Shining in the Darkness

"Despite the stereotype ridden storyline, this game is still enjoyable"

Beginning Stuff: When I first decided to play this game, I initially thought this game would be another strategy/RPG, like Shining Forces 1 and 2. Instead, I got a dungeon crawler which turned out to be a pretty enjoyable gaming experience, although it wasn't as involving as Arcana, another early 90's RPG.

Gameplay: If you're looking for expansive worlds where it takes you over 100 hours to take your airship around the gaming universe, Shining in the Darkness is not for you. In this game, you have one town, one castle, and one labyrinth, where you fight all of your battles. Visiting the castle will advance the storyline sometimes, but that's all. The town has your typical weapons, armor, and items stores, plus a shrine in case your party members kick the bucket (and they will sometimes). Oh yeah, and there's a Tavern which will add some spice to the story, albeit not much.

Equipment prices are reasonable, as you can generally purchase a new piece of equipment as long as you fight in the dungeon for a reasonable amount of time.

Lastly, and most importantly, there is the Labyrinth. Here is where you will be spending the majority of your time. Be warned, though. The amount of battles is STAGGERING. There were times when I got into three fights in only three steps! Oh well, you will need all those fights in order to build up early in the game, as you need to level up like mad to beat the first mini-boss.

As far as length is concerned, the Labyrinth is kind of small (9 30x30 levels), but you will have to exit the dungeon many times to check your maps and how far you can go in a dungeon without getting torn apart. This keeps the game at a consistently high challenge level, but it never gets as hard as the beginning.

Story: If this game were made this year, I would rate it a 2 or 3 based on the story alone. However, I understand that this game is nearly ten years old, and the overused storylines were..well, not so overused back then. Anyway, the storyline consists of this. His Majesty cries to you about his daughter, who was (big surprise approaching)....kidnapped by the super villain!! So of course, our hormone-charged hero runs off to save the Princess, and the kingdom. Fortunately, there is a HUGE event in the Labyrinth Proper which adds some salvage value to the story line, but otherwise, there isn't much to work with.

Sounds/Music: Well, I can't really say much about the sounds, as I never really paid too much attention to what little was there. The music, while there weren't a ton of tunes, was pretty catchy. In one particularly big fight, the music was stuck in my head for hours. Other than that, the regular fight music occupied my brain for a little while as well, and the other stuff was decent.

Replayability: This is one of those games you will replay once at the most. The only reason why one would replay it is because he/she missed some items in the dungeon, and wanted to get the stuff the second time around. That, coupled with the not-so-deep storyline, knocks the replay value down considerably.

''Well, should I buy or should I rent?'': Since this is an old Genesis game, you should be able to buy it cheap from a used videogame store. Or, if you're into the ROM thing, go ahead and download it. I promise not to tell! :-)

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/16/00, Updated 11/16/00