A look back at: Shining Force II

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.

A look back at: Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya

Yep, I never thought I'd go back to the Game Gear and its primitive selection of games, but here we are. This is the second of three Gaiden games for Shining Force, and sadly I couldn't play the first one. Unfortunately, all this really offers is a new plot, as the gameplay mechanics are completely intact, with the only real difference is a lack of exploration in between battles as that mechanic isn't here. As a result, this game is obviously not any better than the original Shining Force, and I didn't enjoy much of that.

Heck the only real things that would be interesting are tidbits here and there. At one point Natasha has to command the ground army while Deanna has to command the boat army, which has some flair to it, but not by much. Enemies dropping very important items are also cool, and having a key character be available for the final battle is cool in a way too. This unfortunately is compounded by basically all the rest, the stuff I never did enjoy in Shining Force, and again the issues of certain characters falling behind is quite easy to occur.

A look back at: Shining Force

Oddly enough, someone actually did recommend me Shining Force as a Genesis classic a long time ago, and it took me a long time to actually get to playing it. But then again, this is a game that I really don't want to look back on.

But thou must, okay, it's a strategy game, basically Final Fantasy Tactics for the Genesis, but without any of the fun. Promoting characters once they hit level 10? Sure, except they go back to level 1 which isn't as good as it seems, especially for mage or healer characters who learn spells at higher levels. Enemy defenses and evasiveness is also a concern, with many taking either one point of damage all the time, even after upgrading equipment for characters in a town before the battle. I like Balbaroy and Amon, they are swordfighters with perfect mobility due to being flying, but even when I give them a Doom Blade sword (honestly the best they can equip, although they can equip the Sword of Darkness you lose that weapon soon anyways, and the only Katana comes from another decent attacker in Musashi and should stay with him anyways) they still do like 1 point against most enemies. The whole Knight class is generally bad at everything except mobility and offense, and mobility-wise they suck when it comes to forests and mountains. Guntz is a bit different from the six knight characters (Ken, Mae, Arthur, Pelle, Vankar, Earnest) and has better defense. Kokichi is essentially a flying knight and far more useful, and Lyle is basically a combination of Knight and Archer, in the best parts overall. The mages are generally decent, Alef having the best spells and Domingo the best mobility. Zylo for some reason got worse when I promoted him. Some characters like Adam and of course Jogurt are completely useless.

But again, the big issue with this game is that if your character cannot offensively or can otherwise kill an enemy (usually one that is at 1 HP) they can barely ever profit. One thing I liked about Langrisser II was that upon winning an entire battle, everyone gets experience from it, something that Shining Force should've done so that weaker characters don't lose out. Sadly, it's difficult to get most characters to be as good as Max, Kokichi, Domingo, Amon, Balbaroy, Anri, Tao, Lyle, Alef, Guntz, or Musashi in terms of damage output*. And that really puts a damper on my fun in this game, along with the measly 1 experience from just doing 1 point of damage, or none at all if someone evades. How am I supposed to get the best spells in such cases? Yep, I was disappointed with this game overall, and the plot is basically "get recruits, hometown gets invaded, keep going, find prophecy, defeat enemies, find brainwashed dude who helps sometimes, finally defeat evil guy and the abomination he summoned, the end" so even it's not good. When the character with the most development is Kain, a villain who was just mind-controlled and helps out a few times before he dies, you know they should've added more to it. Would've helped if Max was a more talkative protagonist, I mean even Garrett from Warsong has him beat in terms of personality, and by the end of that game Garrett was the only person with personality in the party.

*Regarding Amon and Balbaroy, I like them again because of their mobility, and with Doom Blades they can take on weaker foes, but others will likely just get pinpricked instead, and that's bad. Luke and Gort become Gladiators and can reasonably do damage, as well as every knight if equipped with the one Valkyrie

A look back at: Shining in the Darkness

Yeah, should've started here.

Well, it's a Genesis dungeon crawler mixed in with RPG stuff. Pretty standard. You'd wonder why I would still be playing these kinds of games if they're so typical. Gotta give credit as usual though, they take Phantasy Star's first-person dungeon mechanic and apply it to the whole game. Whether it's the dungeon, the town, or the castle, everything seems to be first-person. And the dungeon, excuse me, labyrinth, is quite the labyrinthian trek. I decided to do some grinding here like I would other games.

And let me say one thing, Shining in the Darkness shares a lot in common with Dragon Warrior 2. Three characters, your main cannot use magic, the other two can, and one is a female. You can ambush or be ambushed, fight off several kinds of enemy groups. But Shining in the Darkness is substantially easier. The level curve isn't incredulous, you get both your party members really quickly, and the overall experience doesn't feel like a complete crapshoot. They try multiple things for this game, including special monster encounters, chest monsters, and the damn MP draining moss, plus having to exit the labyrinth just to see if the town or castle has anything new in store when that actually means having to go back to the first floor of the labyrinth in the game. And yet I soldiered on quite well when I played it, so not all is bad.

No real sidequests to speak of, just a medieval setting, a medieval plot, save that princess, take four trials to prove you can keep going, you're the son of a hero. Well, they try some old tricks though. Having Melvyl actually be Dark Sol was a good attempt, and they don't make it too obvious he's a traitor. A brainwashed father that you have to kill ends up being a tad more predictable, but not so much. And of course, Dark Sol having that final form. You know, I give a lot of flak for RPG cliches, maybe I should start making blog posts about that.

A look back at: Shining Wisdom

Here's an example of a game I really had no idea what I was doing when I picked it up. Here's also a game completely skewered by translation. And finally, I did not enjoy this game either!

Oh, Shining Wisdom. You know, I was still in the action RPG mood at the time, but here I got yet another Zelda-esque game, this time without any real RPG moments at all. It's definitely a poor-man's Zelda, especially for the console it was on. And really and truly, I shouldn't have started playing the Shining series with this game, because really it is a semi-sequel to Shining Force II. Oh well. Now for the game itself. It's really bad. Enemies are quite frequent in this game, and you also see them respawn even when the player doesn't leave the area. Sure it has a lot of tools to use besides your standard sword, such as flying knuckles, a nice flying cap, and, uh, this one suit that actually transforms the main character into a monkey. Okay, these tools are a complete mixed bag, some like the sliding boots can defeat enemies but still damage the player. The game is mercifully short, but god help me over the fact it was pretty awful.

The story is almost as bad, find princess, cannot find the real one since some evil woman is masquerading as her, find out the real one is actually a swan, and the wizard enemy here just so happens to have four henchmen. And these bosses, the final one included, are all very predictable boss fights. Also predictable, the main hero nearly dying but obviously going to survive regardless. Bleh. Okay, if there's one thing I enjoyed, it's some of the NPC conversations. Some of the ones in the castle are just funny as heck, and completely random to boot. One particular NPC even made fun of Miyamoto's princess gimmick. As funny as they are, they don't save this game in any way.