Shining Force CD
Sega CD
I’ve always loved Shining Force for the Sega Genesis, but for some reason or another I’ve never gotten around to playing any of its sequels. People always say Shining Force II is the best in the series, but I hear very few people ever talk about Shining Force CD. Is it because a lot of people didn’t have Sega CDs growing up? Maybe.
Now that I am emulating, I figured it would be a good time to check out Shining Force CD for myself. I came into the game knowing almost nothing about it. Was it a sequel to the original Shining Force? A remake? Something new altogether? Turns out it is actually a remaster of the two Game Gear Shining Force titles (which I didn’t even know existed) along with some extra content thrown in at the end.
How would it compare to the original Shining Force? Let’s find out.
Story:
Now let me be honest with you and tell you that I didn't remember ANYTHING about the story of the original Shining Force game coming into this. Can you blame me? I haven't played it in nearly seven years. Forgive me if I get some of these plot points wrong. What I can tell you is that Shining Force CD is broken up into four “books”, each one with its own different story.
Book one takes place 20 some years after the original Shining Force. Guardiana, home of the original game’s luxurious band of heroes, seems to be at odds with the nearby country of Cypress. Cypress representatives show up at the Guardiana castle, where Queen Anri is poisoned and drops into a deep sleep. Guardiana launches an offensive into Cypress territory, but after a month has passed they have not heard any word back from their troops. A new Shining Force is assembled and is sent into Cypress in order to find out what is going on with the troops and hopefully find a cure for Queen Anri.
A lot happens, but long story short – the new leader of the Shining Force (you can pick his name. I called him Dan. We’ll just refer to him as Dan from now on to make things less complicated) is the son of the former King of Cypress, who has been murdered by the evil Woldol – who has placed a puppet king onto the throne that he can easily control. Kind of like a Wormtongue/Theoden type situation, if you’re into The Lord of the Rings. Dan is able to use the Sword of Hajya, a super powerful sword that can only be wielded by Cypress royalty, to defeat Woldol and retake the kingdom. At the end of Book 1, Dan is preparing to take his seat upon the throne, Queen Anri is cured, and Cypress and Guardiana become allies once again. Yay!
Book two details Cypress and Guardiana’s battle with Iom, a nation of cult followers who worship the evil god Iom and want to bring him back to life. Taking control of a new Shining Force, you must infiltrate Iom, rescue Dan – who has been tabbed for human sacrifice to bring the evil god back – and squash the cult (and Iom himself) once and for all.
In Book three you take control of Dan again as he undergoes a series of trials to determine whether he is ready or not for his coronation as King of Cypress.
Book four is a one-battle chapter where Dan and company battle through a museum full of boss characters. At the end you find out it is only a dream brought on by Dan’s fear of the coronation ceremony.
The end.
I skipped over a lot of key details but hopefully you get the drift. Overall, I’d say the story of this game is… fine. It’s not terrible. They do put some thought into it. I like the overall direction they took with the story but at the same time I found myself not really caring about any of the characters. There are some fun moments, but if you are expecting something as deep as a Final Fantasy or Chrono game, you need to lower those expectations. If you come into this game with the expectation that it will have a fun storyline with somewhat uninspiring characters, you should be fine.
Now let me be honest with you and tell you that I didn't remember ANYTHING about the story of the original Shining Force game coming into this. Can you blame me? I haven't played it in nearly seven years. Forgive me if I get some of these plot points wrong. What I can tell you is that Shining Force CD is broken up into four “books”, each one with its own different story.
Book one takes place 20 some years after the original Shining Force. Guardiana, home of the original game’s luxurious band of heroes, seems to be at odds with the nearby country of Cypress. Cypress representatives show up at the Guardiana castle, where Queen Anri is poisoned and drops into a deep sleep. Guardiana launches an offensive into Cypress territory, but after a month has passed they have not heard any word back from their troops. A new Shining Force is assembled and is sent into Cypress in order to find out what is going on with the troops and hopefully find a cure for Queen Anri.
A lot happens, but long story short – the new leader of the Shining Force (you can pick his name. I called him Dan. We’ll just refer to him as Dan from now on to make things less complicated) is the son of the former King of Cypress, who has been murdered by the evil Woldol – who has placed a puppet king onto the throne that he can easily control. Kind of like a Wormtongue/Theoden type situation, if you’re into The Lord of the Rings. Dan is able to use the Sword of Hajya, a super powerful sword that can only be wielded by Cypress royalty, to defeat Woldol and retake the kingdom. At the end of Book 1, Dan is preparing to take his seat upon the throne, Queen Anri is cured, and Cypress and Guardiana become allies once again. Yay!
Book two details Cypress and Guardiana’s battle with Iom, a nation of cult followers who worship the evil god Iom and want to bring him back to life. Taking control of a new Shining Force, you must infiltrate Iom, rescue Dan – who has been tabbed for human sacrifice to bring the evil god back – and squash the cult (and Iom himself) once and for all.
In Book three you take control of Dan again as he undergoes a series of trials to determine whether he is ready or not for his coronation as King of Cypress.
Book four is a one-battle chapter where Dan and company battle through a museum full of boss characters. At the end you find out it is only a dream brought on by Dan’s fear of the coronation ceremony.
The end.
I skipped over a lot of key details but hopefully you get the drift. Overall, I’d say the story of this game is… fine. It’s not terrible. They do put some thought into it. I like the overall direction they took with the story but at the same time I found myself not really caring about any of the characters. There are some fun moments, but if you are expecting something as deep as a Final Fantasy or Chrono game, you need to lower those expectations. If you come into this game with the expectation that it will have a fun storyline with somewhat uninspiring characters, you should be fine.
Gameplay:
Playing this game definitely brought me back to why I loved Shining Force 1 so much. On the surface, not much seems to have changed. The graphics, music, and overall presentation of the game are very similar to that first title. Same can be said for the battle system and the level progression and all that fun stuff. Where Shining Force CD differs is that this game is all about the battles. Literally. It’s ALL about the battles. There’s no world map. You don’t get to walk around and talk to people. No villages, no NPCs. No exploration whatsoever. You watch some dialogue scenes, you jump into a battle, you watch some more dialogue scenes, you jump into a battle, so on and so forth. This is as linear a game as you can possibly get.
In between battles, you are occasionally given the option to visit your camp. Again, everything here is handled from a menu. Don’t expect to walk around your camp checking things out. Aside from when you are in battle, there is no walking in Shining Force CD! Equipping your characters, managing your items, raising your dead party members, buying and selling items – this is all handled through the game’s menu screens. This was a little off-putting to me at first but I got used to it as I played. Most people play Shining Force for the battles anyway, so I can understand why they'd cut out all the extraneous crap in between them.
Battle takes place using the familiar grid based system from the first game. You take turns with the computer moving your forces on the grid. Your goal is to wipe out the enemy forces while keeping your team leader alive. The key to victory in this game is positioning your characters to pick off the fringe enemies one at a time. You never want to just go rushing head first into battle. That’s a horrible strategy and will wind up with your party getting decimated more often than not. If your party leader dies, you lose – no matter how many of your other party members are still alive. Luckily, when you lose it doesn’t mean game over. You are transported back to your camp, where all the items and EXP you earned in battle are kept by your players. Take this time to heal, promote your characters, manage your inventory, and save your game. When you’re ready, leave the camp and head back into battle. Using the knowledge you gained from your last attempt, coupled with the experience levels you probably gained as well, you should be able to win the second time around. There are some tough battles in this game, though, so don’t be surprised if it takes you multiple attempts to beat some of them.
Playing this game definitely brought me back to why I loved Shining Force 1 so much. On the surface, not much seems to have changed. The graphics, music, and overall presentation of the game are very similar to that first title. Same can be said for the battle system and the level progression and all that fun stuff. Where Shining Force CD differs is that this game is all about the battles. Literally. It’s ALL about the battles. There’s no world map. You don’t get to walk around and talk to people. No villages, no NPCs. No exploration whatsoever. You watch some dialogue scenes, you jump into a battle, you watch some more dialogue scenes, you jump into a battle, so on and so forth. This is as linear a game as you can possibly get.
In between battles, you are occasionally given the option to visit your camp. Again, everything here is handled from a menu. Don’t expect to walk around your camp checking things out. Aside from when you are in battle, there is no walking in Shining Force CD! Equipping your characters, managing your items, raising your dead party members, buying and selling items – this is all handled through the game’s menu screens. This was a little off-putting to me at first but I got used to it as I played. Most people play Shining Force for the battles anyway, so I can understand why they'd cut out all the extraneous crap in between them.
Battle takes place using the familiar grid based system from the first game. You take turns with the computer moving your forces on the grid. Your goal is to wipe out the enemy forces while keeping your team leader alive. The key to victory in this game is positioning your characters to pick off the fringe enemies one at a time. You never want to just go rushing head first into battle. That’s a horrible strategy and will wind up with your party getting decimated more often than not. If your party leader dies, you lose – no matter how many of your other party members are still alive. Luckily, when you lose it doesn’t mean game over. You are transported back to your camp, where all the items and EXP you earned in battle are kept by your players. Take this time to heal, promote your characters, manage your inventory, and save your game. When you’re ready, leave the camp and head back into battle. Using the knowledge you gained from your last attempt, coupled with the experience levels you probably gained as well, you should be able to win the second time around. There are some tough battles in this game, though, so don’t be surprised if it takes you multiple attempts to beat some of them.
This is a long game, much longer than I ever could have expected. Granted, I wasn’t able to really dive into this game for hours at a time due to having a one-year-old, but it still took me surprisingly long to finish this. A few weeks at least. I do feel as if this game started to overstay its welcome after a while, but I’ll save that for my overall comments.
What didn’t I like about this game? This may seem like a silly complaint given that I didn’t have the same issue with the original Shining Force, but the pace. The pace is a giant problem for me. Some of these battles are really huge. When it is the enemy’s turn to move, it seems to take forever. You have to sit there and watch, twiddling your thumbs while they move their troops into position. When you do engage in combat with the enemy, the little cutscenes that ensue seem to take forever as well. There were times it felt like 90% of this game was me sitting there watching the screen, waiting for me to finally be able to do something. I say this is funny because this game’s battle system works literally the EXACT same way as it did in the original Shining Force. Why didn’t I complain then? Must be some kind of weird video game generational thing. Everything is fast fast fast, go go go these days. Whereas even just as little as seven years ago this wasn’t an issue.
Needless to say, I was using the speed up button on my keyboard quite often as I played this. So often, in fact, that it made my game crash quite regularly. D’oh! I learned to save my progress a LOT as I played through this game.
Graphics:
This game looks just like the original Shining Force. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. This game has some bright colors, some fun environments, and some cutesy little character animations. The battle sequences and special effects can be impressive from time to time. My main gripe is that given the advance in technology, something put out for the Sega CD should look better than something for the Sega Genesis. It doesn’t.
This game looks just like the original Shining Force. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. This game has some bright colors, some fun environments, and some cutesy little character animations. The battle sequences and special effects can be impressive from time to time. My main gripe is that given the advance in technology, something put out for the Sega CD should look better than something for the Sega Genesis. It doesn’t.
Sound:
This may be controversial, since I know a lot of people love this game’s soundtrack, but I wasn’t too impressed by it. The battle music when you attack an enemy isn’t as memorable as it was in the first Shining Force. This game does have some good musical tracks, sure, but expect to hear them repeated over and over and over again. Seriously, are there more than four or five songs in this game? I was getting SO sick of them by the time I completed this game. I wasn’t too huge a fan of this game to begin with, but the mundanity of the soundtrack was really starting to get to me after a while.
This may be controversial, since I know a lot of people love this game’s soundtrack, but I wasn’t too impressed by it. The battle music when you attack an enemy isn’t as memorable as it was in the first Shining Force. This game does have some good musical tracks, sure, but expect to hear them repeated over and over and over again. Seriously, are there more than four or five songs in this game? I was getting SO sick of them by the time I completed this game. I wasn’t too huge a fan of this game to begin with, but the mundanity of the soundtrack was really starting to get to me after a while.
Overall:
Considering how much I loved the original Shining Force, this game was a bit of a letdown. I like to see sequels build or expand upon their predecessors, and this game just didn’t do it for me. In fact, by taking away the ability to walk around on foot and explore villages I think this game took a major step back. All you’re doing is jumping from one battle to another, with the occasional story segment thrown in for good measure.
It’s all just very “eh” to me. I like the battle system, so I won’t complain too much. I’ll admit they can be a lot of fun. But god damn if they aren’t repetitive. And slow too. Hallelujah for the emulator speed up button. If I had been playing this on the Sega CD I might have died of old age before ever making it through this game. This game is really long too, and this only puts emphasis on how repetitive it is. I feel as if it definitely overstayed its welcome.
I know I’m being super harsh on this game. I did like it overall. I won’t say it sucks, or that this is a below average title. Shining Force CD does have a lot of redeeming qualities, particularly the story. I haven’t even mentioned my thoughts on Book four – the museum chapter of the game. This is a ridiculously hard battle, one that took me a bare minimum of 25 to 30 attempts to complete. It’s so freaking hard. But in a way, this was the most memorable part of the whole game for me. It really makes you think and strategize. Winning that battle after all those attempts felt like a massive accomplishment – not like a lot of the other battles where you can basically steamroll your way through them. It’s like the Dark Souls of Shining Force battles. I wish there had been more moments like this as I played!
Despite Shining Force CD's redeeming qualities, there is a lot that drags this game down. I don’t know. I don’t think I can give this anything more than the average score of a C. An average score for an average game. Fitting.
Considering how much I loved the original Shining Force, this game was a bit of a letdown. I like to see sequels build or expand upon their predecessors, and this game just didn’t do it for me. In fact, by taking away the ability to walk around on foot and explore villages I think this game took a major step back. All you’re doing is jumping from one battle to another, with the occasional story segment thrown in for good measure.
It’s all just very “eh” to me. I like the battle system, so I won’t complain too much. I’ll admit they can be a lot of fun. But god damn if they aren’t repetitive. And slow too. Hallelujah for the emulator speed up button. If I had been playing this on the Sega CD I might have died of old age before ever making it through this game. This game is really long too, and this only puts emphasis on how repetitive it is. I feel as if it definitely overstayed its welcome.
I know I’m being super harsh on this game. I did like it overall. I won’t say it sucks, or that this is a below average title. Shining Force CD does have a lot of redeeming qualities, particularly the story. I haven’t even mentioned my thoughts on Book four – the museum chapter of the game. This is a ridiculously hard battle, one that took me a bare minimum of 25 to 30 attempts to complete. It’s so freaking hard. But in a way, this was the most memorable part of the whole game for me. It really makes you think and strategize. Winning that battle after all those attempts felt like a massive accomplishment – not like a lot of the other battles where you can basically steamroll your way through them. It’s like the Dark Souls of Shining Force battles. I wish there had been more moments like this as I played!
Despite Shining Force CD's redeeming qualities, there is a lot that drags this game down. I don’t know. I don’t think I can give this anything more than the average score of a C. An average score for an average game. Fitting.
Final Score:
C
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