Shining Force: The Resurrection of Dark Dragon

The Shining Force series is probably one of the most prominent of Sega's classic RPGs, ranking after the very acclaimed and recently revitalized Phantasy Star series. Shining Force, which wowed Genesis owners in the early nineties with its bright, colorful graphics and strategic but simple gameplay, is seeing a resurgence of late with the Shining Soul series and this latest iteration, which will be a remake of the original Shining Force, albeit with a few new additions and enhancements.

The original Shining Force series was a strategic role-playing game that focused on a amnesiac protagonist who, along with a motley crew of followers, rises to protect the kingdom of Guardiana from the evil hordes of Runefaust. The characters were extremely varied, consisting of archers, magicians, priests, warriors, bird-men, centaurs, dwarves, werewolves, and even a magic jellyfish!

Gameplay consisted of two phases. First was the requisite town, where players could purchase new weapons and items, converse with townsfolk, and generally prepare and set the stage for the next battle. In between towns, players would engage in battles, which was the bulk of gameplay. Your party would battle against a party of foes on assorted maps. The environment affected how far characters could travel, and different classes had different strengths. For example, the priest was one of few characters that could actually heal others, but he had little battle power or defense, so he was best kept at the back where he could heal easily without directly engaging in fighting. Conversely, there were also centaurs (half-man, half-horse) and werewolves that can move fairly easily over plains and have fairly high attacking power.

One of the things that was unique about the game was that when your character attacked an enemy, the view switched to a close up view (similar to the recent Fire Emblem) that showed the actual blow. Another thing that set Shining Force apart was the ability to promote your character once he or she reached level ten, which basically changed your character's appearance and enhanced his or her inherent abilities.

Resurrection of the Dark Dragon also has a number of new features for Game Boy Advance players. Graphics stay true to the colorful and cartoonish style, although the colors have been enhanced and upgraded. There are also three new characters. The first is Narsha, who is the daughter of the leader of Runefaust. The second is Zuika, who is an assassin insect that serves Narsha. The last is Mawlock, a creature that is able to utilize cards in battle.

The use of cards in roleplaying games is largely prevalent and is also another addition to this version of Shining Soul. Mawlock can get cards from townspeople, defeated foes, and from chests. He can use these cards in battle to a number of different effects, including changing your movement or attack range, giving an ally an additional attack, using the ability of an ally, or even creating a clone of an ally to aid in battle.