Having already experienced the wonders of Shining Force 3, the original Shining Force was always going to be a step down from what I’d already seen of the Shining Force series. But this game surprised me, it really did. It retains all the playability and excitement of Shining Force 3, the only things missing where the amazing graphics and the “friendship” system. The only other difference being that this seems a lot more difficult than what I am used to. For a start, it was perfectly possible to play through 90 percent of SF3 without a single character dying (for me it was anyway!)…In this, it seems you will always have at least one casualty in each battle. This made it a whole lot more exciting for me, and combines that with the greatest RPG battle system of all time and you’re in for a treat.

The thing about this battle system is that it’s near perfect. You have to use real strategies to come out on top, unlike certain other multi-million selling games where you simply choose an attack and watch your victorious triumph. Shining Force doesn’t let you do that, you have to manoeuvre your troops, making sure that the weaker characters are protected. Knowing that a single hit could deprive you of your finest magicians.

Gameplay

As I said before, the Gameplay here is the best in any RPG you can get. The battle system wipes the floor with anything else in terms of strategy and excitement. Basically you move one character at a time, it reminded me a bit of chess at first as the characters have boundaries as to where they can move. But it goes much deeper than that, with magical spells and double attacks. You have to make sure your troops have the latest weaponry, otherwise you will watch them fall around like bowling skittles. Wether your simply on a journy to the next town, or wether your clambering across a bridge to destroy a giant laser cannon. This game is full of large scale battles.
The storyline however was one of the most dissapointing factors for me. It does not go very deep, and it is definitly not in the same league as Shining Force 3. But, you would expect this from an old version of the game. But the fact is, good storyline or not. This still has the winning formula of all Shining games.

Graphics

The graphics aren’t really anything special. The battle scenes are occasionally eye opening but apart from that there isn’t anything that’ll have you reaching for the nappy drawer…not that I’d ever wet myself in the presence of marvellous visual flippery! But you get the picture. Good for the Megadrive/Genesis, and its what you would expect from an ageing system. It’s all very simple really, but its effective. No real complaints here.

Well, I was never a big fan of Megadrive music anyway. Shining Force is no different. It is fairly good though for Megadrive standards.

Lastability

UPPERS

• Huge addictive battles
• Make your characters stronger with each battle!
• Loads of characters to find and send into battle

DOWNERS

• Storyline doesent add to the replay value