A.K.A. Shining Force-but-with-a-different-plotline-that-isn't-exactly-original-because-a-hero's-hometown-is-destroyed-demons-did-it-a-princess-gets-kidnapped-and-also-many-character-names-are-recycled-and-the-gameplay-is-not-different.
Literally all this game is.in hindsight. It's seen as the better Shining Force, since you can actually progress in a nonlinear fashion at certain points, and have a much easier time to grind up your characters. Of course, this most likely means Egress'ing away from battle before you finish it, but there are some locations that trigger the closest thing this game has to random battles. The caravan is excellent for depositing items, especially those hidden Mithril pieces, but we'll get to THAT soon enough.
Yeah, plotwise, it's got the clichés I summarized above. And the character class archetypes are in display here, as is the completely intact battle system. Misses due to dodging, possible double attacks, counterattacks (I can't remember if this was new though), and experience discrepancies making several character classes like the Warrior really suffer. Thankfully, you can get secret character promotions like Baron and Master Monk, and I aimed for this stuff, it really works out so well. Bowie the Hero has to keep himself alive, and Peter the Phoenix is certainly an overpowered character. These two make the game easier, but getting the Master Monks as well as Ninja for Slade also are big deals. Some characters who join much later are worthless due to circumstances, like Rohde being horrible for movement despite being a strong long-range attacker.
Can we also discuss these names? Cause many of them are reused, plenty from the Sword of Hayja which I already checked out. Sarah for instance is a name already used by a priest in that game, and Chester was an archer. It's more egregious with names like Eric and Jaha, since the characters of those names here are in the SAME CLASSES as the ones from there! Eric starts out as a centaur knight, and Jaha starts out as a warrior. The name Luke is used for a bird warrior here, and that was used in the previous two Shining Force games I played. Could they at least give newer names so I don't get confused? This is a sequel after all, and the Sword of Hayja established that not only does Nick return in that game (he was the hero in the first Gaiden game), but also the ninja and samurai from Shining Force 1 also come into play too.
Anyways, what I definitely won't miss is the smithing of penultimate weapons. I say penultimate first cause the ultimate weapons are either the Hero's Holy Sword or cursed weapons with drawbacks like lowered defense. Finding the Mithril basically requires a guide, this is the easy part. Then you give the Mithril to a special smithy, leave town, come back, and you get your weapon. And it's always a frickin' Critical Sword. I had suffered a lot from trying to get Gisarme for Slade or Levanter for Bowie, looking all over the internet and thankfully, people HAVE been researching this RNG issue for quite a while. Therefore, it's not necessarily new. But I just wanted those weapons and timesinked a lot of the endgame until I basically gave in and finished the game. Yeah, that's certainly something that even with the research done is still a frustration moment.
At least the game can still be beaten without this stuff. It feels easier but that's cause of my experience with the former game overall.
No comments:
Post a Comment