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Tactical RPGs have allways held a special place in my heart. Despite companies like NIS doing everything within their power to make me hate the genre, I still come back to it every now and then. Shining Force for the Sega Genesis is the game responsible for this habit, and is one of the games I have the fondest memories of.
Shining Force follows the story of your hero, who forms a band of knows(known as, oddly enough, The Shining Force) to stop the attempts of the Kingdom of Runefaust to ressurect the Dark Dragon and generally mess the whole world up. You do this by fighting a series of strategic battles across a variety of environments.
Shining Force’s battle system is still one of my favorites. It’s nice and simple: attack, defend, magic, item. That’s all you have, and frankly, that’s all you need. When characters perform actions, the game zooms in for a closer view of the action. Characters get different spells based on their character class.
And speaking of characters, Shining Force boasts a fairly robust party. Everything from standard fantasy staples like Mages and Priests to more outlandish fair such as centaurs, hawkmen, and even a werewolf with mad ninja pouncing skills make an appearance. The enemies share this variety, providing for a memorable experience. Add to this a visual style that still holds up fairly well(for a genesis game), and you’ve got a hit on your hands.
Shining Force probably also stands out because it was an RPG on the Genesis. The Genesis did not get the same kind of RPG support that the SNES got in the 90s, probably due to Square and Enix exclusively publishing for Nintendo. While Sega did get the Phantasy Star and Shining Force games, there really weren’t many other RPGs on their system.
Shining Force was also one of the first tactical RPGs. Much of what made Shining Force great appeared later in Final Fantasy Tactics on the Playstation, and contributed to that game’s immense success. The big thing that passed from Shining Force to Final Fantasy Tactics was obviously the grid system, used to determine range and movement. This simple innovation took a RPG that would have otherwise been fairly run of the mill and catapaulted it to the ranks of other RPGs of the day like Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star.
Shining Force will always be one of my favorites, and it saddens me to see the series take a more action-oriented approach with the Playstation 2 releases. Oh well, I guess you can’t have everything you want. Still, it was better Back In My Day.
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