Shining Force EXA
 

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Just got an IM from my brother who reads RPGamer quite frequently. He tossed these my way and commented on a new Shining Force. My heart skipped a beat to be honest, but it has the same wrong, wrong feel and look (and gameplay I'd think) of Shining Force NEO.

This series without Camelot behind it is worthless. I hope I'm not misinterpretting the pictures but it looks like an Action-RPG as opposed to Tactical-RPG. Ugh. The genre is being dragged throught he mud like Sonic, only not as extreme... Yet =( Any news on this possibly being like the original series? Or is it how it looks? I don't know much else other than these images...

"While retaining Shining Force Neo's action-oriented battle system, Sega is implementing new systems as well. The game's two main characters are a sword-wielding young man named Touma and the white-haired female lead Cyril."

*Sigh*

Thanks, Sega... -_-

Editing links in first post due to hotlinking stuff. I was lazy :O No mas.

I like this. Shining Force NEO was like the polar opposite of Shining Tears-- enjoyable and varied combat, but absolutely disgusting visuals, music, and localization. I still ended up enjoying it, but it felt like a total joke.

But this looks somewhat promising even if we still know practically nothing about it. Hopefully it continues to look good.

Some people like me are still praying for a Shining Force 4...why SEGA keeps doing this insteed of a decent SRPG. WHY? WHY?

I wish Camelot would start it's own Tactical RPG series and make it similar to SF but call it something different. That would be the true return of Shining Force.

I hated Shining Force Neo, it's just like a Japanese version of Diablo... not only that, the dungeons are HUGE, and if you avoid fights, you can't get force stones, but if you choose to fight, it's always a swarm of enemies, it just feels like the battle drags on and on and on, one area after another... I spent a good 5 hours just to get from Greensleeves to that snowfield...

I only got a PS2 recently, so I haven't had the (dis)pleasure of playing the newer Shining games. Those pictures just don't feel right though. The Shining Force series should have stayed an SRPG series :(

Give us a PSP or even PS2 translated port of SF3 (all three scenarios translated and localized) please.

They could make a goddamn killing if they'd just release SF 3, finally. I have the first movement, but I want the other two. Also, we got SF I on the advance, where's my port of the superior II? The whole thing is vaguely upsetting. I'd forego my rage on all these fronts if they'd just make a new tactics style SF, though. Instead of all this garbage they've been spewing out.

The port of SF1 on the GBA was horrible =( Lots of characters kept the same pictures even once promoted (Bleu. WTF). Plus, their original builds didn't come out. Bleu was a pussy who could take a lot of hits. Guntz was decent at best. It frustrated me to no end ;_; Plus the redone story rubbed me wrong. And the graphics for characters looked... Odd. I'm picky on my ports, sorry...

I bet the same guy behind making these Sonic games as of late must be part-timing with SF series :( I mean really. I'm beginning to NOT want Sega to try a Shenmue III. Not at this rate.

I didn't say it was a -good- port, I said we GOT a port. And I want one for SF II. My genesis is fine, but I want a portable SF II to go with my eventual portable FF VI.

Ohh =o Sorry. Thought you were a big fan of it from how you welcomed a SF2 port.

When I saw them porting SF1 to the GBA, I figured it'd definitely churn up popularity for SF series again. Unfortunately, it really wasn't that good... I can see SF hitting nice popularity on handhelds. I got a kick out of toting around Sword of Hayja on the Game Gear way-back-when.

Strangely enough, the higher-ups at Sega can't seem to understand that Shining Force is an SRPG. "We're going for a new gameplay mode" didn't work out for NEO. It won't work out here. It's pretty bad they're calling these abominations "Shining Force," but at least they aren't tagging it as Shining Force 4 or anything like that...

I really wish they'd quit using the damn name if they're not actually going to release a real Shining Force game. The part that makes me weep blood is that they're probably moving a fair number of boxes with this queer generic action system.

What is it with Sega's constant "fuck you"s to all their fans? Fuck you Sonic fans, here's a teen emo game with bad controls and lots of guns and violence. Fuck you Phantasy Star fans, no games in years save some wierd MMO-type affair. Fuck you Shining Force fans, here's a real-time action RPG that bears no resemblence to the games you know and love.

I wish video games weren't mainstream anymore. ;_;

Finally someone who shares my view on Phantasy Star... ;_;

The story of Algo is over. The development team for Phantasy Star IV specifically said that they were going to move on to other things if they made a Phantasy Star V back in 1994. People keep clamoring for a continuation of a storyline that was concluded 12 years ago, and it's pretty tired.

Shining Force on the other hand, was never concluded. In fact, Shining Force III left fans with a gigantic cliffhanger at the end of scenario 3. Takahashi's storyline will never be concluded since those jerkoffs at Neverland run the show for Shining games now instead of Camelot.

It's not that we want a direct sequel to PSIV. The story is over, true, and that's fine.

What we want, though, is a Phantasy Star title that actually FEELS LIKE PHANTASY STAR. A few misspellings of classic technique names, obscure allusions to the series, and a visual style that stretches to even marginally resemble the Phantasy Star of old do not a good sequel make. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing PSO for what it was, but it's wrong to call it a Phantasy Star game.

Phantasy Star has always been about the fusion of technology and medieval lore, even in PS2 when the sci-fi was at its strongest. PSO doesn't capture that feel in the least. It's always boasted intriguing plot twists and engaging character development. PSO gives us cookie-cutter archetypal characters and plot holes so big you could drive a Land Rover through them.

If the Algo/Protectors/Espers/Dark Force story is done, then that's fine. It saw an awesome conclusion. But please, let's have an actual Phantasy Star game and not this...whatever the hell PSO was supposed to be.

Phantasy Star Universe --MIGHT-- fix this, and I'll find out when I get it (have in on preorder, a phaithphul phanatic to the phinish), but to say I'm skeptical would be putting it mildly. It's supposed to be plot-driven, but it still has "PSO" written all over it from the clips and screenshots I've seen.

As for Shining Force and Sonic, I feel the same way. The turn to "EXTREEEEEEEEME ATTI2DE!!!11!1!1!!1one!!!111!shift!11!" is a horrible thing to do to Sonic, and making Shining Force into a real-time action-RPG is just betraying everything the game was. I'm not as fond of Sonic or SF as I am of Phantasy Star, but the best part about Shining Force was that it was a slow-moving, well-written strategy RPG that was actually strategic.

As far as Sonic is concerned, I can see why they took the 3d route, and if that's what they feel they have to do to preserve the "mad crazy speed" feel of the old games, fine. The controls weren't all that terrible; I've played worse. I just wish they wouldn't cram those god-awful excuses for plotlines amidst the actual snippets of gameplay.

Snip time!

I always laugh when I hear this one. For the record, the classic Phantasy Star games couldn't even be consistent with itself with the localizations. Tsu was lightning in Phantasy Star II, water in Phantasy Star III, and a beam of light in Phantasy Star IV. Also, Phantasy Star Online is the most accurate of all the Phantasy Star games with its technique translations. For starters, Chaz's light technique in Phantasy Star IV is supposed to be Grants, not Tsu. Wat? That's supposed to be Barta. The list goes on. Sega of America took it upon themselves to change stuff around in the older games. Go look up the Phantasy Star Compendium if you don't believe me.

Yeah, for the sake of nostalgia. It's kind of like seeing Cid in every Final Fantasy game.

Yeah because, the visual style of Phantasy Star has been ever-so-consistent. Phantasy Star II and IV are the only two that share a vaguely similar style at all. Phantasy Star I and III do not resemble each other or the previous two.

Except for the part where it says "Phantasy Star Online" in the title, and Sega dictates what Phantasy Star is.

Phantasy Star has always been about the conflict between good and evil, with the ultimate villain always being a tangible form of said evil that was to be crushed by the esteemed heroes, with numerous distractions in between. You're just being silly anyways... what medieval lore was there in Phantasy Star II?

Only Phantasy Star IV had some form of character development. There was barely any dialogue in the first three games.

I'll talk more about PSO's issues shortly... you're correct on the above statement, but there's a reason for it.

The problem with Phantasy Star Online is that it was rushed to release. Sonic Team needed more time to finish the game, but they couldn't... Sega was going to announce the end of the Dreamcast in mere months, and Sonic Team had to wrap things up and ship the game. It was clear that the game was incomplete... there was a severe lack of class balance on the original release of the game, a large assortment of bugs, a large number of fully functional items in the database that were never programmed to drop (but people hacked out anyways), and numerous other issues. It doesn't stop with just the gameplay... the story elements were never finished either. The original intent was to tie the game into the original series, which is very evident when you see the Phantasy Star Online artbook that features a picture of the Phantasy Star III styled Wren character. Numerous other NPCs had names and a purpose, and there were missions that were clearly trying to start off some kind of plotline but never went any further. The later episodes of Phantasy Star Online involved a lot of after-the-fact writing, probably because work on Phantasy Star Universe had begun.

Long story short, the game has its faults because it was a rushed release, but it is just as much a Phantasy Star game as the rest. It's particularly ridiculous to hear people chant that it's "not a Phantasy Star game" because I heard this same nonsense before PSO's release, just with Phantasy Star III in its place. Nevermind Phantasy Star Adventure, Gaiden, and the various "Adventure games"... there's more "fake" Phantasy Star games than there are "real" ones.

I'm not skeptical in the least. The difference between this game and Phantasy Star Online is simple... this game is not being rushed to release. While it may share similar core gameplay mechanics, the whole package is impressive. PC users need 9 gigs of free space to play the game. I'm going to go ahead and pretend there's a crapload of movies, speech, and game content jam-packed in there. They hired two orchestras for a fair bit of the game's music. They've delayed the game for over a year just to tweak things and make sure everything's right.

I dunno... I can't be all that skeptical about the game.

Edit: An addendum... the reason why I'm so open to the new Phantasy Star game but resentful of the new Shining games is simple... Phantasy Star Universe has been in development for four years. Sonic Team is honestly trying here. On the other hand, you have the new Shining games that are pretty much the "Tales of" series for Sega... they're practically coming off an assembly line now. I can't get excited over them at all.

Looking at it optimistically; isn't there the chance Camelot might get over their lovers tiff and make amends with Sega? Maybe Sega are keeping the title "Shining Force 4" aside for this eventuality. I can hope.

It's not just what we were left with at the end of Shining Force 3 either; Shining the Holy Ark had some loose ends too - some were brushed upon in SF3 in a "no we haven't forgotten about [..]" way.

You begin to see my frustration, then. Whatever you thought about PS Online, it wasn't an RPG; it was an MMO, which is an entirely different beast entirely regardless of what Square-Enix thinks. What I and many other fans want is another Phantasy Star RPG. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.

I'm not averse to spin-off series; sometimes you get games that are good in their own right. Hell, Shining Force itself was a spinoff series. I just don't like the implicit bait and switch in pushing these games. They use the series names to try and pull in fans of the originals, but are essentially tricking their fanbase into something that's nothing like the games they played before, while offering nothing to fall back on.

Not really. Most of those "fake" Phantasy Star games were made before Phantasy Star Online came about... Phantasy Star III, Phantasy Star Adventure, Phantasy Star Gaiden, Nei's Adventure, and then you have Phantasy Star Online, versus Phantasy Star I, II, and IV, the trio that most fans seem to like the most. *shrug*

Phantasy Star has changed hands so many times, much like the Shining series, that you really just have to go along for the ride and hope for the best. Phantasy Star Online was a hit or miss, but Phantasy Star Universe has all the marks of a game with the quality that made me like Sega to begin with.