Shining Force CD, 1994/95 Sonic SP/Sega (20 From Sega/Mega CD #9)
5Beautiful tactical/turn-based RPG, which admittedly is not my type of game.. I'm more into the traditional exploration-based RPGs where usually a random attack while walking around is what prompts you into battle-- here, you are automatically thrust into the battle and the game is wall-to-wall with battles. You move your character within the amount of spaces allotted, engage the enemy if they're close enough or forfeit your turn if they're not, use items/spells/give items to allies/etc., until you've defeated all enemies on the screen and then move on to the next battle (with some dialogue/events in between). The only opportunities to visit shops come after certain battles, and in that scenario you can also shuffle your party members in or out of the lineup, or equip/unequip items/weapons/armor, revive dead party members, or perhaps mostly importantly PROMOTE characters that reached level 20. They won't be able to increase XP levels if you don't, and this changes their rank and upgrades their strength! Keep in mind that you can't farm enemies for much XP points in this game.. bummer! There are some areas where enemies might appear over and over once killed, but the XP given will drop to 1 (weak sauce). Same with the Power Ring "trick" that gives minimal XP to the user after a short while. At any rate-- the gist of this game is that you are in control of a Prince in the first, third and fourth stories (of which there are multiple battles strung together, especially the first two stories), and he must rescue or heal Queen Anri of Guardia (at different times in the stories) and first travel to Cypress and later Iom (the latter of which also harbors an evil god). Along the way and at the beginning of the game you get party members joining you and in between the battles or by using the spell Egress you can switch party members, enter a shop, chat with your members, revive expired party members, and much more! Though this type of RPG is not generally my cup of tea, the story, the characters, the dialogue, the music and the depth of options/commands really draws me in to this entry in the "Shining" series, which includes the original Shining Force 1 and 2 for the Game Gear (the first 2 stories in this game are based on them, with the 3rd and 4th stories being unique bonus adventures) and Shining In The Darkness for the Genesis. I appreciate your patience, folks-- this is one long RPG! I'll be back one of these days with game #8-- till then, stay cool everyone!