Shining Force III Scenario 1 (シャイニング・フォースIII), released 12/11/1997, developed by Camelot, published by Sega

As the copyright logo above indicates, the first two Shining Force games came out in 1992 and 1993, then the next one did not come out until 1997. In this period there were four games in the Shining series released — the CD compilation of the game gear games, and Final Conflict for the Game Gear. There were also two games released for the Saturn (an action RPG and a dungeon crawling RPG).

Finally, the third main Force game came out. It was planned in three scenarios which were fortunately all released, although only the first one came out with an official English release. The first two scenarios take place at the same time with different parties, and the third one forms a conclusion to the story. There are certain parts in the game where you can do things that will affect the other scenarios if you carry over save data (called the “Synchronicity System”), although it mostly seems to be a few optional characters and small changes to battles rather than any sort of major story difference.

The system as a whole is almost entirely the same as the previous games. The graphics were redone in 3D; while apparently some people were put off by the quality, they are definitely not the worst I’ve seen from this era. The interface is pretty much the same, and I still think the item management is annoying. Especially when you kill a monster and can’t carry the item without dropping something because you are already carrying 4; that seems like something that shouldn’t be in a 1997 game.

Almost everything else is the same as SF1 and 2 — the classes, promotion (at level 10 in this case), Return spell for the main character, cheap revive in the churches, status effects, spells, etc. They added a few new things, though. The first are special attacks that you can learn by using a type of weapon repeatedly. I don’t find these change the strategy very much because they activate randomly. There’s a FE-like weapon triangle system. There is also a friendship/support system which grants bonuses to people adjacent, shown by the shields and swords here:

But despite those changes it feels more or less exactly like SF1 and 2. Because it’s 3D there are some height differences but from what I can tell they don’t affect damage/hit at all.

As I did with the last SF post I’m only going to mention battles that have something beyond just moving forward and using basic tactics. Wikipedia has a good overview of the plot which I will copy:

Scenario 1 features Synbios, a young lord from the Republic of Aspinia. Aspinia was once a part of the Empire of Destonia, but seceded after a war of independence spearheaded by some of the more democratic-minded nobles. They opposed Emperor Domaric’s totalitarian policies, which disenfranchised a large number of people, creating a huge disparity between the wealthy and the poor. Tensions remained between Aspinia and Destonia after the secession, marked by occasional border disputes.

As the game begins, Synbios is part of a military force representing Aspinia at a peace conference in the neutral city of Saraband. Due to manipulation by outside forces – later discovered to be connected with a religious cult known as the “Bulzome Sect” – full-scale war breaks out again between Aspinia and Destonia. The majority of the game’s storyline covers this conflict as well as Synbios and his team’s fight against the Bulzome sect.

The beginning of the game seemed more difficult than the previous SFs, although as with those games you can always escape from the fight and try again. In Stage 2 you need to rush forward if you want to get some optional characters, but this leaves your force exposed to attacks from the front and back.

Stage 5 has the first “thief map” which I don’t seem to have gotten a screenshot of. In towns you can find some maps that will allow you to enter ruins on the next stage. When you do so, a thief (or thieves) will go in and try to get the treasures ahead of you. Sometimes there are additional monsters in the ruins as well. Only the enemy thieves can open the main chests in the ruins, and so you have to let them take the items and then hit them which will force them to drop them. But the thieves, after getting the chests, will try to leave the map and if they do the ruins are destroyed and you can’t try again. You have to enter the ruins with as many non-Synbios characters as you want, but they’ll be off the main map for the time being. The one on stage 5 has the very useful Life Ring, which regenerates HP every turn. I gave this to Synbios.

There’s a slight steampunk vibe to the game with steam trains, but so far that seems to be about the only visible tech other than one optional character who is in a little steam robot-type thing.

Stage 7 is not so hard to clear, but you need to try to save a bunch of refugees with trains coming in to block your progress.

You can hit a lever to make the train go somewhere better, but even then this is tough — I’m not entirely sure how I got the refugees away; there was one turn where the enemies could have reached them and attacked but for some reason they didn’t.

Stage 12 in chapter 3 pits you against a strong sorcerer in a haunted mansion with a lot of hidden enemies — I had to escape this battle twice to win.

There is, as usual, a suspension bridge fight — I think they are being a bit cheeky by making one of the enemies want to drop the bridge but then another enemy kills him to prevent it.

The joke (Jogurt) character for this game is pen, a little chicken:

Apparently if you train him up he can be decent, but it’s a lot of work to do so.

Overall this is a decent game and I think it’s probably my favorite of the SFs so far although they’re all pretty similar. I should be done with the game next week (I’m already on the final chapter).

Now bear my arctic blast!