Shining Force (Genesis) review "Still bright..."

I recall someone on this website proclaiming that grinding in RPGs is not a flaw in and of itself, especially if you enjoy the combat system enough. I've always thought about that statement because the first games that pop into my head—both at least partially developed by the same team, and both lying on opposite ends of the spectrum—are Beyond the Beyond and Shining Force.

Beyond bored me to tears largely because it was a slow early-PlayStation roleplayer that still behaved like it was stuck in the 16-bit era, complete with a tiresome combat system, long gaps between level-ups, and atrocious pacing. I was able to power through that title only because it my first PlayStation game, one that became largely forgotten by the time I got my hands on Wild Arms and Suikoden.

But then you have Shining Force, an S-RPG that predates Beyond, and yet runs circles around it. Sure, they're both different styles of roleplaying, but Force arranges its elements in a way that's snappy and extravagant for its time.

Where Beyond offered your average turn-based RPG content, Shining served as an introduction for many folks to the world of turn-based strategy. Rather than gathering into a party and selecting commands for each unit per turn, your troops amass on a grid-based map, standing singly. Each turn allows a combatant to move and/or act. One character approaches another and engages in a brief scuffle, and the screen transitions to an alternate view of the war being waged. The game provides you a view from behind your hero, grasping whatever weapons it might have, standing ready to take the blow or avoid it. Your opponent cuts loose by swinging an axe, firing a laser, breathing fire, or casting a spell. Meanwhile, a desperate battle tune plays perhaps a touch over-dramatically, and yet deservedly over-the-top. Somehow, it gets your blood boiling, seeing what's essentially two tabletop miniatures rendered in 16-bit, poised for combat while the soundtrack waxes sensational. And after that, you just want more...

So you move your contingent out carefully so none of them become surrounded or nailed with a multi-target spell. You pick your shots, waiting in anticipation for that melodramatic battle screen, all so you can see how much monster flesh you've cleaved off your foe. And the climax of it all comes when you've depleted a beast's hit points and its character model fades into the background, dissipating like smoke in the wind. The screen transitions back to the battlefield for more theatrics, where your enemy spins a mean pirouette before exploding. I know this is all basic sensory stuff, but somehow it's all very satisfying, addictive even. It's enough that at the end of a long altercation, I take inventory of my Force and decide whether or not I want to restart the battle so I can earn additional experience. Honestly, I feel no regret in waiting for my protagonist's turn to come up so I can case the “egress” spell, exit the stage, and recommence the brawl from the top. The more I do it, the stronger my party becomes.

...and the more chance I get to relive that ridiculously climactic exchange.

Force, sadly, would be nothing if not for its battles. Its stages come with all manner of designs used to create bottlenecks and serve as hazards, forcing you to not only plan ahead how to best maneuver your troops, but also which ones jump into the fray or remain on the bench. Flying fighters tend to be handy in a lot of stages, where guys like Amon, Bleu, and Kokichi bypass impediments and soar straight to your adversaries with ease, only endangering themselves because they run the risk of aggroing too many monsters and becoming surrounded. Sometimes, the opposing army gathers in tight clusters, just begging for a mage (or a strange, talking jellyfish you hatched from an egg) to pelt them with magical nukes. Other times, the opposition spreads out, leaving you to consider if knights and other agile warriors serve as your best companions...

However, when you're not in the trenches, you're stuck in towns or basic dungeons performing the dullest tasks. At the risk of sounding even more juvenile, segments spent outside of combat can safely be called “the slow parts.” This is when the game navigates a fairly decent plot by forcing you to meander about town, figuring out which NPC to engage in conversation so you can advance the campaign. In some cases, you've got to search high and low to find the person who wants to speak with you. For instance, one late-game town sees you wandering around looking for a castle and its king, only to realize the palace sits underground. So you descend stairs and still traverse numerous corridors before finding the monarch, who promptly throws you into a jail cell. By the time you figure out how to exit, you advance the story and realize the whole “being jailed” thing was completely unnecessary, and that the storyline felt like it was stalling. Honestly, I would rather have had another fight instead of nonsense like this...

The one silver lining to these tedious moments comes when you tireless search and recruit some new, optional partners. During your visit to a certain magical domain, you meet a centaur doing his laundry. He doesn't seem quite interested in joining up at that point. However, if you talk to him later, he reveals he's more than willing to take up the lance again. Hell, the more diligent you are at searching towns, the likelier you are to locate these peculiar (and often useful) additions to your party. You might, say, read a small card attached to a wall that seems like nothing more than decoration, only to find that it's a note left by a samurai who decided to aid you. Moments like these add meaning to your visits to town, alleviating a bit of their slowness.

All roads eventually lead back to the battlefield, where you spend a long time grinding. It's funny how repeated battles actually last longer than your tedious town visits, yet they're much more invigorating and don't feel quite as lengthy. Force's combat allows you to lose track of time, which is appreciable when you realize that constant leveling up becomes necessary to survival. As you advance, you march against increasingly tougher foes who can chop some of your smaller units to bits. Your best bet at that point rests on providing enough training for those characters to weather the storm. And hell, if you bolster them enough, you can head back to town and have them promoted to a new class, although I would recommend holding off on doing so for as long as possible...

Ultimately, Force proves the point made by the aforementioned poster. Grinding isn't a problem if you truly enjoy the battles. Its developers obviously placed most of their emphasis on the game's key elements, allowing less important factors to wither. As a result, Shining Force just feels right. It's not by any stretch the best, most complex, or most feature-driven S-RPG, but the game succeeds by doing the most it can with older hardware limitations and contemporary category standards.

Community review by JoeTheDestroyer (July 04, 2023) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.