Shining in the Darkness

"Play Shining Force II instead."

Me?I'm not what you would call a huge fan of the Genisis system.Its not a bad system,no.It's just that I never owned one when I was a kid.I went right from NES to SNES to PSX and just seemed to have skipped that part,except for a small period there when I barrowed one for a bit.None the less,I never experienced any Shining Force game until recently.I started with SFII and then played the origional SF game.Both are great for a RPG/Strategy fan like myself.I could go on like this,but this isn't a review for either of those great games.I then sought to play THE origional,Shining in the Darkness.

The Experience

I managed to get the game.Great.It works!Better.Let's see,title screen,obligatory person in the begining talking to you,yes,look's good..The game itself is presented quite nicely.Graphics are good,it's colorful and has a quirky personality about it.It's animated pretty well for it's time.Hmmn..okay,putting my name in now..aaand..wait..What's this?It's in first person?Okay,okay,maybe it's just for the storyline type parts.Talking,talking..yeah,hmm..a pretty cliche story going on here.I'm not all that excited or pleased with the begining of this game..at least i'll get to get out of this annoying first person and..wait..I'm not..I have to wander town like this,too?Aw.Well,I suppose it's not that bad.Kind of hard to turn,and it's pretty slow to move but I can get used to it.I see it has the icon based system going on for it.That's good.Simple,and easy to use.Again,the characters are done nicely.The shop owners and partons of the bar all have thier own personality.Hmm...more store..yada yada yadda..and then we go off to the map screen.Hey,wait..only three areas?Ugh.Not too creative.And..oh my god..dungeon crawling in first person?Not good.Oh,wait..it's not a dungeon..it's a MAZE! Argh,I hate this.It's entirely too easy,and unless you have a FAQ by your side or are drawing a map,your going to get lost quick.All the textures are repeditive and bland too.This is a change of pace from the town entirely.I can't wait to get out of here..ergh..I can't find the exit! ::Gasp:: ::Pant:: Too many random encounters makes for a frustrating experience,and I don't even have any other party members to control.This is RPG at it's most basic form,and I'm thankful we got away from that..I'm shutting this off right now..

The Verdict

Please,please don't judge the SF series based on this game.Go grab SF or SFII,and be much,much more satisfied.I think you could find this game for free,if you really needed to have it,so go nuts..

Reviewers Score: 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/17/01, Updated 12/17/01