Shining Force (user review)

Story
[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]Shining Force is the story of a young hero (Max) who has amnesia (surprise surprise) and is raised by the noble family in Guardania. The King on day summons you to go to the "Door" and take out a small weak strike force that was sent there by the Runefaust army. Whats behind the door?[/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]For that, we have to go back many years. The Dark Dragon, a three headed terror was brought to life and used for evil by the land of Runefaust. The "Ancients" used old technology and a magic spell to banish the dragon to a different dimension. As everyone knows, magic spells wear off in increments of 10. This one happens to be 1000 years. The Seal is now weak enough and the dark lord, Darksol, who summoned the dragon in the first place, is read to bring him back. The problem? He doesnt have all the pieces. So he has assimilated control of the country of Runefaust and is using the army to trample anyone in his way of finding the pieces to bringing the Dark Dragon back. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]The gripes I have with the story is that some of it is so rich and detailed, its hard to make sense of everything. Some names of towns and people are confusing as well. Understand where, who, and why they are all important took me a few plays though. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]Basically the whole game is you meeting the Runefaust army at every turn and beating them back to where they came from. You chase Darksol and his army around the map attempting to stop his moves, and spread the word that the Dark Dragon is coming. Of course, no one believes you.[/font]








Gameplay
[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]There are two parts to the gameplay. Wandering around the towns and such (all set up on an overhead grid system) and the other is SRPG battling. [/font]
[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]In towns you do basic SRPG things. Buy weapons, arrange your troops, talk to people who are about as dull as a butter knife. Sometimes its searching for the point that advances the story. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]The buy and selling of items is ok, thanks to markers and shopkeepers telling which character can equip what items. But when you start finding items and weapons in chests or on the ground, you run into inventory problems. Mainly, every item picked up goes directly into one of Max's 4 inventory slots. almost always will one be already used for a weapon and another for a ring or item of some kind. If you have no available slots, you have to start suffeling things so Max has an empty slot for the item to enter the parties exchange circle. I think this was remedied in the GBA version with 3 different sets of 4 slots and trickle down item pick up inventory sort of system. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]But the real meat of the game are the battles. You start at one end of the map with you and your [up to] 11 piece army. You army is a collective of various people willing to believe that the dragon is coming and would like to lend a hand beating back the onslaught. You can get humans, centaurs, birds, robots, a dragon, and even a floating jellyfish with ice magic, and a defense rating that will stop the strongest of blades. Eventually the "Shining Force" starts to look like a rag tag group of misfits. You get a large number of recruits and by the end, you will have to pick and choose who you want to bench, because you have too many awesome characters. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]You advance your way thought he battlefield and take on a few enemies at a time, working your way to a boss, or simply routing the other army. There is only one battle that plays out like two armies rushing the same battle field (think American civil war style). Most of the time is moving your army as a collective clump and overpowering several enemies at a time. [/font]






[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]When you actually engage and enemy, the game shows you a zoomed in almost cut scene of your character (or the adversary) doing the attack. While this looks cool and adds a lot to the game, sometime it feels slow and wastes your time. Also when attacking with a mage, sometimes its frustrating when you forget that "Attack" and "Magic" are under two different options. Attacking with a mage will do maybe one damage, thanks to most of them using a blunt staff. [/font]


[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]Also my biggest problem is how death of your main character is handled. If someone dies, you have to pay to bring them back after battle. Fair enough, but if Max falls, its all over. When I played this as a younger child, this meant I would grow to hate using Max, and keep him toward the back. Late in the game, enemies that could fly can seek out Max and kill me before i got into the fray with my main force. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]Other qualms I have with the battle system really comes down to pinch points. In just about every other battle, there is a point where an enemy with substantal heath, blocks a one person walkway. Your only hope is to use a tank character and back him up with long range arrows or magic till he falls and you can ssslloowyyllyyyy funnel though the gap. Because moves are determined by the computer, and the "Wait" command doesnt bump up that characters turn, you tend to have a very unorganized march though tight gaps, which takes way too long thanks to a set in stone AI running the turn algorithm. [/font]

Graphics/Sound
[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]The graphics are pretty well done for a sprite based RPG. Given most of the game is found in close ups of you and your enemies beating the snot out of each other close up, There is alot of individual sprite work done on each individual character. This leads to some repaleting for enemies and a few of your comrades even, but over all there is a solid effort put into making everyone look unique. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]Weapons also change with what is equipped, even if it is just a different color of the same thing you were holding before.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]Sound is good, unless you have a thing against chiptunes, then you shouldnt be in this thread at all. The overworld battle them (used in battles between cities or anywhere generic on the world map) is extremely boring. I usually try to boost though them as quick as possible. Every time you have a close up battle scene, the same music plays. Which gets old after a few battles. Whats funny, is that the victory music is the SAME track, and it playes after a set number of seconds, regardless of who is attacking. Usually this isnt a problem, but when a Dark Mage casts a spell that hits 4 or 5 of your characters, its a bit of salt in the wound when the victory music loop starts in as the mage is still freezing the balls off of your troops. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]Every town and castle has the same music and every battle chooses from a pool of about 5 themes. most of them are catchy and display a sense of urgency, which is good because you will be hearing them a lot. [/font]






Replay
[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]There are so many battles and characters to fight and collect, this game can effortlessly be played over and over again. Ive played it about 10 times now, from start to finish. Its not particularly hard, so replay is easy. But there is also no option for new game+, but with that the game offers, i dont think that is necessary.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]IMPORTANT: Playing the App Store version[/font]
[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]There are a few things that you should know about playing this on the iPhone. Everything above deals with the core mechanics of the game, but assumes you are playing with a controller or a keyboard. Down here, I will describe what happened when Sega ported this over to the iPhone. [/font]

[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]The first thing you will notice are is the main menu. This is really the only place where touch controls matter. Continue, New Game, Options, and Help are what you get to choose from.[/font]
[font=Verdana, Tahoma, Arial,]The main eye sore are the controls plastered right over the game. [/font]





While they work, they feel like Sega got lazy (oh wait they did) and made a Sega specific emulator, loaded up the Shining Force rom, and made the necessarily tweaks to have the game run a full speed. The port now dumped into the App Store as a package. Again they work. The A and B buttons are pretty easy to get used to, but my thumb kept wanting to wander around the left side of the screen and suddenly my characters werent moving with me.

The only other thing I have heard gripes about is the saving system. If you save in game like a normal game, you have no problems. But since this game supports multi-tasking, players forget that closing that app or resetting their phone gets rid of their progress held in the RAM. Just a heads up.