Technical Information
Developer: Climax Entertainment, Sonic! Software Planning
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: 1992
Help Max and his friends stop Kane from reviving the Dark Dragon in this tactical JRPG adventure. Although it may seem like a story centered entirely around a medieval fantasy universe, be prepared to encounter robots and technologies inspired by futuristic concepts.
It’s worth pointing out that Shining Force is one of the few RPGs released for the Mega Drive.
Final Thoughts – Analyzing the Game as a Whole
Graphics and UI
The art direction managed to make good use of the Mega Drive’s color resources and limitations. Even though the maps and cities don’t have many details, it’s possible to notice the care put into the battle scenes and the composition of the avatars of key characters that appear during dialogues.
The UI, in general, is simple but confusing. There’s an extremely tiring flow when it comes to equipping weapons: you need to access the item menu, select the “equip” option, choose the character, and then select the weapon. Want to change another character’s weapon? You’ll have to repeat the entire process from the beginning. Believe me, this becomes exhausting, since your full party is made up of twelve characters.
Another very serious issue is that the game doesn’t indicate which weapon is currently equipped, so you have to equip it just to clear up that doubt. I spent almost one third of the game playing with Max without any weapon at all, because at some point I had unequipped it and didn’t notice. I found it very strange that he was extremely weak… at first, I thought it was something related to the character itself, until I realized that he didn’t have a sword equipped at all.
During battles, the HUD does a good job of showing how much HP each character has, but it doesn’t indicate whether they’ve been affected by any status condition, such as a curse. The only way to find out is by attacking (if you’re cursed, you won’t be able to attack and a text message will appear informing you of that) or by going to the church to get cured.
Buying items is another major problem. You can’t select a quantity, you literally buy items one by one, regardless of whether they’re the same item or different ones. You really need patience…
Think it can’t get worse? It can. When buying items, you have no idea what each one does, because there’s no description. The same issue happens when a character learns a new spell.
These are small details that greatly interfere with the player’s experience (at least mine was ruined! hahaha).
Soundtrack and Sound Effects
The game doesn’t feature a huge music library, but the tracks are very memorable for each moment of the game.
Personally, I l-o-v-e the music that plays when you enter the castle and the Guardiana theme! <3
If you play the game until the end, you can be sure you’ll never forget the music that plays during the attack animations.
Gameplay
The first problem I noticed was the NPCs’ artificial intelligence. They walk around the city randomly, and it’s very common for them to stop right in front of you, making it impossible to move. What do you do? You wait for them to feel like moving and clearing the path.
Battles are turn-based and quite intuitive. Some characters have a longer attack range (archers, for example), while others have greater movement range. This part felt well balanced to me. A battle ends when you defeat all enemies (or a specific target) or when Max dies.
When you die, you don’t lose the experience you’ve gained. However, once a battle is completed, it can’t be replayed to farm your team.
The difficulty ranges from easy to medium. I cleared most battles on my first try. It’s not necessary to have overpowered characters, just balance the classes well, understand each enemy type’s weaknesses, and be cautious when attacking. Believe, I defeated the final boss on my first attempt.
That said, I won’t deny that there were a few specific areas that gave me a bit of a headache, making me go back two or three more times before I managed to clear them.
I really liked some NPC dialogues, there’s always a relaxed or humorous line, which adds a lot of charm to the game.
The story itself is pretty weak, there’s nothing special. Just a good guy and his friends fighting against a villain and his ambitions.
As mentioned at the beginning of this review, the game initially seems like a purely medieval fantasy, but at a certain point robots, machines, and cyborgs start appearing, showing that there’s futuristic technology involved in the narrative.
Throughout the adventure, you’ll unlock several characters to add to your team. This makes the gameplay highly customizable and opens up more strategic options.
Replayability and Game Retention
I would play it again, but more for the charm and memorable music than for the challenge or the game itself.
There are some very serious game design issues, and I can’t consider Shining Force a well-polished product.
Not feeling very excited to play it again is a direct consequence of those flaws.
