Shining Force Review

• System: Genesis
• Year: 1993
• Region: North America
• Developer: Climax Entertainment
• Publisher: Sega

A series that I have been meaning to get into for years is Shining Force. I actually have started playing the games a couple of times, but just never made it very far. The first was when I found a copy of the second game at a retro store about 10 years ago. Only played the first stage before getting distracted by something else. The next time was on Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection on PS3. Started playing the first game, and once again dropped it after the first battle. But now, I finally got around to playing through the first Shining Force, and we’ll answer the question that every YouTube douchebag asks…

The game’s plot centers around a young hero named Max tasked with trying to prevent Kane of the Runefaust Army from resurrecting Dark Dragon, a vicious monster that was sealed away a thousand years ago. If Kane succeeds, Dark Dragon would certainly reign terror upon the world once again. The game’s story is simple, but still manages to throw some interesting plot twists at you. There won’t be huge text dumps when you talk to important NPCs in each town. At best you’ll probably get about one paragraph of story in a new area, but it is enough to keep the plot moving along nicely. You will also meet some entertaining characters along the way. However, there is absolutely no character development to speak of, and once they join your Shining Force, their role in the story is over.

One interesting thing to note about the plot is that the main character’s backstory was completely omitted from the English translation for whatever reason. The translation was a lot better in the GBA remake though, and they also added a second plot line for the princess of Runefaust.

The gameplay of Shining Force blends typical tactical RPG grid-based gameplay with the town exploration of many classic RPGs such as Phantasy Star. Searching through towns and talking to people is how you will find and recruit many of the members of your team. Of course, this is also where you will be able to buy equipment and items. Unfortunately, this is where the game stumbles a bit, as everything is handled through a clunky ‘cross’ menu. You also need to bring up this menu for searching and talking to people, and it gets annoying. Many other RPGs of the era were shifting away from this type of interface and just having a simple action button, Not sure why the devs went with this outdated form of interaction.

Combat is very similar to the Fire Emblem series, but much easier. Your team (you can bring up to 12 units) and the enemy take turns moving units, and try to defeat each other’s troops while protecting weaker, long-range characters like Mages and Archers. There is no permadeath in the game, and if your main character gets knocked out, he’ll be revived at the last church. It’s similar to Dragon Quest in this regard because you’ll lose half your money, but retain all the experience earned. You could also choose to use the hero’s Egress spell (if you’re still alive) to warp out of a fight. Doing this is a great way to level grind, since there are no random encounters in the game, and there’s no penalty for Egressing and restarting a battle

The combat in the game is great, however there is one thing that sucks about it. That would be the secret hidden opponent in every battle, the RNG. The RNG will constantly foil your plans and cause your attacks to miss, or give an enemy an extra strike or critical hit at the worst possible moment. I can’t tell you how many times I was trying to level up a weaker unit, only to have what should have been a finishing blow completely miss. Luckily, I played this on the Sega Genesis Classics on PS4, so I could just save scum and reload every time a party member missed. For those of you who may be offended by my save scumming, the RNG doesn’t increase the game’s difficulty in any way, it just makes everything more tedious and take way longer than it should.

Once your party members reach level 10, you’ll be able to promote them to a new class, which will allow them to equip much better weapons. You could also decide to level them up a bit more before promoting, which will give them better stats. I liked this upgrade system, as it did allow some flexibility in how to build your units.

Speaking of building units, this game is a bit random when your characters level up. Sometimes you will get huge boosts in several stats, other times you will only gain a couple of small boosts, or you may not get any increase at all. I’m not really a fan of this randomness, as it can be a huge bummer to finally gain a level and get absolutely nothing for it. Players back in the day did find ways to cheat the system though by quitting and reloading during battles until they got the stat upgrades they wanted. I’m so glad save states are a thing now.

When it comes to graphics, they are a mixed bag. For a game released so far into the Genesis lifespan, the battle maps are really disappointing. Everything looks rather basic and plain in this portion of the game. However, when you actually engage the enemy and transition to the battle screen, you’ll be treated to some wonderful sprites and backgrounds. The animations may be a bit limited with only a few frames, but this part of the game still looks fantastic. Another nice aspect of the visuals are the character portraits, which are all well-designed and even have some animation.

This game has some enjoyable music, but it’s annoying hearing the songs constantly switch back and forth during combat. Since there is no way to turn battle animations off, there is nothing you can do about this besides muting your TV. One of my favorite tracks in the game is the Headquarters Theme. Such a happy little tune that gets you really pumped up to continue your journey.

Shining Force is a great tactical RPG. I didn’t get to play this one back in the day, but playing it now in 2019, I think it still holds up really well. Aside from a few minor gripes with the interface and the randomness of some aspects, it is a very enjoyable game. You can find the original Genesis version for about 15 bucks if you’re okay with cart only. Of course, you could also pick this up on one of the 7th or 8th gen Sega collections, which would run you about 10 to 25 bucks, and includes a buttload of other great games.

8.0 out of 10