Shining Tears

"Shining tears of Nostalgia is always good"

Shining Tears

Shining Tears is like your modern day Action/RPG. Played out on a lush 2D painted background that seems to be very anime style and very clean. Included is a mode to play Co. Op with a friend, allowing two people to play out each battle in a fashion similar to Secret of mana.If you are looking for a Secret of mana action game but enjoy the complexity of leveling up as you would in a complex RPG such as Baldurs gate or Final Fantasy then you may check this title out. As part of the Shining Series, this game is a stand alone title that holds on resemblance to the name of the shining series.

Story: 7/10
You play as main character Xion, whom like most beginings has a mysterious past that he is not aware of yet is taken in by good souled people inturning allowing him to follow the path to Good instead of Evil. Its very generic for typical RPGS, but depending on your outlook on Typical RPGs, it may be a great thing. There is no voice acting besides the times you enter shops so all dialouge is text based just like back in the old days of Final Fantasy VII. The scripting for the dialouge is very convincing and the translation was dead on. You never sit and wonder what they were trying to say and each charecter has a sufficent role in the story. Very good but nothing that you could brag about.

Gameplay:9.5/10
This is where the game stands out, first let me get the most annoying aspect of the game out of the way. You general control one charecter. Throughou the game you will find others to accompany you in your battle against the enemy. When you are not fighitng you are in One city. In this city you buy items, apply points to skills, talk to townsfolk ect..., then when its time to battle you head to another room where you select the battle you would like to engage in. When you engage in battle you can bring along one partner. THIS IS WHEN THE GAME GETS FRUSTRATING....Some may hate the game for this some may be able to pass it by, but the NPC AI is horrible. Its basicly non- existant as the Partner you choose will rarely use logic when fighting. They tend to sit around, run into enemys and die, cast the same magic that may suck and not realize it sucks. This is countered with the abilty to play 2 players but those that dont have a partener in Reality are stuck with this crap.

Now that thats out of the way let me get two the two best parts Leveling up and battle. In battle you push one putting to strike, and rapidly pushing that button creates Combos. When dealing damage you see numbers of how much damage was dealt instead of being like Zelda where you cant see any or none exist. You have your options of changing items, to use, Single skills to use and link skills. Link skills allow you and the partner to use special abilitys that require two people to activate, like a 2 player combo.

Everytime you kill you gain exp. as exp accumulates you gain a level and earn skill points. This is the best thing about this game witch is your ability to level up each stat from Str, Int Wis ect.... how you feel and when you change those stats the permanant stats go up respective to your stat increase such as HP, SP and attack damage. When equiping items you need to have min requirements to equip items, giving great complexity and RPG stat building we all enjoy. This is the redeeming factor of the game. Great concept.

Graphic: 8.5/10
Graphic are amazing, but this is depending on how you view your games. I give it an 8.5 becasue in this modern day of gaming, graphic that are this outdated tend to push many away rather then attract. When charecters engage in dialogue there accompaning portrait pops up aside the spoken dialouge. The portraits are rendered in Classic anime style with the subtle but very nice facial expressions during emotional moments. The backgrounds are all static and created with tradtional 2D anime artwork. It doesent look awkward but many people will be clamoring for more Upgraded graphics. The User interface is also very intutitve, just like I remember my oldschool RPGs.

Sound: 7/10
Music- The music is a love hate relationship, I love the music as it has the most basic RPG town, battle, death type music you expect from an RPG. This is good because like other things it brings me back to when I first played RPGs the bad thing is it gets very tedius as there seems to be only a few tracks and since you are in the same city throughout the game you hear the same city music.

Sound effects- Also generic, obviously when the enemy hits yiou you here a UHHH and you hit them theres a ahhhh with the accompnaying "PSSHHING" for hitting with your blade. Thats about it, nothing that you havent seen and something I would have like to seen better, such as ambient sound or new sounds for when attacking different enemys. Why does the sword fo "PSHHING" when hitting a gel creature?

Overall: 7.5/10
Very good game, I enjoy it greatly but there are too many flaws to warrent the hardcore Franchise gamer, or the lazy or stubborn gamer. If you are looking for a Good Solid action game resmembling Secret of mana but more complex check it out. I hear its suppose to be a demo on a magazione soon.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/05