Note wrote:Did you end up completing the game, Pidge?
I did! I finished Shining Force a couple days back! Only getting to posting about it here now ^^;
I'll have more detailed thoughts in my review (when I get around to it :b), but my biggest surprise was at just how rough it is (as I detailed in my last post). My opinion didn't really change much from that last post. The game's rougher elements get a bit easier to deal with as you get to chapter 6 and onward, as you just have a lot more tools to combat what you're up against, but those problems never stop being there (and they come back with a grudge to bear in the last couple levels, jfc).
It's certainly a remarkably well localized game for 1993, no question there, and in a Western gaming landscape where Fire Emblem wouldn't be around for another decade or so, it's a fair bit easier to see why Shining Force has such staying power in people's memories. The design issues also make a little more sense in the context of FE2 itself only coming out like a week before Shining Force 1 in 1992. While there are still some things (like the turn system) that are baffling in how poorly they're designed, other things like not being able to see enemy attack or move radii make more sense knowing just how relatively young the genre was compared to even 1994 when FE3 came out on the Super Famicom.
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I also started up Shining Wisdom yesterday, and, hot damn, I think I have a new contender for the worst game I've played this year
. Aside from all of the other design issues the game has, the "mash X/Y/Z to run" is the most baffling and awful design choice for a game that was released four years after Link to the Past was. Like, fellas, the book on how to make an action/adventure game like this was written years ago. What the hell is with this new obviously bad stuff? O_o
Looking up stuff about it on Wikipedia, it made a LOT of sense that it confirmed my hunch that this was a late-life Mega Drive game that was just pushed forward to be on Saturn instead. That's why it basically only uses three buttons, and basically doesn't use the shoulder buttons at all, even though it really should. It also felt good seeing other past reviewers calling out Working Designs for their arrogant horseshit even back in '96 when this came out in English. I can't stand those guys Xp
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me