Shining Force 1+2

[Alucard1191]

I recently finished these games, and felt a double review was in order.

Some background, Shining Force is what introduced me to both Strategy games and RPGs on consoles. Before this my idea of an RPG was Ultima, Wizardry, and Bard's Tale on my Apple IIe. Very hard games for an 8 year old to get. Then I rented the first game from my town's local video store, and fell in love. I absolutely love this series, and I'm really glad I played them, and as thoroughly as I did.

I'll start with part 1. This game, as established above, has MEGA nostalgia for me, so take that into account.

I played this with the intention of comparing every character, to test things I'd read online, and the really complete this one. I've played through it, and the remake on GBA I think that had extra characters and a story line with Ramladu's Daughter. I still prefer this one over that expanded edition though. The graphics have aged super well, the gameplay is simple and enjoyable, and the music is outstanding. I give this game a B+ overall. I love it, but it doesn't have difficulty levels so it is a little too easy, and it doesn't have the quick speak/search function that the 2nd one has, which makes navigating through things a little bit longer than it should be.

It also has a bit too much repetition in characters, and gives too many characters at the really late parts of the game. (The best healer and wizard you get near the end of Chapter 7 of 8 and they aren't promoted.... it takes serious work to get Alef to Bolt 3 and Torasu to Aura 3)

But those are honestly little nitpicks, I love this game. I leveled every character up to level 15 before promoting them, and wrote down every characters stats on a note pad so I could compare everyone. I'm really glad I did this, as I confirmed 2 internet claims I was curious about: That Arthur doesn't suck, and that Adam doesn't suck.

When I was young I would basically abandon those characters as there are so many great characters you can use. But the claims that Arthur's stats increase dramatically if you stick with him holds out. Add in his magic and you can give him the evil lance and the curse doesn't matter, he can damage from range or melee. Definitely either the best or 2nd best knight overall. (His HP never gets great, but his defense was decent.) And once Adam gets going he's just as strong as Bleu or Mushasi.

Overall, as I was looking over my chart and playing with every single character, I started to look at the game differently. It doesn't have difficulty levels, but there are characters that are stronger, so if you want a harder game experience, and come on... Shining Force isn't that hard.... Use Vankar and Earnest as your main knights. (Or Ken and Vankar) Don't use Zylo, Bleu, or Mushasi, and use Hans as your only archer. This way you can make a pretty simple Strategy RPG a little more challenging. Stating that, the characters are honestly pretty balanced. There is often only a few points here and there that separate the characters, and certain characters, like Ken or Vankar, have low defense, but lots of HP.

Part 2 takes most of the great parts of 1 and adds more. The game is quite a bit longer, and also more challenging. And it has difficulty levels! (I played on hard, whenever I do it again I'm trying max difficulty.) The graphics are still good and have aged well, the music is outstanding once again, and it has an actual interactive ending with a secret battle at the end! You can find items to unlock better classes like a pegasus knight or sorcerer, and the game even has 'random' encounters so you can more easily grind for experience. Overall almost everything is better. And that includes storylines. Absolute A game. Heck, maybe A+.

The characters however, are more all over the place. The gulf between the strong characters and weak characters is enormous. Comparing the knights Rick and Higgins is not favorable in anyway, why would you use this character unless you intentionally wanted a much tougher game. (Jaro the pegasus knight and Taya the sorceress fit into this too.)

Overall, comparing the two games is simple. The 2nd one is the better game in almost every way. Almost.

There are things in the first game that I really do miss in the 2nd. The attack animations look better in the first game. Peter's little tornado doesn't look nearly as cool as Bleu's lightning breath or the wing dragon head crit attack. And Claude the Golem's attack animation? I hate that. His stats are some of the best in the game and he does this stupid little punch. It feels lazy in what is otherwise a stellar experience. Zylo's attacks in the first look much better than Gerhalt's attacks. The games characters just feel more epic in the first game. When Adam's Laser attack goes off, it's awesome. Zynk's laser attack is... well, just not as cool.

I wish I could combine these games into one long playthrough with Shining Force II gameplay and attack animations more in line with the first game.

These really are must play games to me. What a great time. I really should mod my Genesis Mini so I can put Shining Force CD on it.

Thoughts on the series? What's your favorite? I'm going to try to go through the entirety of SFIII in the next ... I don't know, year or two. It will be my first time for episodes II and III there, I'm excited.

[Tron]

I feel sorry for you bro. You wrote this long post on a couple of awesome games and nobody cares just crickets chirpin for you dude. I feel you though. I absolutely loved these games. Sorry it’s been so long I’m having a hard time remembering. The Saturn version was the best. I remember hating the walking around in the towns though. 99% of the fools you talked to were time killers, but you had to check them all to make sure you didn’t miss out on a new recruit. I loved the animations on this game and the unique characters. I liked the dwarves. I think one was named Gort. The magic users were awesome. I remember liking the werewolf guy. I wish I could play just the battles in theses games without the nonsense of the towns.

[Retro STrife]

Good point, Tron. I missed this write-up the first time, but thanks for reviving it. I enjoyed the read, Alucard. Shining Force was never a series I played, but I’m always up for reading about classic 90s JRPGs. Shining Force III is the only one I own, but I’ve never played it.

[Alucard1191]

Oh wow! Some life here! Thanks you two.

I feel that other than the graphics not aging as well, part 3 is indeed the best. The multiple weapon types and levels are great, the difficulty is in the right spot, and the characters have the epic feel of part one. Dantaraes one shotting a guy with a lance charge special is really cool.

I just checked and the readers voted the first one an A+, but the 2nd one hasn't been reviewed.

Genuinely, with how much the critic loved Vandal Hearts, maybe he should give part 2 a go himself. It's such a good game!

I'm actually going to be playing through part 3 completely for the first time in the near future. I just got Noon on my file, (assuming it didn't get corrupted when my cartridge got weird....) and beat the old Vandal. I'm really looking forward to getting into episodes 2+3 for the first time. I plan on diving more into those soon, my Saturn is just honestly not working great right now, (it had issues running Daytona USA the other night, couldn't read the cartridge last month.) so I'm hesitant to dive hard into a deep Saturn RPG.

Also, I have the replay cartridge to play backups, so I'll be relying on the Saturn internal memory for everything, which makes me nervous as well. I really wish there was some modern way to play these games with save states or a more reliable standard memory.

Edit: Tron, Zylo is the werewolf character, and he is friggen awesome. I re-read the review on here and Zylo was that person's favorite character too. Honestly he's one of my favorite characters of any RPG ever, I love that wolf guy!

[Retro STrife]

my Saturn is just honestly not working great right now, (it had issues running Daytona USA the other night, couldn't read the cartridge last month.)

By the way, any luck getting the save cartridge to work? I've had the same problem, but never tried fixing it yet.

[Alucard1191]

It reads it, it just didn't for about 10 minutes, then when I got it to read again, my Dragonforce save was corrupted and when I went into the bios there were files that were just gibberish symbols. On Daytona the game would load, but once I'd get to the 'track select' screen it would freeze. Took me several times to get it to work. On my 'RPG list' my Saturn has the Shining Force games, (Holy Ark and Shining Wisdom included) Dark Savior, and Dragonforce. Honestly the last time I tried to play Dark Savior it wouldn't read the cartridge, but it worked on a different game at the time so I didn't think anything of it. My system is 25+ years old now, and I've never taken it apart to clean it, maybe something as simple as that would help?

[Tron]

Ahhh yes Zylo. I even like the name. I also remember Peter the Phoenix. Can’t remember if I liked him or not, but for some reason I remember him. I never really liked the Centaurs much in those games and there were a lot of them. I liked the magic users and the axe wielding Dwarves, but now I’m starting to think that those dwarves would miss a lot. I’m going to have to google search these games to see some of my old friends again.

Ok I did a search on the 1st game & will start with that one. I’ll go with my favorite 3. Zylo, Tao and Khris. I remember Tao and Khris as both powerful magic users. Luke & Gort are the axe-Dwarves & after seeing their pictures again; sure I like them and all, but they weren’t that great. The two that really stick out to me though are Balbory and Amon. Those two bird brains. I remember thinking they looked really cool and wanting to love them, but I also remember getting really frustrated with them, because they weren’t as awesome as I thought they should’ve been. Do you like the birds or not