"Decent game for it's time, rather Crude now...."

Shining Force...I'd probably think higher of this if I didn't play Shining Force II first. Now I'm not going to say it's that bad of a game, in fact, it's rather fun, but there are some really annoying features about this game that I'm going to rant on.

Graphics: 13/20
The graphics aren't all that bad for it's time, but in retrospect, many other games of the time have done much better. Most of the textures are just solid colors with maybe a few small flowers on the ground here and there. The water is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's a solid blue, doesn't move at all, and has random, static waves decorating the blue. I know it's a relatively old game, but I think they could have done better. World map is fine. The character portraits look somewhat demented and disfigured. Their faces are somewhat small too, usually taking up only about 20% of the box. Note that I said faces. In battle sprites don't look too bad. My only complaint is that the protagonist, Max, is a little bit too big relative to his sword, so it always looks like he has a dagger.

Sound: 15/20
More or less in the same boat as the graphics. They're decent, but they could have done better. Some of the themes are pretty good, namely the battle themes. Upbeat, exciting, fits the mood, perfect. It's a shame that it's juxtaposed with themes like the town themes and the world map theme, the two themes you hear most of the time, which, while they aren't horrible, they get annoying after about 2 loops.

Gameplay: 15/40
Ok, now we're at my rants. First of all, the interface is probably the most annoying one I've ever used in any RPG or Strategy RPG. Talking to a person is a pain in the neck because I have to bring up the menu every time and select "Talk". This can get annoying not only because it takes a while to talk, but most of the NPCs move around too, so if you just missed the guy as he's moving, the game registers him as the next space and you'll get an obtrusive message "No one is in that direction." Searching for treasure is also a pain in the neck, but not nearly as bad since the chests don't move around, but you still have to face the treasure, bring up the menu, and then choose "Search" to open treasure chests.

Second thing, the battle system seems pretty much random to me. Enemy and Ally units seem to go whenever they feel like it and there's no pattern or order of turns. Many times when I plan to have my people surround an enemy unit, he gets a turn out of nowhere, even if he just acted 2 turns ago. Other times, I'm waiting for a specific unit to finish off an enemy unit in order to gain experience for leveling and I'm waiting for the person's turn to come up, and it never comes up. In the mean time, the unit that I left alive for the other guy to kill gets another turn and kills the guy who was supposed to kill him. Personal example in the early game: Max, Luke, and Ken surround this zombie for Khris to kill. The Zombie is down to 1HP and is just sitting there. I pass all my turns and wait for Khris's turn, which never comes up. Or at least it comes up after the Zombie's turn again. And if I'm unlucky, the Zombie gets his turn and kills Khris.

That's being unlucky too, not because the Zombie might have missed, but the fact that the AI is about as smart as a 4 year old. Many times, I have done away with melee units just by using ranged attacks because they don't respond to anything until you attack them. They also have the most erratic attack pattern I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure it's not my formation, but they never want to kill a guy. I had Arthur attacked and down to 2 HP, and the enemy unit ignores him while having him in range and goes to attack Max, who is at full health. Why? I don't know, but it happens a lot.

Speaking of battles, you seem to miss a LOT more than the enemies. I don't know much about the game mechanics and hit/miss/damage formulas, but it seems somewhat unbalanced. I just played through a battle. I had Luke attacking a Zombie. The entire battle, he did not land a single hit on the zombie. I attacked that same zombie 5 times in a row with Luke, and he missed ALL 5 TIMES. I don't know if its something about the game's formuals, but that's a bit ridiculous. Considering the fact that I later had Hans kill him with an arrow because I couldn't take it anymore.

Story: 17/20
It's an RPG, so it has to have a decent story. Well, it does, even if it is a bit cliche. But back in the day, this would have passed off as pretty good so I'll say it is. Ultimate Good vs. Ultimate Evil, it's been done to death nowadays. But I suppose in its time, it wasn't all that bad.

FINAL SCORE: 60 / 100

Meh, it's not that bad of a game, but it does get somewhat annoying after a while, whether it's interacting with people or searching for stuff, or battles turning against you for the most random reasons. But it's not all bad. If you play it and didn't think too highly of it, don't judge the entire series by it. At least play Shining Force II before you judge the series, because that game is much better in my opinion. They've fixed lots of stuff and it's no longer as annoying.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/12/07