"Oh the Shining Force, stuck in a forest..."

Strategy RPGs are easy to mess up. One too many characters it gets tedious, one too few and they're pointless. If the map's too big it's a slog to get from one end to the other. Too small, and you might as well not bother. It's a tricky line that has taken experienced and talented developers years to figure out how to walk on. Shining Force is one of the earliest SRPGs, so obviously it doesn't actually know how to walk the line, and is thus flawed.

I find it amusing to see people talk about the story of older games, if only because stories weren't a priority until somewhere in the middle of the 16-bit era, and until that point were the most basic premises possible, in order to string along events and levels and keep you playing. Shining Force has a big bad, a bunch of people charged with killing the big bad, a character who may or may not be evil, and that's it. Whatever, it's motivation. I want to kill the big bad's minions, so I can kill the big bad, and then I'll get the ending and it'll be cool. It lacks depth, so what, if it's fun that's pretty much irrelevant.

Is it fun? Well, yeah, though it could be more fun. Remember what I said about having too many characters on a map that's too big? Yep, that's a big problem here. There are a few characters faster who move a bit better than anyone else. They get all the experience, gain all the levels, and get even more faster than everyone else. So, you have five supermen and a bunch of useless people clogging up the team. The worst of these are the healers, who move pretty much no squares and can't really kill anything, so they'll get somewhere like 10 levels behind everyone else, and are never around when you need them. Better movement would save the class and make them sexy, but that's not there, so they're just annoying.

Speaking of classes, there's a class change system in the game. Past level 10, you can promote your guys and make them much better looking and more attractive to the ladies (or fellows, or horses, or foxes, or birds, depends on the character), along with better able to equip super cool weapons. Why? I mean, you don't have any choice in the classes, so the change amounts to turning guy into better looking guy. Also, doing so too early will make the entire thing collapse in on itself, as characters become unexpectedly weak. It's all very silly, just upgrade their looks automatically at a certain level, we can all accept that.

The worst thing though is the maps. Some maps are good clean fun. Others are filled with bottlenecks, which are not fun because you'll have one character doing all the attacking while everyone waits so they can get up the freaking staircase. That's poor design. The worst is the outdoor levels on primarily forest and mountain maps. See, apart from the werewolf, some mostly useless flying guys and a couple other characters, your dudes don't move very quickly through the forest. This is annoying, because you're going to have to go from one end of this map to the other, taking baby steps with even the guys who can move, because if you send them out well ahead they will get murdered to death. That's a pain, not fun, and frequently I'd have a battle going well and I'd shut it off just because, good lord, I can't take this freaking map anymore, it's so boooooring.

The visuals are unattractive, but it's a Genesis game made on a shoestring budget so nobody with half a brain cares. Well, I suppose it's not completely unattractive, as the portraits are alright and the battle screens are borderline pretty - if strangely animated, especially after the class change. Why is my axe wielding warrior pirouetting like a ballerina? Point is, the graphics are like a cop that doesn't play by the rules, they get the job done. The music is awful but I turned it down and played Rachmaninoff because I'm cool like that, so it really doesn't detract from the experience. You might wonder about the biology of centaurs, as horses tend to poop a lot, and even if they poop at the rate of a regular human they would be unable to use a standard toilet, which would likely lead to great difficulty just getting the deed done. I'd like to imagine the world of Shining Force always smells lightly of horse poo.

In spite of being really old and not aging gracefully like a fine wine, Shining Force is mostly compelling. Even with its flaws and its nearly nonexistent story I find myself drawn to it every day after work, and really that's a credit to the game. Sure, others have figured out how to fix Shining Force's mistakes and made a game where you don't spend 8 turns just getting to the other side of the forest, but hey, if a game filled with blatant flaws can be entertaining in spite of them, that's probably a good thing. I'll never play it again, but it's worth going through once, just to see how far we've come, and to see that everything being technically perfect is really pretty much irrelevant.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/23/10

Game Release: Shining Force (US, 03/19/92)