JRPG Journey 2023: Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention (May)
April’s game: Final Fantasy XV
June’s game: Phantasy Star II
What a fun surprise Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention gave me. I didn’t know what type of RPG it is until I got into its sister game Shining in the Darkness recently and wanted to continue with the series. Turns out, Shining Force switches up genres to a tactical PRG in the vein of Fire Emblem. It’s kind of like “Fire Emblem lite” in fact. There’s less depth to the combat in that not nearly as many stats are revealed to the player, so you’re not constantly doing damage calcs; you’re more going by feel. To accommodate this looser, more casual play style, there’s no permadeath; instead you’re encouraged to use riskier strategies since the only unit you must keep alive is the hero character, Max. The rest? Let ’em die if means you’ll finish a map quicker. It’s a nice change of pace from Fire Emblem.
By the way, I compare to FE because Shining Force came out only 2 years later and was itself one of—if not the—earliest TRPGs released in the US. Of course, Genesis players at the time likely wouldn’t have known about Fire Emblem, at the time a Japan-only series, so for them Shining Force may be the classic original TRPG to compare to. I’ve played the first Fire Emblem already though, and a lot of its DNA runs in the veins of Shining Force, despite what the game’s lead developer has claimed. Shining Force does set itself apart, however, by upping the pace of battles with a system where units move in order according to their speed (and a little RNG) instead of each player moving their whole army at once. It’s unit turn-based rather than player turn-based, in other words, a big enough difference to qualify each as TRPG sub-genres.
To make up for its relative simplicity, Shining Force leans heavily on randomness in most aspects of combat. There’s no double-attacks based on speed; instead, each unit has a small chance to crit, double attack, or counter enemy attacks. That’s right, no auto-counter here, but the RNG-based level ups are straight from Fire Emblem. Similar to those games, in Shining Force you’ll want to stick to one core party for most of the game. I was happy to use online guides to make sure I didn’t miss any recruitments, and whenever I got a new character I liked, I’d see if they were generally considered worthwhile before making them a permanent member of my force. I’d love to have the time to take multiple playthroughs figuring this stuff out on my own, but for a single campaign, this is the way the go. The units manage a kind of charm and likability due to the gorgeous sprite art, though most of the late-game newcomers don’t get much characterization. Most units are able to promote, however, and the threshold is both low and free. Mae reaches level 10? Congrats, you can give her access to stronger classes of weapons and much better stat increases on level-ups, all at the cost of half her stats. That sounds bad, but units quickly make up for it, and I didn’t see much of a reason to wait to promote beyond level 15 or so.
Battles feel simultaneously faster paced and overall slower than in Fire Emblem. Most maps are huge, requiring several turns for your units to even reach the enemy, and the opponent’s AI seems braindead more often than not. Enemies always attack your hero character when they can and otherwise like to go for either your tankiest unit or a particularly vulnerable unit, with no variation or strategy beyond that. If enemies can’t do one of those things, they tend to run away, which makes it annoying to clear maps—that’s usually your goal. Some stages only require killing one certain enemy, but it’s not always clear when that’s the case. Ah well, I like killing everything anyway for extra XP, and in fact Shining Force seems designed around this. Your hero can use his escape spell Egress to travel back to town at any point during battle. It’s his only spell, so this is always an option, and it effectively works as a way to redo fights without losing XP. That’s a clever way to allow grinding in a fun way that contributes to progress, since you can figure out some tactics for a new map on the first go. I’d be willing to bet the devs of Triangle Strategy are Shining Force fans; it’s got something similar. Not that you’ll need to grind, though, at least not much. Focus on making your best units stronger, promote early since this ain’t a long game, and you’ll do just fine.
What Shining Force lacks in deep gameplay, it makes up for in worldbuilding, which makes Fire Emblem 1 look like a joke in comparison. You can explore each new town you reach, in traditional RPG style, and while there’s not too much to see and do, it’s just enough to give Shining Force the fat around its strategic gameplay meat needed to feel like a complete experience, especially on the Genesis. In fact, journeys between towns plays out in real time—there’s no map screen—often with a battle along the way, an innovative feature I experienced for the first time in a TRPG. (Disclaimer: I haven’t played very many. Is this how Final Fantasy Tactics works?)
The story may not deserve particular praise, but it’s adequate medieval fantasy (with a notable sci-fi twist at the end) and is more impressive simply for existing, to keep the easy battles from getting monotonous. Sure, there’s plenty of tough enemies, but overall if you’ve got a plan, you’ll have no problem getting through Shining Force. You play as that titular Shining Force, a scrappy group of recruits on a quest to stop the big bad from awakening the Dark Dragon, all with the help of a legendary blade. That sounds … awfully familiar (the first Fire Emblem game’s Japanese title is literally translated Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light), but we’ll let it slide. Shining Force ups the amount of anthropomorphic races, featuring a wolf, fox, hawks, even a strange jellyfish named Domingo (who’s an absolute tank, by the way) and the comic relief little beaver dude, Jogurt. The game’s going for that same sort of cozy, Saturday morning cartoon vibe Shining in the Darkness achieved, which is all it takes to differentiate this franchise from others. The soundtrack easily surpasses Shining in the Darknesses’s, bringing plenty of earworms from Masahiko Yoshimura. Overall I’d call the OST just OK, though—it’s got plenty of that unique Genesis warmth, but tracks fall on the short, simple, and repetitive side, leaning almost too much on their basic melodies.
Camelot (and Climax Entertainment) left an impact on the TRPG genre with their first try in Shining Force, an impressive feat. I’ve heard nothing but great things about its sequel, so I’m eager to check out how Shining Force II improves on the systems SF1 lays down. Until then, thanks for reading and look forward to next month’s review of Phantasy Star II.
