Shining Force
From Sega Retro
| Shining Force |
|---|
| System(s): Sega Mega Drive |
| Publisher: Sega |
| Developer: Climax Entertainment, Sonic Co. |
| Sound driver: Cube |
| Genre: RPG |
Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention, also simply known as Shining Force is a turn-based tactical role-playing game released in 1992 published by Sega for the Mega Drive and the first of the tactical Shining Force series. Its development was a conjoined effort between the independent studio Climax Entertainment and Sonic Co., a Sega second party that was formed to create the previous Shining game, Shining in the Darkness. It was rereleased several times for other systems and was remade in 2004 by Amusement Vision, renamed Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon, but this title is not considered to be canon to the series. Other media associated with this game include an encyclopedia, several game guides, two soundtrack releases, a manga series (3 volumes) and The Curse of Zeon, a six part story published in Sonic the Comic (issues #73-78).
Contents
Game Development
Consumer Development Studio #4 (Sega CD4) was a division of Sega, which was reformed and changed their name to Sonic Co. with the objective of creating a new RPG series for the company. Hiroyuki and Shugo Takahashi were programmers at Climax Entertainment who were recruited to work under the new founded section, albeit independently from Sega.
The team was small, with only four people. Not helping matters in the slightest, Sega gave the team the bare minimum of funding offered to non in-house developers. The Takahashi brothers then asked their former colleagues at Climax to help out with technical support, making the project a conjoined effort between the two teams.
Shining in the Darkness was a success and a sequel of some sorts was instantly demanded, though Sega still gave the team the minimum funding once again. Takahashi believed that most RPGs of the time only focused on telling an interesting story while treating battles and the coupled system as a tacked on extra, and he wanted to challenge that notion, making a game with an engaging battle system for once.
Shining Force was inspired by a relatively obscure Japanese PC 1988 game called Silver Ghost. The battle system of Silver Ghost consisted in real time actions and a multi-character system, where the player controlled the leader of a force and attacked enemies by running into them, as the rest of the force followed and engaged in combat with anything that comes close to them. Takahashi had worked on Dragon Quest previously, and had wondered how the battle system could be improved. Silver Ghost and the tiled chess-like movement of units typical of tactical RPGs provided the answer, as it introduced the concepts of distance and range.
Story
Chapter 1
Max is a young swordsman who trains under the wing of Lord Varios, in the Kingdom of Guardiana. One day, the King informs them that the Gate of the Ancients, a place Guardiana has watched over for centuries, might have been reached by the forces of Runefaust. Max accepts the King’s plea to leave with a small force assembled by the adviser Nova to stop their antics and they are successful, but as the commander of Runefaust’ troops dies, he laughs at them, as Lord Kane from Runefaust should be invading Guardiana by now. Max quickly returns to Guardiana, just in time watch Varios being killed by Kane and then leaving. The King, also heavily wounded, reveals that the Gate can only be opened with a key, and instructs Max to find it before Runefaust and to discover the motivations behind their actions. The King also dies and Mae, distraught by her father Varios’ death, joins the force.
Max heads to the Kingdom of Alterone, which is an ally of Guardiana and lies close to the northwest. There, he finds that the King was threatened about his Kingdom’s safeness by Kane and is thrown to prison. Max is saved by Khris and the force heads back to the castle to talk with the King, which begs forgiveness and excuses himself about being under Kane’s power. He gives Max a last advice, a hint to a secret passage and to head to Rindo and then Manarina as there’s someone there that can help him.
Gameplay
Characters
The force is made by various warriors, which will join at various locations of the game, some with specific tasks that need to be completed to access them. Every character has their class and race, which determinates their stats, accessories and weapons that can be equipped, and magic that can be learnt. There are thirty characters in Shining Force: Max, Luke, Ken, Tao, Hanz, Lowe, Gort, Gong, Jogurt, Mae, Khris, Anri, Arthur, Balbaroy, Amon, Diane, Zylo, Pelle, Kokichi, Vankar, Guntz, Domingo, Earnest, Lyle, Bleu, Musashi, Alef, Torasu, Adam and Hanzou.
- There are seven stats in Shining Force: LV (level), HP (health points), MP (magic points), AT (attack power), DF (defence power), AG (agility, which determines their place in each turn), and MV (movement, which determines the amount of squares they are allowed each turn).
- EXP is given by attacking enemies, using offensive or defensive magic, or using items. The characters will gain levels accordingly and all their stats except MV are raised randomly. What stats each character is awarded more and less often is easy to pinpoint however. Because of the random nature of the level ups, many characters' performance changes from playthrough to playthrough. Like so, all characters have their independent strong and weak points, which make them unique even amongst the same types of units.
- Like it was mentioned before, once an unit hits level +10, he or she can be promoted to an upgraded class, which will reset their level to 1 but will boost their stats as well.
- Each character can carry up to four items of any kind, along with an accessory and a weapon equipped.
- There are several items in Shining Force. Amongst them, the most important are healing items (related to stat restoring while on battles mostly) and boosting items (related to permanent stat increase).
- There are only one type of accessories, rings and five main classes of weapons: Arrows and Launched Weapons (arrows, shells and shots), Axes, Polearms (not named) (lances, halberds and spears), Staves and Magical Weapons (Rods, Staves and Sticks) and Swords (katanas and swords). These can be equipped by everyone which shares a class, and has the objective of raising stats. Some have spells when used (though there's a chance they'll break).
- There are fifteen types of spells, eight offensive (Blaze, Freeze, Bolt, Desoul, Dispel, Muddle, Slow and Sleep) and seven defensive (Heal, Aura, Detox, Shield, Boost, Quick and Egress), which use certain MP points to be cast. Some can hit just one ally / enemy while others have an area of effect, and can hit several allies / enemies in a cross shape formation.
| Portrait | Description |
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Although Tao is the first mage acquired in the game, she is useful throughout the game. Her Blaze spell, when fully maxed out, becomes extremely powerful. Along with that, she learns Boost (at a very late level though), which increases a unit's attack power. As is the case with most spellcasters, Tao suffers from low HP and defense growth; keep her protected in battle or else she'll fall to enemy attacks quickly.
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Jogurt is a quirky little hamster-like creature. You can pick him/her/it up in Pao on your first visit by checking the building at the town's upper-left corner. Jogurt's stats never change, meaning he can only deal 1 HP damage at most in battle. However, if Jogurt manages to kill an enemy, a Jogurt Ring will appear in the inventory. Any character equipped with a Jogurt Ring will be transformed into a Jogurt in battle. The Jogurt Ring doesn't affect stats or abilities in any way; it's just a neat little novelty item. |
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Alef is a wizard from Prompt who joins the party in the Tower of the Ancients along with Torasu. She is a Bolt specialist who is also competent in Blaze and Freeze. Her physical stats are slightly below Anri's, but her magic is a bit better. Unfortunately, Alef suffers from low HP and defense.
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Adam is a robot who joins the party in the lost civilization of Metapha, where he leads the group to Chaos, who has been reprogrammed by Darksol to carry out his evil designs. Unfortunately, Adam's orders do nothing to turn him. Adam joins at level 9 and has poor mobility but strong attack and defense growth attributes.
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Playing Modes
Exploration Field
Shining Force features exploration fields like any standard RPG, with objectives such as picking up information or interacting with citizens. While strolling through the various towns and villages the force is represented by the force leader Max. There are four types of actions he can perform, by pressing 
and/or 
for confirmation and 
for cancel.
- TALK - While standing close to someone, it will start a conversation.
- MAGIC - Accesses magic but is mostly useless while in these fields.
- SEARCH - Searches while standing close to peculiar areas or objects. If the area or object doesn’t have anything attached to it, nothing will be found.
- ITEM - Accesses the inventory, the D-Pad highlights the item. Each character can carry one equipped weapon, along with four unsorted items or weapons.
- USE - Uses a selected item.
- GIVE - Switches items around.
- DROP - Discards a selected item.
- EQUIP - Equip or take off a weapon.
There are three basic places that exist in most exploration fields.
Shop (Items and Weapons)
Talking to the seller will allow buying items and weapons for the force.
- BUY - Displays the standard item and weapons list.
- SELL - Sells something from your inventory. Naturally, the selling price is always lower than the buying one.
- REPAIR - Repairs a broken item.
- DEALS - Accesses special items on sale.
Abbey Talking to the priest will allow healing the force, upgrading an character or saving the game.
- RAISE: Revives characters that were killed battle.
- CURE: Cures status ailments for a sum of money.
- PROMOTE: Once a character achieves level +10, he or she can be promoted to a different class, which will give them many advantages.
- SAVE: Saves the game exactly as it stands.
Headquarters The Headquarters is where the force assembles.
- ADVICE: Nova will give his useful advice for the upcoming battle.
- ITEM: Accesses the inventory.
- STATUS: Access each character's status windows.
- JOIN: Choose your active party, as only twelve can take part in one battle at one time.
Battle Field
Shining Force also features battle fields, where the player moves the characters in turns across the scenario overlaid with a square grid, which can be seen as somewhat similar to chess. Battles are gained by either destroying every enemy, the Boss (which defeats all others) or move outside of the battle field map and some bonus' items are given if specific goals are met. Battles are lost if the leader of the force dies and the game will switch back to the last accessible priest, losing half the Gold it was carrying.
Pressing or will access the battle menu.
- ATTACK - Attacks an enemy if he's in range, which depends from the kind of weapon the character has equipped.
- MAGIC - Accesses magic, if the character knows it.
- ITEM - Accesses the inventory. Using DROP or EQUIP doesn't require a turn.
- STAY - Holds position without any kind of active action.
Pressing the button will make a white highlighter box appear around the character. Moving it to any character and pressing or will access the character's stat windows. The latter has the extra of displaying their movement for the next turn. Pressing in an empty slot will access the Game Command Options.
- MAP - Access the battlefield map, displaying the location of the force in green and the enemies in red.
- QUIT - Saves and quits the game.
- MESSAGE - Disables battle messages (level-ups and special items are still displayed).
- SPEED - Changes the text speed.
Pressing will make the white highlight return to the character which is supposed to move.
Music
The Music was composed by Masahiko Yoshimura while the Sound Effects were programmed by Dogen Shibuya and Enzan Shibuya. For the 2004 remake, the composed switched to Naofumi Tsuruyama and Takuya Hanaoka. Two soundtracks were released.
Credits
Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention
- Game Design: Hiroyuki Takahashi
- Scenario: Masaki Wachi, Yoshitaka Tamaki, Hiroyuki Takahashi
- Subscript: Masaki Wachi, Kenji Orimo, Haruki Kodera, Hiroyuki Takahashi
- Scenario Assistant: Ritsuko Hisasue, Tadashi Iwase
- Programmers: Yasuhiro Taguchi, Yoshinori Tagawa, "Okochama" Naitoh, Haruki Kodera
- Technical Support: Masumi Takimoto, Kiyoaki Matsumoto
- Character Design by: Yoshitaka Tamaki
- Graphics Directed by: Hidehiro Yoshida, Yoshitaka Tamaki
- Graphic Design: Hidehiro Yoshida, Yoshitaka Tamaki, Ryushiro Miyazaki, 1610. Nakashima, Hirotada Kakusaka, Mizuho Mochizuki, Yojiro Hirashita, Ryutaro Ishimatu
- Music Composed by: Masahiko Yoshimura
- Sound Effects: Dogen Shibuya, Enzan Shibuya
- Special Thanks to: Naoki Aoki, Kotaro Hayashida, Shiro Tsuchiya
- Directed by: Yasuhiro Taguchi, Kenji Orimo
- Promotion Directed by: Shinya Nishigaki
- Produced by: Hiroyuki Takahashi
- Created by: Sonic Co., Ltd.; Climax Co., Ltd.
- Presented by: Sega Enterprises, Ltd.
Also Released On
| System | Game | Region | Date | Developer | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PC (1st release) | Sega Archives from USA Vol 3 | Japan | 1999 | ||
| Sega Smash Pack 2 | US | 2000 | Activision | ||
| Sega's Greatest Hits Vol 2 | Europe | (unknown) (1st edition) Hasbro (2nd edition) | |||
| PC (2nd release) | Sonic Action 4 Pack | US | 2001 | Activision | |
| PC (3rd release) | Sega Smash Pack 2 | US | 2000 | ||
| PC (4th release) | Sega Smash Pack: Twin Pack | US | 2002 | Activision | |
| Dreamcast | Sega Smash Pack | US | 2001-05-02 | Sega | |
| GameBoy Advance | Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon (remake) | Europe | 2004-04-30 | Amusement Vision | THQ |
| USA | 2004-06-08 | Atlus USA | |||
| Japan | 2004-08 | SOJ | |||
| Wii (Virtual Console) | Shining Force (stand alone game, 800 points) | Japan | 2007-07-10 | Climax Entertainment, Sonic! Software Planning |
Sega |
| US | 2007-07-23 | ||||
| Europe | 2007-08-03 | ||||
| PS3 / Xbox 360 | Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection | US | 2009-02-10 | Backbone Entertainment | Sega |
| Europe | 2009-02-20 | ||||
| AUS | 2009-02-26 | ||||
- The first release of the game for the Mega Drive was also released in the Asia and Brazil territories, by Sega of Japan and Tectoy respectively
Physical Scans
US cover
US cart
EU cover
JP cover
External Links
- Shining Force Central, SFC Guide, Guide 2, Gamefaqs (complementary data)
- Game Development: Interview with Hiroyuki Takahashi Developers' History Article Silver Ghost
