Graphics:
The icons are great.
The battle animations are sweet.
It's the field where the graphics are very poor.
Though, they're more colorful than the 8-bit era, the designs just aren't as classic as everything else. It's sorta like comparing the icons of FFIV with the menu icons of Yoshitaka Amano.
B
Soundtrack:
Really good.
Most of the music sounds the same a la a John Williams score, but if you don't have a problem with that, the soundtrack is really awesome. A real highlight of Shining Force fans.
A-
Story:
It's a sequel to Shining Force Gaiden, which in itself is a sequel to Shining Force II I believe. That was really cool for its time, albeit the Game Gear translator completely got rid of all that storytelling.
So you don't really get to care who Nick, Sarah, Randolf, Claude, Ruge, Waldol are compared to the last game. Not a method I would've chosen SEGA, although I really did enjoy the game.
The character split in the game was really cool. RPGs don't really do that enough now. (I guess Final Fantasy XIII did that, but for most you that's probably a brr!)
It has a couple twists and turns. Standard Shining Force stuff. There's a I'm currently still analyzing bits of Shining Force, but it isn't the most crazy I've ever seen.
C+
Characters:
It's really mainly about the game design as characters basically are based around what they do on the battlefield. It's cool how they kept them all so different.
Game Design:
Every new monster in each level is basically a step up the Iom hierarchy for the heroes.
SPOILERS:
I don't know if anyone's ever had issues with a deleveled party, when the team gets split up, a la Final Fantasy III/VI, but that can be an issue. Luckily how the game works you get a bunch of replays.
Unlike Final Fantasy Tactics, there's not a lot of customizability with the characters.
However, when the party gets an overabundance of characters, there is some customability there, albeit some characters just become way underpowered after a while.
I like how they got rid of the dungeon crawling. That really slowed down the game for me in Shining Force 2, not to mention that the items they give you were too abundant in that game, causing me to get confused how to manage all the weapons, since you got weapons in like every chest.
Sword of Hajya made that really simple, albeit the customability of how you play got affected by that.
I may be biased though in that I played this game first.
In the later stages though
Making Freeze 3 the super powerful spell really added a bit more difficulty to the game in the American version.
It's still a really easy game though, as youtube fans enjoy compared with Fire Emblem.
B
Difficulty: Easy
It's not really a hard game.
If you're really terrible, just replay the level all over again till you get it right.
That is if you're not terrible in that you only get Deanna killed and don't pay all your money to revive characters.
If you're really horrible, stock up on cash early, as later stages will obviously be harder.
It's really weird
Hardware:
The problem with the Game Gear game is that it deletes your game after so many plays.
It's really bad.
F
Overall:
Like the wikipedia article said, this game was great for killing time in long car rides. A lot of stuff with this game just really doesn't stand out outside of my nostalgia value. However, really cool for RPG enthusiasts.
Not to mention, as expensive as it is, the Shining CD version is just way superior.
C-
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