Shining Force III Scenario 2 (シャイニング・フォースIII), released 4/29/1998, developed by Camelot, published by Sega

This is part two of Shining Force III; in system, graphics, etc it’s exactly the same as Scenario 1. The story here is focusing on Prince Medion and takes place at the same time as Scenario 1. In both that game and this one I found the plot a little hard to follow because of the parallel stories.

The game starts out very similarly to the first scenario; I thought the first few chapters were mildly challenging, at least in Shining Force terms. As usual the game is generally low difficulty because you can always retreat and try again, and even if your main character is killed and you get a game over, you keep all the XP you earned.

We start with the usual Shining Force group — the main prince character, a centaur lance user, a mage, and a cleric.

You can carry over your save file from Scenario 1; it will keep some flags that change what characters you can get, as well as making it so that some of the treasures are no longer available (because Symbios’ party already took them in part 1).

After the first 2 scenarios there’s (I guess optional?) centaur archer and fighter; it took me a while to find them because they are in a basement that looks like the HQ. I was also supposed to be able to get an additional character in the next town from doing something in scenario 1 but I guess I didn’t do it — I have a vague memory now that I was not able to save one of the characters because it was too difficult.

Battle 3 has the first ruins map; these are the same as in Scenario 1. You have to first acquire the map to the ruins and then once you enter it, a thief will appear. Some of the chests in the ruins can be opened, others you have to let the thief take the treasure first, then attack the thief to get it for yourself. If you use Return to escape the battle or get a game over, you don’t get a second chance (I’m not sure what happens if you use Return before you even open the ruins).

The next few stages are pretty easy; Battle 5 has Valiant as a boss but he didn’t really put up that much of a fight for me despite his spells.

Next up is this annoying port town where you have to maneuver around boxes and in and out of houses to go anywhere. The battle itself has a cannon shooting at you; it doesn’t hurt you but it knocks out parts of the walkways so that you have to go back and head a different way. It takes a while but only a few enemies are there at a time so it’s not so bad. You can save Stella (which isn’t hard since she won’t come towards you to attack) and I guess that will affect things in Scenario 3.

Since they took the ship we needed, now we have to go through this hidden cave. Hazuki the ninja joins up here.

That’s as far as I got this week. I’m going back to Grandia this coming week, and hopefully with Easter and the NCAA basketball tournament (nearly) over I’ll have more time to play.