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    Shining Force GBA

    This was delivered this morning from Amazon and first impressions were that the box art is hideous


    Now this my first Shining Force game and I understand it to be a port of the Megadrive original with some extra bells and whistles but as I have never played or seen a SF game before, this is an unbiased opinion.

    It starts of with the standard RPG formula of a brief outline of the Good vs. Evil story before you press start to get to the main options. Then it is the general meet people, get some of the backstory and explore the first town. As a huge fan of SRPGs I was looking forward to finding out how fast the battles would be after finding Tactics Ogre's painfully slow. I am pleased to say that they are very quick with no problems understanding the user interface and moving the characters around the map. Unlike FFTA and TA the game does not tell you your hit % chance when you lock onto an enemy so I have no idea whether position behind the enemy works but so far combat has been fluid and enjoyable.

    So far I have not played it for very long (only 3 battles) but it is very enjoyable and the speed of moving around makes it a lot nicer to play that Tactics Ogre.

    Anyone else played it?

    #2
    I have no idea why but... I get the idea that in some ways this is designed to mess around with veterans of the first game.

    (potential spoilers, nothing plot based though)


    Some maps have been made wider (most obviously Shade Abbey and the bridge in the cave of darkness) and the AI is errr. Well it's improved, a bit, it's just a lot less obvious what the computer is going to do now. For example in the cave of darkness you used to be able to use archers/magic on the first two zombies forever and they would never step forward to attack. I found out this had changed, as Anri was trying to locate her head

    The battle of Alterone 'feels' very odd to me too now.

    Ken and Mae's defence is bloody laughable.

    I do like the new enhanced stories for each character though, and the battle incentives/added shop items are nice too.

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      #3
      Is this worth getting then? I need something for my GBA and it looks like it'll either be this or Metroid Zero Mission.

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        #4
        I've completed the first chapter now so I feel I can give a much better opinion of the game that from my first post. So far the plot has still been pretty much by the numbers and nothing that has really gripped me yet. The combat is still fast and fluid and the only problem I have is getting the team member lined up right as they do not lock into the squares as easily as in FFTA and TO. The reward system for beating a map in a certain time works well to give you an incentive to beat it quickly and so far I haev only managed to get the reward once, but it is still early days. Money is pretty hard to come by so you cannot fight one battle and then have thousands of gold/gil to equip what you need that you find in FFTA.

        As a Shining Force novice I am finding it very enjoyable, moreso than Tactics Ogre which I am also playing it at the moment. Anyone looking for a SRPG on the GBA could do worse than buy this.

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          #5
          I'm really enjoying it too. I got it on Friday, and I'm some way through chapter 4 now. It starts getting a bit more interesting when you have more characters than you can fit in a team as you start having to choose your party to fit the battle. I'm finding the completion bonuses to be a bit tough, though. I've probably only got about a third of them so far.

          I played the Megadrive version, but not extensively (I'm now further on in the GBA one than I got in the Megadrive version). They've made a fair few improvements to the interface, which is good as the original was really quite clunky in places. It's a shame the graphics haven't been tarted up a bit more, though. They've improved them from the original, but they're not really up to the standards you get from some GBA games.

          Looking forward to seeing the new PS2 Shining Force game. I might have to dig out the Saturn one for another play, too.

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            #6
            This prompted me to dig out an emulated version of the original and it really is fantastic. Having said that I'm not sure these games grip me the way they used to - a used to love exploring round the little towns and talking to everyone, I just don't get that anymore in such a (relatively) simplistic environment

            I'll still buy it though

            I take it you chaps having the Jap version, right?

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              #7
              UK version. I do not believe it is out in the US or Japan yet. The cheapest I have found it for is ?24.99 from Amazon.co.uk.

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                #8
                They seem to have got the release dates all backwards for this game. It came out at the end of April in the UK, then it'll be out in June in the US and finally August, I think, in Japan.

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                  #9
                  Good grief! That's amazing, I'm really really surprised by that!

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                    #10
                    I've been playing this for a few days now and am really enjoying it. Would anyone care to explain the promotion system?

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                      #11
                      When a character reaches Level 10 they can be promoted to a new class. They get a new costume + animations and recieve a stat boost. You can only promote them once though so its best to leave them a while and promote them around level 15 - 20, that way your stat boost is greater (for some reason).

                      Hope that helps.

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                        #12
                        I'm not sure what you mean by a stats boost. From messing about with the characters I have that can be promoted as far as I can see stats fall by about 15-20% as soon as they are promoted.

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                          #13
                          From Gamefaqs

                          4
                          . Level 10 vs. Level 20 Promotions

                          There often is some confusion as to when to promote a character. In
                          general, the longer you wait to promote someone, the better that
                          character will be after promotion. The minimum level you can promote
                          someone is Level 10; the highest a character can go before being forced
                          into promotion is Level 20. Getting a character to level 20 may be
                          frustrating, but after promotion it is well worth the effort

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                            #14
                            Surely that fails to take into account that by the time you've promoted a character at level 20 the character that was promoted at level 10 will be at level 10 or so of the promoted form, hence negating any boost.

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