The original Shining Force is one of my favorite Mega Drive games, a wholesome comfort of an experience where you just let yourself get taken away by the colorful medieval fantasy setting, the tropey and silly storyline and the grind of the simple and entertaining strategic based combat. For some reason i never got around to finishing the 2nd one till now, which is usually touted as the best in the series. And yeah, it is pretty good.
Back again are the charming looking cartoony character designs that personify the world of Shining Force and its cast of protagonists that eagerly follow the call for adventure and embark on a quest to save the world from demonic threats, and so is the classic SRPG combat that sits nicely between something like Into the Breach's minimalistic precision and Disgaea's lavish grid grind.
In contrast to many of the genre's giants, I have always enjoyed Shining Force's focus on the transition from the abstracted 2D terrain grid to a cinematic and realistic point of view inbetween attacks where you get to witness the clash between your fully sized and animated character and his devilish looking opponent in a duel that last a couple of tense seconds, as you hope that the enemy doesn't avoid your attack or gets a chance at double damaging. It's always a rush, and SF2 continues with that presentation to great effect.
It is a bigger and longer game with an added emphasis on exploration not found in SF1 with a narrative that has you travelling various continents and kingdoms à la Final Fantasy. Which is something I'm not entirely sure I wanted out of Shining Force.
The added 10 hours just translate to more standard battles that rarely present standout encounters like the Laser Eye fight in SF1, and the extended runtime ends up exposing the simplicity of the narrative that has you sent in search of mcguffins and meandering plot points to fill up the hours, not helped by a very shoddy translation job. As a result, annoyances found also in SF1 present themselves here at a bigger scale, like having to watch every single enemy turn, even the ones that do nothing, dealing with unbalanced stats and level grinding, or listening to the same grating combat tunes.
It's a sequel in the most basic sense of being more of the original, and while I much prefer the short length and focus of SF1 and would have liked SF2 to reinvent and innovate more on it, it is still Shining Force, and that's very cool with me.
Back again are the charming looking cartoony character designs that personify the world of Shining Force and its cast of protagonists that eagerly follow the call for adventure and embark on a quest to save the world from demonic threats, and so is the classic SRPG combat that sits nicely between something like Into the Breach's minimalistic precision and Disgaea's lavish grid grind.
In contrast to many of the genre's giants, I have always enjoyed Shining Force's focus on the transition from the abstracted 2D terrain grid to a cinematic and realistic point of view inbetween attacks where you get to witness the clash between your fully sized and animated character and his devilish looking opponent in a duel that last a couple of tense seconds, as you hope that the enemy doesn't avoid your attack or gets a chance at double damaging. It's always a rush, and SF2 continues with that presentation to great effect.
It is a bigger and longer game with an added emphasis on exploration not found in SF1 with a narrative that has you travelling various continents and kingdoms à la Final Fantasy. Which is something I'm not entirely sure I wanted out of Shining Force.
The added 10 hours just translate to more standard battles that rarely present standout encounters like the Laser Eye fight in SF1, and the extended runtime ends up exposing the simplicity of the narrative that has you sent in search of mcguffins and meandering plot points to fill up the hours, not helped by a very shoddy translation job. As a result, annoyances found also in SF1 present themselves here at a bigger scale, like having to watch every single enemy turn, even the ones that do nothing, dealing with unbalanced stats and level grinding, or listening to the same grating combat tunes.
It's a sequel in the most basic sense of being more of the original, and while I much prefer the short length and focus of SF1 and would have liked SF2 to reinvent and innovate more on it, it is still Shining Force, and that's very cool with me.
2 Comments
yeah, people tend to overlook how little of a timespan these small teams had to make a good product back then, and it's amazing how they always managed to deliver against all odds.
FallenGrace
2 years ago