Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon

A classic Sega Genesis strategy/RPG gets the GBA treatment. Is the Force as strong as it used to be?

If you love Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and can?t get enough of Fire Emblem, then by all means, check out Shining Force. It?s (mostly) an exact replica of the Sega Genesis cult hit, an extraordinary game that introduced the concept of strategy/RPGs to a large portion of the U.S. console audience. But time passes, things evolve, and that which was once great and glorious doesn?t always shine quite as bright in the present tense.

Its biggest strengths are the setting, a delightfully half-serious anime fantasy world, and some of the most memorable, weirdest characters (jellyfish, armadillos, crash-test moles) you?ll ever amass for an army. There are even a few new ones who appear in brand new ?epilogue? missions before joining your team proper, including a shamanistic princess, a ninja bug, and a strange zombie who wields cards (it?s cooler than you think).

The game does show its age: There?s no giant world to explore (later fixed in the superior Shining Force II), the characters are unbalanced, and leveling up too often involves replaying the same maps over and over again. The strategy and classes have nowhere near the complexity of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and the graphics have been trumped by games like Golden Sun?which, by the way, was built firmly on this game?s foundation, right down to the golden yes/no heads. But Shining Force is still a damn fine game of fantasy chess, even if it?s since been surpassed by its successors.

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