Racketboy

The latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has revealed that Sega is working on yet another Shining title. Although the series has spawned a long line of titles, recent games in the series have been widely considered to be huge letdowns, as both Shining Tears and Shining Force Neo receiving below-average scores from the press — not to mention straying from what Shining fans actually want.

Sega is attempting to regain the trust of fans of the classic games with their latest Shining title, Shining Wind. According to Famitsu, the game will feature character designs by Tony and production by Tsuyoshi Sawada, both being previously involved in Shining Tears.

The game is also expected to offer a strong RPG experience over its predessors — going back to the roots of the earlier Genesis games. While the game will still maintain the action elements found in Shining Tears, the game will now alter its shift slightly to focus on RPG focus and game progression method.

From both the first images and the base of the production team, it seems like a Shining Tears sequel, so basically, they may be giving fans yet another installment they don’t want. How can it be so hard for them to create either a sequel to Holy Ark or Darkness or a real SRPG like Shining Force 3? I’m sure there is more of a demand for one of those than Shining Tears or any of the recent installments.

Personally, I’m not even much for Action RPGs, but even if I was I would still like them to make a good tactical RPG like the original Shining Force games. Even if it was not a direct sequel to a past installment, a Shining game with the visual quality of Shining Tears and a strong dose of strategy would far exceed the success of games like the Disgaea series

It looks like it will have some good eye candy and quality character designs up its sleeve like Shining Tears, but that alone will not make it sell. I’m sure that most people still consider the Shining series to be a strategy series. It is surprising when you consider that we had half a dozen games which are not strategy based.

As I have said before, the greatness of Shining Force games comes from their gameplay- not so much from the stories. With Shining Force, I think that if any developer faithfully exports the gameplay and does not butcher it, they will make a very good game regardless of whether it tallies nicely with the story. Gameplay is exportable, and thus can be done well by others.

Lots of Screenshots at The Magic Box

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Sega, PS2, RPG