I’ve played every type of game under the sun; shooters, turn-based tank games and even a game where Leonard Nimoy teaches you how to raise frog people. I remember little bits about each game (like that the Nimoy game is called Seaman ) , but they usually disappear from memory soon after I put down the controller.
There have been a few games from my childhood that have stuck though, like the original Pokemon Red and Spyro, to name a couple. While other kids played outside with their “bicycles” and “active parents,” I was glued to the one television in the house. There was no heat in that room, so I’ve gotten really good at playing with a controller and gloves.
My favorite game of all time has to be Shining Force , a JRPG adventure unlike any other. It was first released in 1992 on the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive console. You take the role of a noble knight who gathers a group of ragtag mages, centaurs and dragons to fight an evil overlord destroying the kingdom of Runefaust. I remember my mom buying me a collection of Sega games for the PC that collected old games from the Sega library. There were a bunch of Sonics, a side scroller where you played in a comic book and a game where you were a green blob who shot tinier blobs. The 90s’ really were a radical time.
None of these games got more than a play through, though Sonic and Knuckles is still fun as hell. Shining Force was the only game to really capture my imagination. I was Bobly, a knight sworn to gather a group called the Shining Force to defeat Darksol before he can resurrect the Dark Dragon and send Runefaust into chaos.
The story feels like it came straight out of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with beautiful 8-bit graphics straight out of a Japanese man’s fever dream. I had never seen a game like it before, and I ate all of it up. I’ve beaten Shining Force four times, two on PC and two when they re released it on the Game Boy Advance.
The gameplay is just as enthralling as the story. You take ten of your Shining Force members and engage in turn-based combat against evil dwarves, mages and puppets. Each fight requires strategical know-how, there’s no bull shitting these. If an enemy is weaker to magic than weapons, it might be smarter to stick your mages closer to the front of your battle line. If there are enemies on a hill, send your flying birdmen to dispose of them before they get to you.
The characters in the game have so much depth and story. Each of the members of Shining Force has a full backstory, like Bioware games but you can’t have sex. There’s Lowe, the bumbling healer, Mae, a centaur trying to avenge the death of her father and so many more. Zylo was my favorite, a werewolf confined to a tower until your mission gives him a purpose to live. In the original there are 30 playable characters, with three others added in the GBA version.
Shining Force does have its faults. The combat can get stale; fights can sometimes last for hours while you wait for your healers to catch up to your centaurs. The sequels are kind of bland, with Shining Force 2 being the best of the bunch, keeping the sprites and battle system. The music gets extremely repetitive, there’s one song for fights, one for the battlefield, and one for the town. They are really catchy tunes though, I still find myself humming it from time to time.
Even looking past those flaws it’s a great game. If you like games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Age , you should definitely check it out. Just whatever you do, don’t equip Jogurt’s ring. You will turn into a useless hamster who deals one damage a turn.
Shining Force is available on Steam.
