Shining Force

Shining Force was the first great RPG on the Sega Genesis and departed from the monotonous dungeon crawling RPGs prior. Although a very linear storyline that takes the you a series of battles, there is rich character graphics and animation (for the time), a sense of progression with the characters and story, and most of all, no need for elaborate dungeon maps to find your way around. The battles on Shining Force are not random and are turn based. It is your goal to either advance to the next city/checkpoint, or kill some boss that stands in your way. To do either of these tasks, you are faced with one large battle as opposed to a series of smaller, random battles. The environment in which you are fighting is partitioned into grid squares and each character can move a set number of grid squares per turn. You can lose as many supporting characters you wish as they revive after the battle is over, but if your main character dies, it is game over. This tactical, turn based strategy is not the first of its kind, but remains a favorite for many (Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea are modeled in the same fashion). This also slows the gameplay down a bit from the days of random dungeon encounters and requires the careful thought and execution.

You begin as Max. There is very little background as to who you are and what you are doing outside a castle. Your task, like Shining in the Darkness, is to defeat Darksol (Dark Sol in Shining in SitD) who is attempting to revive a creature named Dark Dragon. Your adventure will take you through eight chapters and a variety of cities along the way where you will meet a whopping twenty nine unique allies along the way that can be recruited to your cause. Some are healers, some are offensive magic specialists, and some are melee specialists using a vast variety of weapons. Some of these characters are a bit hard to get so either use a guide or talk to everyone in the game often as the dialogue changes between major battles. You are allowed to have a party of up to twelve of these allies for a given battle and you can switch party members between battles. As with many early rpgs, Shining Force does require some character leveling between chapters as the enemies advance in level faster than your team will without power leveling.

What makes this game so fun is the battle system. The turn-based tactical style of Shining Force is pulled off well. When attacking or being attacked, the tactical screen switches to a combat screen showing the actual attack. This is coupled with a change in music to a battle theme. If you occasionally power level, this game is not that hard but the final fight can be a bit challenging if you are not at the suitable level and you did not bother getting your characters decent weapons and armor. The music is great throughout the game.

The English version of Shining Force apparently missed some aspects of the game that were not moved over from the Japanese version. Not a huge deal as the gameplay and combat is intact. The strict linear style of the storyline and gameplay can be a bit constraining but most point to the character Jogurt as the games biggest flaw. Jogurt is a hamster-like creature that only attacks for one point of damage, dies in one hit from anyone, and cannot be leveled up past level 1 no matter what you do. Any legitimate list on 'most useless rpg characters of all time' should include Jogurt. Many have thought that there must be a secret to Jogurt. None that I have found so far - he's useless.

Shining Force is an underrated game. The complaints I have are minor in the scope of the game and if you just never use Jogurt, you should be alright. This is a huge improvement over Shining in the Darkness and will be further improved with the final Sega title in the series: Shining Force 2.

One of the first and best tactical RPGs. Unlike Fire Emblem [ファイアーエムブレム] and Final Fantasy Tactics [ファイナルファンタジータクティクス], Shining Force has towns you visit and a world map, lending it a more traditioanl JRPG feel in its scope and pacing. The simplicity of the game makes it a great first entry for someone new to the genre. The music can be grating, the field map battles are awful and the menus are a cumbersome mess. Almost all of these things were improved in its sequel, but the pacing and personality of the original is superior. Also, it is has Jogurt!