Review

Guardania is under attack by the forces of Rune.

The overworld is traditional 16 bit sprites and tiles, with nothing spectacular. The battle scenes are pretty nice, showing us some well done character and enemy artwork.

It’s music doesn’t really make the game, and is quite limited, and the shifts between the map and battles become annoying once the battle picks up. Sound effects don’t pick up for the music, and a few of the more common ones are grating.

Shining Force features a nice combination between RPG elements and a Conditional Based Strategy system. However, battles are quite slow, with strategies difficult to create due to the nature of a conditional based engine. The RPG elements between battles are also cumbersome because it uses a menu to choose between talking and searching.

If you are a dedicated strategy gamer, this may be for you. However, all others should steer clear and play some other game.