Genesis

Shining Force

Shining Force won't dethrone the current king of Genesis RPGs, Phantasy Star II, but it's packed with enough quests and characters to satisfy your role-playing appetite.

In conclusion, Legacy of Great Intention is absolutely wonderful. It's got great graphics, amazing gameplay, good music and sound, simple (if slightly tedious) control, and a great plot that's easily enhanced with speculation. The fun factor alone should be reason enough to buy the game and if it wasn't for the slight annoyances like the talk control, this would be a must for any RPG fan.

Shining Force is a top-notch game and a true strategy RPG. It gives you the strategy engine but doesn't forget to include the heart and soul of the RPG, which is story, exploration and non-player character interaction. Many that have come after have tried to capture the feeling that this game has, but most have failed. They may capture the fun battles, or the great story and graphics, but none have combined them as well as Shining Force did.

Alles in allem ist Sega mit Shining Force ein Meilenstein in Sachen Strategiespiel gelungen: Eine mitreißende Story in technisch gelungener Verpackung, dazu eine geniale Mischung aus Strategie- und Rollenspiel mit guter Bedienbarkeit und einem fairen Kampfsystem - da kommt Freude auf. Rollenspiel-Puristen werden vielleicht umfangreichere Dungeons vermissen, doch der Schwerpunkt liegt bei diesem Game eben auf der Charakterentwicklung und dem strategischen Aspekt. Wer das Genre mag wird mit Shining Force bestens bedient, langes Spielvergnügen ist garantiert.

Victory depends largely on your ability to effectively coordinate the movement and attacks of your units. Your units can accumulate experience points and gain levels, as well as earn "promotions" to improve their classes. When a unit dies in battle, you can't bring them back during the fight, but you can have it revived at a church. If the Hero is killed, the battle ends and you find yourself back at your last save point - with half the gold. The background music and sound effects are pretty enjoyable and the graphics (which included some simple illustrations of the characters) are relatively good-looking all things considered. A few of its elements are a little inconvenient, but on the whole Shining Force is pretty darn fun to play. Favorite Character: Zylo.

The combination of a few good fights and the strategy required to maximize a party's performance does make Shining Force a fairly entertaining game, but one that didn't appeal to me the way Fire Emblem and Front Mission, among others, did. While a solid early entrant into the diverse and long-lasting Shining collection of games, it just doesn't stand out in comparison to other retro turn-based strategy role-playing games. I had fun playing it, but nothing in the game struck me as memorable or particularly noteworthy.