Shining Tears

"One of Sega's greatest: Shining Tears"

Intro:

Shining tears is Sega's RPG in the PS2. It was released sometime in early 2005.

Review:

STORY
You are Xion, you lost your memory, and you are found by Eweyn, this elf, washed up on the shore of Shildia. Pios, a doctor helps you and finds this uncertain ring. So basically this ring makes you powerful, and soon, the new Empire of Rune Geist comes to destroy and take over Shildia. Along with Volg, the leader of the mercenary (guys who protect Shildia) and other members, Xion does the best to fight Rune Geist to save the small city of Shildia.

Score: [8]-It's not to original is it?

GAMEPLAY
Fun RPG-style (level up build stats and skills) with a twist. Instead of a usual turn-based system, you roam around the battle field as cute little 2-d characters and bash evil stuff. Skills are fun and so are the levels.
You can even get your friends to play as 2nd player in the missions as your partner.
The slight thing is that it's basically all you do.

Score: [9]-Though all you do is bash stuff, the 2player makes it more entertaining especially in hard missions.

GETTING AROUND
Now, you may not see this in most reviews, but I find it quite important.
Let's see... You can walk around, talk to people, go to different places in the town, and even go to other towns in Shildia.
Another slight bad thing is the fighting. Now, you can't just go to the woods and bash foxes or anything. You have to go into headquarters and ask Pios to deploy you in a certain battlefield.

Score: [8.5]-Well, you get it don't ya?

SOUND
Now this is the part this game fails in. ALmost all games these days are voiced and well, this one isn't. Just read the text in the little subtitles.
Other than that, the music is good to listen to and fits most of the scenes.

Score: [7.5]-No voices? Oh the horror of actually reading the text!

GRAPHICS
Graphics for these are well-detailed. The characters look anime and well, small, and all the background stuff looks great. The towns and people of Shildia don't look bad either.

Score: [9.5]-Great Artwork this game!

LIFESPAN
Well, it's the same thing over and over again, but can still be interesting. People who are real RPG fans will probably like this game.

Score: [8.5]

EXTRA STUFF
Other than the storyline, you can do a FEW bonus stuff. There are times that you actually chose the fate of your party and stuff.

Score: +0.5

OVR
This is basically a great game, but can't compare to others like FFX or Atelier Iris. Sega still has a long way to go before reaching the level or RPGs nowadays. Hopefully another RPG from Sega would prove better than this one. This one isn't horrible or anything..

Overall: [8.58= 9.0] An average rating Role-playing game that can entertain.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/05