Shining Resonance: Refrain is probably one of the most 'okay' games I’ve ever played. It never strives to do anything particularly spectacular and instead prefers to stay in a comfortable area of predictable plot points and trite character archetypes. And yet despite this, I still found myself enjoying the game quite a bit in a very casual sort of way.
On the surface, Shining Resonance: Refrain has a couple of things going for it. The graphics are very pretty, the character designs by Tony Taka are appealing, the music can range from pretty good to great, and the voice acting is well done. The characters are fairly stock but their bubbly personalities and charming voice acting do help elevate them higher than they probably should’ve been. A particularly noteworthy character in my opinion would be Excella, the game’s antagonist. Her character and motivations don’t exactly reinvent the wheel but I found her development to be the most consistent among the game’s cast. One particular aspect I did find very interesting was actually the game’s usage of instruments as weapons. In a game where the plot largely revolves around using music as magic, having the party members use various instruments as weaponry and making performances a gameplay mechanic was a really neat idea that perfectly plays into the game’s themes and ideas. It’s one of the few original aspects of Shining Resonance: Refrain that I feel makes this game unique amongst the other JRPGs I have played.
That being said, there are plenty of negatives as well. Quite a few, in fact. The combat can become repetitive and fairly dull for the most part, especially once you figure out how broken the B.A.N.D. mechanic can be. Dull would also be how I describe the side quests, if you could even call them that. Side quests in Shining Resonance: Refrain ultimately fall into two categories: fetch quests or kill X amount of enemies. These side quests are infinitely replayable and really only exist to give the player an extra method of obtaining crafting items but they are also instantly forgettable and hardly ever worth looking into. The lack of a fast travel isn’t too big of a deal thanks to the small world size but it also makes navigating the world a chore and ultimately feels like it just pads the game’s runtime. The difficulty spikes can also be fairly extreme at the beginning and middle of the game, often requiring you to grind for a few hours to reach a suitable level to take on a boss. There is also one chapter at the end of the game that forces you to only use two select party members to fight three waves of high-level enemies. These party members are by far the least popular characters in the game and will likely be 35+ levels below anywhere near close enough to take on the battles necessary to progress the story. This was an incredibly annoying roadblock that took me over 4+ hours of grinding to complete and, even then, I eventually discovered a strange glitch that allowed me to bypass 2 out of the 3 waves. As a whole, I wouldn’t necessarily call the game 'bad' but rather it’s riddled with various issues scattered throughout that ultimately make the experience worse than it needs to be.
With all this being said, I can’t definitively say I didn’t enjoy my time with Shining Resonance: Refrain. Once I got used to its gameplay loop, I found myself idly enjoying it while watching videos or TV as a comfortable time-sink. Although its story is very cliché, the game’s colorful cast of characters kept my interest up until the end. It’s very flawed but it’s also strangely charming in a late 2000’s JRPG sort of way. While this game may have clicked with me, I can’t say it will with somebody else. In fact, if someone were to say they hated this game, I could perfectly understand why. In the end, I think the game is cute, decently long, and I can appreciate the fact that it understands what it’s going for and doesn’t try to become anything more than what it is. Hopefully SEGA will someday make a sequel that can address my issues with Shining Resonance: Refrain as I do believe there is some potential to be found here. Though, considering SEGA’s treatment towards older IPs, I’m not exactly holding my breath.
On the surface, Shining Resonance: Refrain has a couple of things going for it. The graphics are very pretty, the character designs by Tony Taka are appealing, the music can range from pretty good to great, and the voice acting is well done. The characters are fairly stock but their bubbly personalities and charming voice acting do help elevate them higher than they probably should’ve been. A particularly noteworthy character in my opinion would be Excella, the game’s antagonist. Her character and motivations don’t exactly reinvent the wheel but I found her development to be the most consistent among the game’s cast. One particular aspect I did find very interesting was actually the game’s usage of instruments as weapons. In a game where the plot largely revolves around using music as magic, having the party members use various instruments as weaponry and making performances a gameplay mechanic was a really neat idea that perfectly plays into the game’s themes and ideas. It’s one of the few original aspects of Shining Resonance: Refrain that I feel makes this game unique amongst the other JRPGs I have played.
That being said, there are plenty of negatives as well. Quite a few, in fact. The combat can become repetitive and fairly dull for the most part, especially once you figure out how broken the B.A.N.D. mechanic can be. Dull would also be how I describe the side quests, if you could even call them that. Side quests in Shining Resonance: Refrain ultimately fall into two categories: fetch quests or kill X amount of enemies. These side quests are infinitely replayable and really only exist to give the player an extra method of obtaining crafting items but they are also instantly forgettable and hardly ever worth looking into. The lack of a fast travel isn’t too big of a deal thanks to the small world size but it also makes navigating the world a chore and ultimately feels like it just pads the game’s runtime. The difficulty spikes can also be fairly extreme at the beginning and middle of the game, often requiring you to grind for a few hours to reach a suitable level to take on a boss. There is also one chapter at the end of the game that forces you to only use two select party members to fight three waves of high-level enemies. These party members are by far the least popular characters in the game and will likely be 35+ levels below anywhere near close enough to take on the battles necessary to progress the story. This was an incredibly annoying roadblock that took me over 4+ hours of grinding to complete and, even then, I eventually discovered a strange glitch that allowed me to bypass 2 out of the 3 waves. As a whole, I wouldn’t necessarily call the game 'bad' but rather it’s riddled with various issues scattered throughout that ultimately make the experience worse than it needs to be.
With all this being said, I can’t definitively say I didn’t enjoy my time with Shining Resonance: Refrain. Once I got used to its gameplay loop, I found myself idly enjoying it while watching videos or TV as a comfortable time-sink. Although its story is very cliché, the game’s colorful cast of characters kept my interest up until the end. It’s very flawed but it’s also strangely charming in a late 2000’s JRPG sort of way. While this game may have clicked with me, I can’t say it will with somebody else. In fact, if someone were to say they hated this game, I could perfectly understand why. In the end, I think the game is cute, decently long, and I can appreciate the fact that it understands what it’s going for and doesn’t try to become anything more than what it is. Hopefully SEGA will someday make a sequel that can address my issues with Shining Resonance: Refrain as I do believe there is some potential to be found here. Though, considering SEGA’s treatment towards older IPs, I’m not exactly holding my breath.