire Emblem, only it didn't live long enough to have it sell its soul to animu to survive (well, there were PS2 entries, but we're only gonna talk about the proper stuff Camelot/Sonic Software Planning did). you'd have a somewhat dark medieval setting & otherwise standard fare, as far as a ragtag group setting out to save their world from an evil long-prophesized to end all things. with a few twists here & there aside, the plot wasn't often the standout - it was the gameplay, and how great it was recruiting new ninjas/dwarves/centaurs/monsters/whatever Yogurt is/etc to your cause & watching your army grow, something like Suikoden would do later.

 

But bigger than that was the gameplay - strategy RPG's as a genre existed before (FE was around for the 8-bit days, though we'd not see it stateside for a while to come), but this series perfectly embodied the notion of easy to pick up, tough to master. somewhat chess-like, you & your enemie's armies would take turns (based on agility/etc stats) moving your characters through sometimes rough/limiting terrain, and try to make best use of your classes to destroy them first - what's crazy is how wide open this left you to play things out, even given the limited number of classes & spells.

 

there's a ton that have followed - Vandal Hearts, Jean D'arc, Shin Megami: Devil Survivor, Tactics Ogre, etc - so chances are you've seen how the genre usually plays out, there's just a certain charm to the series. Personally, i beat 1 several times in the day but sadly missed out on 2, as it was a late release for that gen. I've recently corrected this, and even went through Shining Force CD, which is a bridge between 1 & 2, collecting side stories from the Game Gear (and adding another as well), honestly it's another i've no idea how i missed in the day as it was just packed with the series' greatness.

 

Shining Force III for the Saturn was about my last white whale, and i found it for a good price right as last year ended - the timing's good as well, since Scenarios 2 & 3 (which never made it over here, sadly) have recently completed fan translations, allowing me to finally close out the series the right way!

 

Meantime, I've been running through another Saturn one, Shining: The Holy Ark, which is clearly a love note to fans of In The Darkness, and has likewise been one of the best dungeon crawlers i've played in forever now. While the game engines obviously don't play at all the same, everything from sound to lore are carried over, and it's only recently i've learned the entire series actually has a connecting plot - apparently a character I've helped somewhere in this game as a kid is supposed to be a big part of Scenario III, so i'm looking forward to that.

 

I know arc is a big series fan, didn't know Baytor also was - so yeah, let's talk about this series! I think it's Sega's finest one since Phantasy Star, myself.

 

 

 

 

[Iambaytor]

I've only played the first two, never got into the others mostly because I'm told that they're all menu/battle based and don't allow you the option to fuck around in towns for a bit in-between battles like I enjoy doing. Did any of the other games bring that back? They're among my favorite games for the genesis and make my list of favorite RPGS from the 16-bit era. Was Shining Force CD in the same vein as the first two games?

 

My problem with both of the games is that I end up suffering in the endgame because I didn't level my character since I didn't want to repeat battles. (Fuck that Kraken. FUCK. HIM.) I thankfully caught on after barely managing to finish the first game and did better in the second one but he was certainly weaker than my heavy hitters. My one gripe is it just gives you a huge number of people who aren't useful at all (is there even a point to Yogurt? At least the little turtle guy turns into a Godzilla when you promote him) and that when you promote a character they're fucking worthless for a handful of battles so you have to promote your heavy hitters one at a time so the other can pick up the slack. I procrastinated on this with Zylo and Peter until they just weren't useful anymore for this very reason.

 

So who's your favorite character? It's between Peter and Zylo for me, they were certainly my favorite characters from their respective games. I always gravitate toward the monster characters and the fact that they both kicked 11 kinds of ass didn't hurt), I remember Taya was pretty great in 2 as well.

 

Was Oddler/Oddeye the character who ties the whole series together?

 

For people interested in my top RPGs of the 16-bit (I only played one of the Dragon Quest games and thanks to a section where you have to navigate a pitch-black room that I infuriatingly never completed I have decided that that one is shitty shit and will speak of it no more.)

 

1. Final Fantasy 6

2. Earthbound

3. Chrono Trigger

4. Shining Force 2

5. Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of Mana 2, still annoyingly unreleased in the US)

6. Breath of Fire 2

7. Phantasy Star IV

8. Shining Force

9. Super Mario RPG

10. Secret of Mana

11. Breath of Fire

12. Final Fantasy 4

13. Bahamut Lagoon (Very similar to Shining Force, just more Squaresoft-y)

14. Secret of Evermore

15. Lufia

[The NZA]

damn, that's a fine list! i've still to play Densetsu 3 but looking forward to it, Bahamanut Lagoon i didn't even know was a strat one, that's cool. in action RPG's though, did you play Soul Blazer or Illusion of Gaia? i dug em, but finally got to play Terranigma a year or two back and man was that good...Genesis has Crusader of Centy & Beyond Oasis, shit i could do a thread on these too someday

 

I've only played the first two, never got into the others mostly because I'm told that they're all menu/battle based and don't allow you the option to fuck around in towns for a bit in-between battles like I enjoy doing. Did any of the other games bring that back? They're among my favorite games for the genesis and make my list of favorite RPGS from the 16-bit era. Was Shining Force CD in the same vein as the first two games?

 

SF CD takes place like 10 years after part 1, and has heavy ties to it as you go (even from the intro), which i found really cool. but to answer your question: not so much, sadly...since they're up-ports of Game Gear ones, it's battles then a small hubworld between with a church & sometimes a shop. hidden characters/etc are found during battles...it's great but i get wanting towns to break the monotony too, i played this one in bursts as a result.

 

My problem with both of the games is that I end up suffering in the endgame because I didn't level my character since I didn't want to repeat battles. (Fuck that Kraken. FUCK. HIM.) I thankfully caught on after barely managing to finish the first game and did better in the second one but he was certainly weaker than my heavy hitters. My one gripe is it just gives you a huge number of people who aren't useful at all (is there even a point to Yogurt? At least the little turtle guy turns into a Godzilla when you promote him) and that when you promote a character they're fucking worthless for a handful of battles so you have to promote your heavy hitters one at a time so the other can pick up the slack. I procrastinated on this with Zylo and Peter until they just weren't useful anymore for this very reason.

 

jesus yes; i put down 2 years ago because the Kraken whooped me up & i didn't want to grind, since 1 didn't call for it.

yeah, yogurt was a mascot/jokey character, and damn the lizard guy actually got useful later? huh.

 

also i'm totally shit at picking teammates sometimes; i loved the fuck out of Zylo, but like you, put off promoting him and then felt he was worthless for too long after...little did i know he was one of the absolute best if you stuck with him. *sigh*

 

i likewise benched Peter in 2! who the fuck does that?! i think i decided he was a mascot character too, even the game forcing him on me for a bit didn't change that. lo and behold, he's the most broken character in the series. can zip across the map, takes half fire damage, good criticals and self-resurrects after battles. jesus.

 

So who's your favorite character? It's between Peter and Zylo for me, they were certainly my favorite characters from their respective games. I always gravitate toward the monster characters and the fact that they both kicked 11 kinds of ass didn't hurt), I remember Taya was pretty great in 2 as well.

 

those are good pics, Peter's definitely one - i always end up digging ninjas/samurais so Hanzou and Musashi were my boys, plus badass centaur Mae who'd come through in the clutch when even the archers would let me down, haha.

^edit wait was it her? i forget...let's just go with Guntz for now...also goddammit looks like Domingo was awesome if you stuck with him too, shit

 

also: did you know the botched translation for 1 left out Max's (protag) entire backstory? shit's crazy, i had no idea

 

Was Oddler/Oddeye the character who ties the whole series together?

 

i need to read Shining Force Central again but he's one element, yeah - basically though, Darksol of 1 and the evil preistess from one of the Gaiden stories (looks like it was the one that only stayed on japanese game gear, might play a fan translation one day) were the parents of Dark Sol, the villain of In the Darkness, so that's how we have some form of a timeline...also Odd Eye is supposed to be a little kid in that Final Conflict gaiden one, yeah.

 

no idea how Ark fits in just yet, but again i'm towards the end so hopefully i'll know soon, looking forward to diving into 3...really wanna see this series through this year.

[Iambaytor]

in action RPG's though, did you play Soul Blazer or Illusion of Gaia? i dug em, but finally got to play Terranigma a year or two back and man was that good...Genesis has Crusader of Centy & Beyond Oasis, shit i could do a thread on these too someday

 

I have neither played nor heard of any of those games. I never had a system growing up so my Genesis/SNES favorites are based on what I've found picking through a metric fuckton of ROMS on emulators over the years.

 

I was playing Shining Force 2 around the time I was playing Final Fantasy 6 for the first time. I really had a hard time getting past Ultros on the Lete river with Terra, Edgar, Sabin, and Banon (I am notoriously impatient and don't power level like I should) so I took a break for a while and played on Shining Force and lo and behold another fucking hard-ass Cephalopod that I encountered on a raft going down a river.

 

The Lizard Guy (I'm still too lazy to look it up) was pretty useful early in the game but if you stick with him once the enemies get harder till you can level him he turns into a very obvious Gamera ripoff. He's still not super great, but he's a decent heavy for the later game. Though by that point you'll have a murderer's row of badasses to pick from so you may not deem it worth it.

 

I can't recall if I stuck with Domingo late into the game but I remember Guntz and the old-man pallete swap of him (I think his name was Gort) kind of lose their usefulness in the third act. Zylo is worth leveling though, his promoted form makes his original look like nothing.

 

I always just assumed Max was meant to be a generic audience-cipher protagonist (the game begins with the biggest RPG trope of all "WAKE UP *CHARACTER NAME* YOU'RE GOING TO MISS THE BIG IMPORTANT THING THAT'S HAPPENING TODAY") along the lines of Crono or Link.

[IceManML]

That's deep lol

 

There's a sight that's translating the other 2 scenarios of shining force 3 on Saturn

It was because of this o was able to finish scenario2. If you have a Saturn I highly suggest playing them.

 

Scenario 3 isn't finished however.

If you do go this route use an import cart. Amazing this works.

 

Unrelated: There's also a translate mod for wachën roder on Saturn I'll update this post when I get outta work.

Shining force3 def the best of the series imo

[The NZA]

yeah, my Saturn's modded to be region-free and play CD-R's, so i have scenarios 1-3 legit but also burned the fan translations for actual play.

 

are you sure scenario 3 isn't finished? the one i got from what i believe to be the same team looked like it was, though granted i only booted into it for a few minutes to make sure (as i don't wanna spoil anything). Said team even has the elusive Premium Disc done now, which is awesome.

 

excited to hear your praise for III, ive been told for years im missing out on that one - again, finally got a legit US copy of scenario 1, but im told some stuff got changed around in localization since they knew the series would be ending at that point for us stateside (man, Sega really seems to have fucked Camelot on some stuff). and yeah, never heard of that other translation effort you mentioned but i love stuff like that, post on it when you can!

[Iambaytor]

So this thread left me craving Shining Force and since it's on Steam for $2.99 I nabbed it. I'm at the beginning of Chapter 3 about to go in the quarry to get the widget to cure Zylo's crazy. Some thoughts:

 

Gong is only slightly less useless than Jogurt, the fact that I had to go out of my way to find him irks me. I mean, all the healers are a pain in the ass to level but at least Khris and Lowe have a halfway decent attack once I get them a power staff, Gong sucks.

 

Fuck those giant bats.

 

I remember Ken, Mae, and Arthur being more useful in battle but I honestly feel like I'm dragging them along because their attack power and defense are awful. I don't know if I just used them more in my prior playthrough (I remember I sacrificed some attack power on Mae in favor of making her a ranged fighter last time but I don't remember her dying all the time.)

 

Fuck those giant bats.

 

Tao is better than I remember, Amri still sucks.

 

Now that I'm a better gamer it's weird how rushed this game feels. Like what was the point of even going to Shade Abbey? I just went there, got attacked by some zombies, made friends with some bird people, and left.

 

FUCK THOSE MOTHERFUCKING GIANT BATS WITH THEIR STUPID SLEEP ATTACK AND THEIR HIGH AGILITY EVADING EVERY FUCKING ATTACK I HATE THEM

 

(Fun fact: When you misspell "MOTHERFUCKING" and right click, the spell check suggests "COUNTERFEITING")

[The NZA]

...phew.  finally tied up all of 3, and it was an amazing ride. 

 

so yeah, Shining: The Holy Ark absolutely sets up where the trilogy of Shining Force III goes later on, so it's important to play that fist (also, again, it's one of the best dungeon crawlers i've played).  

 

but there was so much awesome stuff here - again i strained to keep a brainwashed enemy general alive in the end of scenario 1, and she was a huge help in the 3rd part.  sparing certain people apparently led to allies in some later games and new enemies in others, seeming innocuous decisions (taking on a baby dragon early on or just escaping the cave, working to save NPC refugees in one campaign had those survivors help out someone else's in a desperate town later, etc).  

 

you get to see 3 different sides of campaign & their political perspectives, with the 3rd easily being my favorite of the lot - they come together for a tough & rewarding final campaign that ties it all up but sadly leaves a little plot unresolved, as Camelot & Sega's relationship greatly deteriorated around that time (evident by even the cancellations of bringing the later 2 scenarios here to the states).  

 

the fan translations from Shining Force Central were fantastic, and there was even this omake disc Shining Force Premium that you'd get in the day by mailing in all the UPC codes...it's got all the art, music, character bio & free mode battles (even with hidden characters!) together, and you'd think something like that would be crazy expensive but a buddy in japan just found me one for $40.  

 

i clocked in around 45-50 hours for each scenario, but that's with leaving them paused sometimes & going after every hidden character & such.  if you're down for it, this series is truly fantastic & can finally be finished the right way too. 

 

also, this small scene later in Ark is significant (there's other ties here too, but not so much towards the older chapters of the series)

 

 

that's the protagonist of scenario 3's backstory in action

[The NZA]

so it turned out part 4 is a possibility! not holding my breath, though...