Shining Force - The Thread of Great Intention

[Kazin]

I just beat Shining Force III: Scenario 3. I really enjoyed playing the games, and adding my playtimes together, the entire Shining Force III trilogy took me just a little over 97 hours to complete (if I hadn't wasted pretty much all my playtime yesterday futilely throwing myself at the final boss, it'd be about 94, but whatever). I highly, highly recommend them, if you enjoy earlier Shining games. They are all extremely good - here, I'll rank them:

Scenario 2 > Scenario 1 > Scenario 3

I only ranked the third game lowest because there's a good stretch in the middle with very straightforward battles, which is pretty much unlike everything in the first two scenarios. That said, the penultimate battle is insane - you're controlling three separate armies all at once, with 36 units total, against a ton of enemies. It's far more interesting than the final battle, which has some story bits but is mostly just slogging through the insane HP the final boss has. Still, it was difficult enough to make me have to redo both the last two battles today, which wasn't so bad now that I had a proper team and not several useless units lol. I ended up not really needing MP regen - with the two archers I brought, I was putting out enough damage that I'd have been fine had everybody run out of MP, it would have just taken longer, and my MP depleted mages would have just reverted to healing people with items, most likely.

In any case, I'm sad. Other than whatever bonus content is on the premium disc - and I plan to dive into it tomorrow - I've finished the final Shining Force game (you know, the last actual one. There are decent Shining games after III, but this is the last "real" one). I'll let you all know how worthwhile the bonus content is as I explore it - I intend to wring as much out of the bonus disc as I can, since I absolutely fell in love with everything about Shining Force III during these playthroughs. I wanna see concept art, battle designs, see what the bonus battles entail, etc. Looking forward to it.

For real - play Shining Force III. It's extremely good.

 

[Kazin]

I played some of the Premium Disc before work - it has a model viewer, which allows you to view all the 3D models of all the characters in the game, party members and enemies alike, which is neat. Scrolling through the list, it looks like I missed at least three player characters - one of them I didn't even see a hint of anywhere, I have no idea who he is lmao. Another one I kept thinking would join my party, but I could never get him to, no idea why (heck, I don't even know if he's a Scenario 2 Medion army character, or a Scenario 3 Julian army character, which is neat because there's still some nooks and crannies of SF3 I could explore in a future playthrough). There is also a sound test, illustration gallery including some prerelease material, and a save editor, which allows you to basically create a save for Scenario 3 where it explicitly asks you things like "did you save so-and-so in Scenario 1? Did you get the key from Fiale in Scenario 1?" etc etc etc. which is rad, because it'd allow you to play through Scenario 3 having made different choices without having to play through the first two scenarios again, which'd take like 60 hours. Convenient!

I also started the series of battles. There is no story here, and I don't know how many battles there are, but I think this is the meat of the disc. It allows you to pick a 12 person unit from ANY of the characters you unlocked from your Scenario 3 completion save, including the armies from the first two Scenarios. I picked the three heroes, the three flying units, three mages, two archers, and my best healer. So far, I have faced a redo of the Kraken battle which was a cakewalk, a fight with the three Yasha ninjas, together, who were individually bosses in the main story of the games, and all six Rainbloods together, which was rad because in Scenario 3 you face them two at a time in separate battles. I didn't have much trouble with them, but I'd imagine these bonus fights are going to get very difficult. The one I left off on before work had the four Bulzome mages, all at once, which is neat because that certainly doesn't happen in the main game proper.

It is a damn shame we never got Scenarios 2 and 3, and also the Premium Disc in the west, because Sega was just generous with the content in these things. There is a LOT of game here, and it's all an utter delight.

 

[Patrick]

If I ever end up with a way to play Saturn games I will check it out.

Actually, I've only played like half (?) of Shining Force 1 on Wii Virtual Console. I enjoyed it, and I don't remember why I didn't finish it. I have the first two games and some of the Game Gear games loaded up and I'm debating if I should play through the first one again to get the complete experience, or just skip to a game that is new to me and return to 1 later on if I want more Shining Force.

 

[Kazin]

I think the first game, in terms of balance, is kind of wonky - stats on level ups are extremely random and variable, so on some playthroughs you'll get lucky and it'll be a smooth ride, and others - like one of mine - your characters will just not get any attack stats on level up so you'll have a rough go. I'd say start with Shining Force II which fixes this and is a better game overall. That said... Shining Force III is pretty much the best, as crazy as that feels for me to say being such a huge fan of II. Saturn emulation is in a much better place now than it used to be, so if you have a decent PC or even like a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro or 5, you should be able to run Saturn games just fine.

The Game Gear games (and Shining Force CD) are fantastic, but they have some quirks that put me off recommending them as your first games in the series. Nothing that makes them unplayable or anything, but the balance in vanilla Game Gear Sword of Hajya for magic is way, way off - Freeze 3 hits like everyone in your party and can one shot them, which is not how it works in any other Shining game. That said, they're still good, and playing Hajya via Shining Force CD fixes that problem anyway. Final Conflict is amazing, but I'd save that until you've played the Genesis games, because there's some fun tie ins to the plots of those two games.

 

[JBear]

I'll dissent and say that I prefer I to II. IIRC, II added random or repeatable battles, whereas I is a tight linear one and done for each battle which I strongly prefer. Or maybe I'm remembering wrong? It's been a few decades.

 

[Kazin]

You can repeat battles in II if you want, but you certainly don't have to. It's a little weird, actually - sometimes if you step on a certain tile, it'll trigger a repeat battle, sometimes it won't. There are no forced repeatable battles, thankfully. I don't know why it's set up this way, but if you encounter a repeat battle, you can Egress away and avoid whatever tile that was in the future (which sucks, but it is doable). There aren't many screens where this can happen (four, maybe, iirc?), and you don't really do a ton of backtracking, but it is a thing, yeah. Totally skippable, though.

 

[Patrick]

Saturn emulation is in a much better place now than it used to be, so if you have a decent PC or even like a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro or 5, you should be able to run Saturn games just fine.

I have an intel Macbook air, a Switch, a PS4, and a Trimui Brick. (the Brick hilariously can run Dreamcast games fairly well but not Saturn games.) I bet a PS4 could run Saturn games if I really wanted to put some effort into it, or maybe the Macbook could run windows in bootcamp and then run a Saturn emulator. But, I'm not in a hurry. I'm thinking sometime in the next 5 years or so I'll pick up whatever Retroid Pocket equivalent exists. For now I really want to focus on 8/16 bit games since I've been playing a ton of them.

I'll add SFII to my list. If nothing else, I've already played a lot of SFI and it looks like there is no direct story connection.

 

[Kazin]

Zeon, my boy, what have they DONE to you?!

I actually quite often like the graphics in this series of games, and while I appreciate that this is literally a bonus battle in a bonus disc given out for free to people who purchased the three Shining Force III games, but god damn is Zeon here ugly. Not in like, a demony way, just a poorly drawn sprite and bad 3D model way. There are actually very few 3D models I dislike in the series - this guy here, the overworld Kraken sprite, and everything about the tank in Scenario 2. Otherwise, I think they're all pretty charming, if low poly - but this guy just sucks.

For reference, here's what he looked like in Shining Force II (spoilers because he's the final boss of that game, and he actually looks cool in it):

Spoiler

Anyway, it's super cool that he's here. Before him, I fought Dark Dragon (his sprite and 3D models were pretty plain, not bad, but not especially good either) from Shining Force 1, and Iom from Shining Force Sword of Hajya, who looked pretty good. I think it's fitting, given the Shining Force II fan that I am, that I'm stuck on Zeon - he has too many turns, and has three different multitarget attacks, one of which poisons anyone it hits. The poison damage is nearly 30 HP, which is BONKERS high for poison damage. He also has access to Regret Hit, which reduces the HP of whoever he hits to 1, which is a pretty big problem when he gets a multitarget attack a few turns later. I could probably beat him either with some grinding, or maybe savescumming if he uses an attack I don't like lol (no idea if this would even work, though. He may be programmed to always use the same attacks in a certain order, I have no idea). I don't know if I'll try to push through - I'd like to see what else is included in these bonus battles (there is surprisingly little information out there on the internet!), but I don't want to grind for a storyless bonus battle with no real reward besides seeing stuff like, well... Zeon up there. lol

 

[Kazin]

Lmao I just beat Zeon. I found a spot where I can put my archers where he won't attack at all, so they just plinked him for about 65-90 damage per round by them, until they took him out (and he heals 60 HP per round, so it took awhile since apparently Zeon has 5,000 HP). Cheesy? Yes. How the devs intended it to be beat? No. Do I care? Not really, since I'd have to grind everyone up presumably in Scenario 3 and then beat that game again, which includes the final two battles which take like three hours themselves to beat (although I guess it'd be a little faster if everyone is overleveled). I put the archers in those two spots, held the controller button down by placing my remote on the C button, and started working lol. Took about an hour and 45 minutes haha. I've looked it up and the next fight against Darksol is the last of the bonus fights. I don't know what to expect here, or if it can be cheesed if he's tough, but apparently Zeon is the hardest fight with all his poison and whatnot, so hopefully I can clear the premium disc tonight! Which counts, even if cheesed lol

 

[Sarge]

97 hours isn't too bad for three games, honestly! Especially considering how I'm still battering through Dragon Quest XI, where I'm at around 60 right now in Act 3. So the next time I'm thinking about playing a big RPG, these will be on the list for sure.

Out of curiosity, did you experience any burnout? Do you think it might be better to break it up by scenario or just do the whole thing in one go? Probably a personal taste thing, but I figured I'd get your opinion anyway.

 

[Kazin]

@Sarge I did not experience any burnout - in fact, I could have gone for longer lol (which is why after work, I will try to beat the final bonus battle on the Premium Disc). I will say, I was definitely in the mood for some Shining Force/a tactical RPG (or a strategy RPG, I can never keep those terms straight in my mind. Whichever Shining Force is). I would say you would get burned out quickly if you're not in the mood for one of those games. Since I was, I had an absolute ball playing through all three scenarios. All three get better as they go, too - they start slowly, with a few very simple battles where you have very few units. The more complex the battles get, the more fun I have, so really the part you'll likely find yourself burning out on is when you first start a new scenario. Even in my (now) beloved Scenario 2, when I first played it, I got three or four hours in and quit because after the insane delight of the final battle of Scenario 1, the battles in 2 were just kinda boring in comparison (that changes, fairly quickly, right after where I quit lol). That happened in early Scenario 3, as well, even though there's a fun battle that's like, the third battle in. It gets good after that, then there's a series of very straightforward battles, then it gets bonkers and fun again through the end. Scenarios 1 & 2 are much more linearly fun - they start slow and pretty much get better from there. Scenario 2's last battle is probably the weakest of the trilogy, but it's still good fun.

But yeah. If you beat Scenario 1 and find yourself thinking "thank god THAT'S over" I wouldn't pick up Scenario 2 right away lol.

 

[Sarge]

Gotcha, that makes sense. I do generally have to be in a specific mood for a genre, and for whatever reason that's doubly true for SRPGs. Although Shining Force is among my favorites, along with Arc the Lad (especially AtLII), so if there's anything I can get traction on, it'll be these!

Speaking of which... have you given the Arc the Lad series a go? The first game is a bit of a trifle, but the second I found to be utterly fantastic. I also enjoyed Twilight of the Spirits, despite the changes to the battle format. (I haven't played much of End of Darkness, it's really an ARPG and apparently a poor one at that.)

 

[Kazin]

I have, and I think I wasn't in the mood for it when I played it (it was the first game, too). From what I recall, it was gorgeous, so I've been meaning to go back to it. As is, I'll be playing Shining the Holy Ark next, since it's tangentially related to Shining Force III lmao

 

[Sarge]

Oh, yeah, they're really pretty games. Just don't judge it based on the first game (which is fun, but not very ambitious). That second game really improves everything across the board. The third was fun enough, but it's also pitifully easy.

I don't usually cotton to DRPGs like StHA, but that's absolutely one of my favorites. Played through it back in the day when I first got my Saturn. I even somehow own a legit copy of it! (Big ol' scratch that interferes with some video playback, but it otherwise ran fine. I don't dare try to resurface it after what happened to my copy of Persona: Revelations...)

 

[Kazin]

I watched a video about Saturn RPGs in general recently (this one - I liked it!), and was reminded Shining the Holy Ark has an automap system, which means it will be less of a pain to play than I thought it'd be (I do have graph paper, but don't really want to bother with it lol). If I can beat the final bonus boss on the Shining Force III Premium Disc, I'll probably start it up tonight!

 

[Peklo]

Holy Ark is a genuine best-in-series, best-in-genre, best-on-system kinda game, just to talk it up some. Camelot's streak with Shining was really something, to have achieved virtuosity in both tactical and dungeon RPGs across barely more than a half-decade.

 

[Sarge]

I think the reason it worked for me over others is that it wasn't WRPG-style combat. It's probably the exact reason I liked Arcana on SNES as well. They really were on a roll during this period. I wish Beyond the Beyond was a little better - just a few minor tweaks and I'd love that, too.

 

[Second Duke Revier]

From what I've played of it, Beyond the Beyond needs more than just "minor" tweaks, lol. It's essentially a proto Golden Sun, with most of its flaws and none of its saving graces.

 

[Kazin]

Finished the battle content on the Premium Disc. I enjoyed it! The final battle against Darksol is much fairer than the one before it in that he can't poison you, and doesn't have as many ranged attacks with huge damage. Still, he can confuse multiple party members at once, which is the only time I savescummed - if he confused one person, I continued on, but if he happened to confuse more than one, I reset. I saved after every round just before his turns to prevent him just randomly deciding to kill one of the heroes (if any of the three of them die, it's game over). He did kill one of my flying units early on, but I pressed on because he wasn't putting that much damage out anyway. Apparently the bonus content took me 6:45, and that includes me cheesing Zeon for nearly two hours lol. This is your reward for beating the battle content on the bonus disc:

lmao

Sadly, the secret bosses are not then available in the model viewer like I hoped. I was hoping to really get some good photos of Zeon, and inspect every angle of that monstrosity of a 3D model lol. Thoroughly enjoyed myself with all four discs of Shining Force III. Please play it if you're in the mood for this type of game.

 

[Sarge]

From what I've played of it, Beyond the Beyond needs more than just "minor" tweaks, lol. It's essentially a proto Golden Sun, with most of its flaws reflected within the game, without any of its saving graces.

Heh, possibly true. In my opinion, though, the things that would fix it pretty quickly would be halving the encounter rate, doubling the EXP/gold, and getting rid of the delays in the battle system with the bouncing crystal and the whole (mostly undocumented?) timed button press thing they've got going. I think that'd make it a pretty serviceable Dragon Quest clone.

 

[Kazin]

I could have sworn that the Arthur you can recruit in Shining Force III was supposed to be an slightly older version of the protagonist from Shining the Holy Ark, but that doesn't make sense since the Arthur in Shining Force III is a centaur and the one in Shining the Holy Ark is a regular two legged human. What is with this series and reusing names?!

In any case, just got to the second town in StHA and am having fun. That dungeon through the woods and then the crypt was pretty long. I believe I've found five fairies total so far - I want to search every nook and cranny of the dungeons to find more but some of those animations where you don't find anything but something still happens get kind of tedious after a while. Like, it's bats in that hole again, Arthur. You've seen them open their yellow eyes one by one several times now. Just step away. At least don't be surprised when they fly out for the tenth time! Anyway, I'll have to look up which fairies correspond to which direction enemies come from because other than the leprechauns, I haven't figured it out yet.

 

[Kazin]

I was spoiled with Shining Force III's zippyness in menus and in between battles and whatnot. Shining the Holy Ark has slowdown while navigating your menus to like, heal and stuff, which is kind of tiring after a while. It's not a dealbreaker, but I wish it'd run a little better in the menus specifically. I don't even mind the slowdown in battle, at least so far.

It throws you right in the deep end in some of these dungeons though, doesn't it? I'm glad I bought some weapons because it threw me into the well underneath the second town, and I took a wrong turn and ended up exploring a decent chunk of the dungeon before I doubled back and found the exit pretty much right next to where I started lol. Got some defensive equipment and am going back to the forest to finish exploring that map, and maybe getting some experience along the way. I *finally* got some useful magic, though - Brutal Fire Level 1 and Hell Blast Level 1 both suck. The level 2 versions of those spells hit multiple enemies and do more damage than their physical weapons, which is going to make the well dungeon so much more doable.

I also appear to be, eventually, going to meet with Garm, who was a minor recurring character in Shining Force III, which is fascinating...

 

[FelixSH]

Funny, how you did just play through SF III. I recently watched a video about interesting Saturn games, and it was mentioned and praised. Enough for me to be curious about it.

That said, part of it was also that you get different perspectives on the situation, through changing viewpoints. And that most characters aren't necessary evil, stuff like that.

But also that most battles have interesting gimmicks. Way too few srpgs do these.

Emulation options seem decent enough, from the little bit I tried. Not great, but not much worse than N64, I can live with that. I tried mednafen, but that seems to be a bit of a pain to set up. Others just worked, though not that great. Eh,well enough for me.

 

[Kazin]

Ooh, if you do end up playing SFIII, let me know what you think of it! It is not a game many people seem to have played!

 

[Kazin]

...I had to look up that you can bust doors down in the Aborigine Mansion in Shining the Holy Ark by running at them. I'm pretty sure I've talked to every NPC I've come across, and no one hinted that was even possible (being told the doors have no handles does not equal "oh, i should run at them, then" to me lol).

Ah well. Found some more pixies and have a giant pile of gold now, so it wasn't fully wasted time, I guess...

 

[Kazin]

I have beaten the Southern Shrine, acquired the Sacred Sword, promoted my first four characters (I think I got overleveled in the Aborigine Mansion, because Akane just joined me and she's only level 14 lol. I have not purposefully grinded, though!), and have been having a great time with Shining the Holy Ark. The Southern Shrine in particular was a fantastic dungeon, although I enjoyed the one before it with the giant snake alternately blocking your way and you have to fight it four times. Neat stuff.

However, I'd like to give a lighthearted, though earnest, "fuck you" to this FAQ writer, who can't just tell me the answer I'm looking for (what the various gems were worth at the very end of the Southern Shrine - I am *not* doing a math puzzle, thanks) without making me scroll a mile down past lines like "I'm serious! I'm going to give you the answer!" and "It's coming!" and "I promise!" before just giving me the fucking answer. That guide was written in 2016, too, which is 15 years beyond when I'd expect that sort of thing. They even admitted they hacked their save to beat the boss in the shrine, which is ridiculous for someone writing a FAQ lol

 

[Sarge]

I have beaten the Southern Shrine, acquired the Sacred Sword, promoted my first four characters (I think I got overleveled in the Aborigine Mansion, because Akane just joined me and she's only level 14 lol. I have not purposefully grinded, though!), and have been having a great time with Shining the Holy Ark. The Southern Shrine in particular was a fantastic dungeon, although I enjoyed the one before it with the giant snake alternately blocking your way and you have to fight it four times. Neat stuff.

However, I'd like to give a lighthearted, though earnest, "fuck you" to this FAQ writer, who can't just tell me the answer I'm looking for (what the various gems were worth at the very end of the Southern Shrine - I am *not* doing a math puzzle, thanks) without making me scroll a mile down past lines like "I'm serious! I'm going to give you the answer!" and "It's coming!" and "I promise!" before just giving me the fucking answer. That guide was written in 2016, too, which is 15 years beyond when I'd expect that sort of thing. They even admitted they hacked their save to beat the boss in the shrine, which is ridiculous for someone writing a FAQ lol

Wow, what a flaming turd.

 

[Kazin]

The Western Shrine was fun! I lost to the boss once, but mainly because I played too aggressively and should have swapped Akane in for some more healing to keep my team topped up until the arms were down (Sega missed an opportunity to call that boss a Kraken like other games in the series, odd that they didn't). Beat it, though. I really like you can swap in team members with no penalty whatsoever - adds to the strategy of battles. Shame you spend so long without that ability due to lack of party members - you get a whole bunch of people right in a row after you go to the southern area. Only Forte remains unpromoted at this point, he's lagging behind at level 18 - he was also the only character to die during the boss, which sucks because it gave out a lot of experience.

I also forgot to mention that I met Julian, who is just a kid in this game. Oddly, you don't really find out anything about his dad, other than he was killed by, presumably, Galm at the mansion, but there's not a cutscene showing it or any detail really about why he was at the mansion in the first place. I wonder if there's missing dialogue in the English version given the latter two Scenarios of Shining Force III were never released in the west so they didn't feel the need to give him more backstory, although I don't know how far ahead they were planning these things back then. Ultimately it's a bit of a disappointment, but nothing major since it's not like Julian is all that well characterized in Shining Force III anyway, even in the fantranslated versions. I wonder how far away the area Shining the Holy Ark takes place in is from the area Shining Force III proper takes place.

 

[Kazin]

East Tower down. Fantastic music in there, fun boss. Unlike the last dungeon, the boss was well telegraphed, so I teleported out, stocked up on items (I'm glad I picked up some status clearing items!), went back, and beat it first try (though Forte, again, died, which again, sucks, because I'd have liked him to gain some exp. Still, he was promoted early on in this dungeon, so he's not too far behind).

I'm at 20 and a half hours at the moment, and according to howlongtobeat, this game takes on average 25 hours, so I'm nearing the end. Not that I'm in a rush to beat it - so far, I've really been enjoying myself. It doesn't scratch the same itch as Shining Force, obviously, but it is a good little dungeon crawler. Maybe I'll finally play through Shining in the Darkness after this...

 

[Sarge]

I'm glad you're enjoying it! It always makes me nervous talking up games I beat 20 years ago and wondering if they actually hold up.