#Shining (Sega Series)

[found-in-retro-game-mags]

Shining Soul and Demi Kids

"The RPG Revolution" (GamePro #183, Dec. 2003)

[annon-guy2]

SEGA Special Collection - Voting Poll

[claire-starsword]

The track listing on my Shining Force II post was derived by The 16 Bit Audiophile Project. A post regarding the sound playback hack for Shining Force II indicated that the songs were assigned dialogue lines in the Japanese version where there is a sound test mode. I have not seen Takenouchi credited on a Shining Force II OST other than the symphonic suite. The symphonic suite is available on Soulseek and has scans if you're interested. :)

Thanks, I had no clue about the JP-only Sound Test!

[devileater2]

[scarletpath]

Shining Force and Shining Force 2 were my Baldur's Gate 3 when I was younger. I went back to play a bit of it and it still is an amazing game.

It's set in a fantasy world (With a little Sci-Fi sprinkled in). It's a mix of tactical and turn base. You can choose your companions to use. You can find and gain new ones as you progress. Each character is unique and has their own strengths and weaknesses. The music is just epic and the story telling is just perfect.

There are Centaurs, Elves, Halflings, Dwarves, Birdmen, a Wolfman, Monster kind and a unique race called Kyantol that are just a doglike elves. (AND SO MUCH MORE!)

(Look at this precious Wererat thief, Slade)

So if you don't mind playing a retro game, I HIGHLY recommend playing these games. I'm pretty sure there are emulators out there and Steam has a Sega Geneses emulator and you can buy the games.

[doamarierose-honoka]

Yoshitaka Tamaki, the artist and character designer behind Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force, Landstalker and many other classic titles, passed away earlier this year, it has been revealed.

Tamaki passed away on July 13th following a battle with lung cancer. He was just 55 years old. A private service was held in his memory today.

Having initially worked as a freelance artist for Enix, Tamaki would join Hiroyuki Takahashi at the newly-formed Climax Entertainment to create Shining in the Darkness on the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. While he is most famous for the art and character designs he produced, Tamaki would also contribute to story and scenario writing on several titles he worked on.

As well as working on the Shining series and the seminal action adventure Landstalker, Tamaki would also work on FEDA: The Emblem of Justice (Super Famicom), Lady Stalker (Super Famicom), FEDA Remake!: The Emblem of Justice (Saturn), Alundra (Playstation), Time Stalkers (Dreamcast), Shining Soul (GBA), Shining Soul II (GBA) and Shining Force Neo (PS2). He is also credited on Shining Force: Resurrection Of The Dark Dragon, a GBA remake of the original game.

Back in 2018, fellow Climax / Camelot Software Planning artist Hiroshi Kajiyama, who also worked on the Shining series, passed away.

[z2z-gaming-and-random-art-ai]

Console Strategy Tactics Games of 1993 - Shining Force II

Shining Force II is the fourth entry in the Shining Force series of Strategy Tactics RPG's and a part of the wider Shining universe which last received a release in 2018. 

Shining Force II was developed by Sonic Co and published by Sega and was an exclusive release to the Sega Genesis. Shining Force II released first in Japan in 1993 with a US releasing following in 1994, this exclusivity would last until 2008 when the game would be ported to the Wii. A PC release of the game would follow, and in 2022 the game was released for the Nintendo Switch. 

1. Intro 00:00 

2. Games Intro 00:15 

3. Gameplay 07:52 

4. Outro 10:57 

YouTube (Gaming & AI Art)

https://www.youtube.com/@Zero2Zed

Twitter (Gaming & AI Art) 

https://twitter.com/zero2zedGaming Or follow me on 

Instagram (AI Art) 

https://www.instagram.com/random_art_ai/ 

For more strategy tactics game videos check out the playlists below 

Console Strategy Tactics Games of 1993 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CF8WnopSCYYJuc5yovptH7D

[thankskenpenders]

IDW's Fang the Hunter miniseries! All four issues are out now! I don't have as much to say about it as I did with the Knuckles show, but I do have some thoughts.

So! This is a pretty fun miniseries. I liked it.

It's fun to see Ian get to write a four-issue arc starring the Hooligans, his precious boys, with a B-plot showing Sonic and Tails' perspective on this little adventure. As always, Ian captures the characters' voices well. In particular, I really liked Bean in this, who despite being a slapstick screwball is actually a pretty perceptive guy. He often acts as sort of a voice of reason for Fang, seeing right through his sweet talking and pointing out how badly all of their schemes go but sticking around nonetheless just for funsies. And the art (illustrated this time by Mauro Fonseca for the first issue and Thomas Rothlisberger for the rest) is as good as we've come to expect from IDW's Classic Sonic output. Overall, this is a fun little romp that captures the vibes of the Classic era very well.

...But...

Well, as I've said before with the Amy and Tails anniversary specials, I feel like we're kind of seeing diminishing returns with these Classic spinoffs. They're fun, sure, and very nice to look at, but their writing always leave me wanting more.

A big part of this is just that there's just less to work with compared to the Modern universe. The Classic cast is much smaller, and within that cast there are a bunch of characters currently going unused, some of which are currently off-limits. Aside from the appearance of the Witchcarters in Tails' special, we've pretty much just stuck with the cast of Sonic Mania and the Hooligans, as established in the first special. No Chaotix, no Battle Bird Armada, barely any Honey. (Classic Vector was able to get a tiny cameo in the Amy special only because he was so obscured that it gave the IDW team plausible deniability to say it was actually a different character if Sega complained.) It's a very small box, and Ian's recent Classic comics haven't particularly expanded the boundaries of that box. They're just excuses to play the hits for old times' sake. And that was a lot of fun the first time around, but the novelty is starting to wear off for me.

I will admit, sure, the tighter focus on a specific set of characters from the games is a big part of the appeal of these Classic comics. They're simpler. They're nostalgic. They're shining the spotlight on characters that can't be used in the main series. They're the slavishly faithful old school Sonic comics that we could never get in the '90s, because the comics we did get diverged into their own continuities with tons of new characters. I get all that.

But the thing is, the Sonic comics have always added all those new characters because you can just do so much more with them. The game cast is great! But they're corporate mascots Sega keeps on a tight leash. You can do so much with a character like Sally or Surge that you could never do with any of the game characters, and by pushing into new territory with these new characters you can also bring out interesting new sides of the game cast. Maybe Sonic himself can't have some crazy complex character arc, but you can see how he'll respond to the things going on with these other characters, and how these other characters' arcs are informed by their relationships with Sonic.

So I look at the Fang miniseries, and I'm like. This was pretty fun. But by the end, what was the point of the story? What did we learn about the Hooligans as characters that we didn't already know? Is the point just to depict an adventure where things go off the rails a little and Bean and Bark end up a little miffed, explaining why they weren't with Fang in Superstars? There's potential for an arc there about the dissolution of the group, but it really does come off more as the type of spat these three probably get into all the time before coming back together for the next job. It's neither super dramatic nor super funny, feeling more like it ends on a fairly matter-of-fact note where Fang's like "welp, time to go do the events of Sonic Superstars" at the end, not particularly plussed by anything that happened in this arc. What we're left with is four issues of the Hooligans encountering recognizable characters and visiting recognizable locations from the Classic games, with little that really feels new or fresh here.

Ironically, the most interesting story element to me here (aside from Bean's characterization) is its tie to the main comics, something previous specials couldn't do since Sega had yet to reunify the Classic and Modern timelines. The plot of this comic revolves around Fang following the myth of the "eighth Chaos Emerald," riffing on both old playground rumors and Sonic the Fighters. What they actually end up finding isn't an extra Emerald, but rather the Warp Topaz that would eventually end up in Starline's possession in the Modern era, having apparently been found by the Hard-Boiled Heavies in the cave seen in the 900th Adventure special.

That's kinda neat, and the abilities of the Warp Topaz are used in fun ways. But this isn't exactly something to write home about for people who aren't lore nerds like me. There isn't a particularly meaningful connection between Fang and Starline's arcs here due to the presence of the Warp Topaz, it's just a thing for the wiki. Again, Ian's in his connect the dots mode a little more than I'd like here.

(...So wait, if Starline didn't find the Warp Topaz himself, did he track down the cave where the Heavies found it to leave that "greatness began here" graffiti? Eh, I guess that sounds like something he'd do. He's known for nothing if not his obsessiveness.)

So, again. This was a pretty good miniseries. This all makes it sound like I hated it, but I did like it overall. I particularly liked seeing the Hooligans fight the Hard-Boiled Heavies. But it leaves me feeling less fulfilled than something like Scrapnik Island or Tangle & Whisper or Imposter Syndrome. I get that, by the very definition of the word, Classic Sonic is always going to remain trapped in amber to some extent. This isn't the version of the franchise that's supposed to grow and change. That's what Modern Sonic does. Classic Sonic will always be trapped in the early '90s. I'm not asking for them to add a dozen new characters with complex dramatic arcs to the Classic comics, since that's not what Classic Sonic is about. But I think the other Classic Sonic stories not written by Ian - i.e. the driving school story by the McElroys and the two stories about Amy by Gale Galligan - show that you can tell fresh new Classic Sonic stories that aren't just about remixing the hits from the games.

If we're going to continue getting Classic Sonic comics from Ian (and I hope we do!), then I just hope he's able to find a better balance between familiar and new ideas, like he and Evan do so consistently with their Modern Sonic output.

[icelordofwinter]

(Enjoy this meme here-)

so the Sonic 3 trailer is out and I decided to go on and make a silly post and a small announcement

I have decided after much debate I will start officially making sonic art NOW KNOW I am new at drawing the sonic artstyle so the characters may look like something out of the shining or something cause I’m getting used to drawing them I done the same with the lmk style until I perfected it

Anyways I decided to ramble my thoughts on the trailer and why I love Sonic

now I am a sonic veteran I have drawn sonic before but when I was way younger but Sonic has stuck by me I remember back in the 2000s I used to watch sonic underground a lot on Netflix that’s how long ago it was I always loved sonic I loved the video games even own some sonic games myself!

my first one was sonic unleashed one of my favorite games I always loved and still love to this day the time where he was a werehog and sometimes I even wish he can go back to werehog sonic and plus it introduced me one of my comfort songs endless possibilities

I got way more into Sonic thanks to the anime Sonic X I didn’t watch the whole series cause it started to get weird but it was how I was introduced to shadow one of my favorite characters

I remember I was so intrigued I tried to find other content and then I found YouTuber named animebromii (who unfortunately is a…well piece of shit to sum it up he was one of those found out to get to close to kids type of YouTubers category but that was found out right after I stopped watching him) I remember his Sonic videos always made me filled with joy and made me love the characters more

although I stop getting into Sonic as fans started to get a little to weird for my taste and such and Sega didn’t know what the fuck they were doing

what rekindle my love for Sonic was well the Sonic movies and as I watch I remembered the joy I had for it and started to slowly get into Sonic again and explore more of it due to being more mature and such I turned out to have well a lot of unpopular opinion that I know will have a mob of angry Sonic fans chasing me with pitchforks

Just Some headcanons and ships I don’t agree on and such even some dislike on how Sega is going about like trying to make sonamy now NOTE I don’t mind sonamy hell as a kid I was one of the people who ship it or more specifically the werehog sonic x Amy (i saw so many AMVs and one of those story shits….you have no idea how much of a huge werehog sonic fan I was) but the reason it makes me uncomfortable cause I found out Sega have gave the group canon ages at one point….

which where Amy is 12 and sonic is 15 NOW I don’t know if this is true I haven’t seen proof and out of all honestly I personally think the ages shouldn’t have been confirmed cause well it feels like to me it fucks up the lore and a lot of ships people love and you could have your own headcanons and such for their ages and to me Sonic doesn’t feel like he is 15 to me like hell when I was younger I thought he was ALEAST 18 or 16

There is only few ships I feel comfortable with that is Elise x sonic and sonia x knuckles

now admittedly yes I maybe not the biggest Sonic fan I haven’t read any of the comics i haven’t played all the games hell sometimes I don’t know half of the characters sometimes but still I love Sonic with all my heart and I hope you guys enjoy this little adventure of mine of Sonic the hedgehog

[kdinjenzen]

just saw your post about how Golden Sun is on the switch now. would you be cool with telling us more about it?

(i struggle to get into media that is new to me without knowing a bit about it first, and it's usually best when i hear it from someone who loves the media in question)

Golden Sun began as a two-part Game Boy Advance JRPG series starting with 2001's "Golden Sun" and ending the first arc with "Golden Sun: The Lost Age" in 2002. The second arc of the story began with "Golden Sun: Dark Dawn" on the Nintendo DS released in 2010 and is the last title in the series to this date with an unfortunate "The End?" cliffhanger suggesting the closure of the series as a whole would come with a FOURTH game to be released at some point in time. To this day there has been no true word on a fourth title to finally finish the series.

The Golden Sun series of games were developed by Camelot Software whom originally were a Sega Only Developer specifically focusing on the "Shining" series starting with Shining in the Darkness in 1991 and ending with Shining Force III in 1998.

Camelot Software then became a Second-Party Development Studio for Nintendo focusing on the Mario Sports series of titles including both the home console and handheld versions of these games, beginning with Mario Golf in 1999.

Camelot Software was also the creator of the Waluigi character who first appeared in Mario Tennis in 2000. (They also created both the UNSEEN version and now KNOWN versions of Wapeach for Mario Tennis and Power Tennis respectively.)

The game series was created with the intent of allowing Camelot to get back to their roots or more RPG style games and to bolster the Nintendo IP owned roster with diverse gameplay titles. Much of Golden Sun's style can be seen in Camelot's older "Shining" titles with a more evolved and "of the era" style. Golden Sun was originally being conceived as a Nintendo 64 title before it was revealed that the Game Cube would be releasing soon and the N64 would be sunset. Development then moved to the GBA.

Originally Golden Sun and The Lost Age were intended to be ONE GAME, but the cartridge space on the GBA was too small and would need far more memory to whole the full game so the idea to split it in two was devised to create a much more well rounded story, give devs more time to finish the latter half of the game, and get the first title out sooner.

Golden Sun (as a series) is fairly simple and follows more traditional JRPG standards of turn based battles, a party of four characters, elemental magic, leveling up, and various collectable armors and creatures to enhance characters in and out of battle.

Elements are a key point to both gameplay and story as the world is inhabited by a small amount of "Adepts" whom can control these elements based on four types: Wind, Earth, Fire, and Water.

Djinni, small elemental creatures, can be found all over the world that will add new abilities and skills to the party's Psynergy (the game equivalent of magic spells) as well as used as parts of larger summons.

The main plot of the first title follows Isaac and Garet, years after the tragic loss of Isaac's father and their mutual friend Jenna's brother and parents being killed in a storm, as they learn more about their town, the world around them, psynergy, and the history of Mt Aleph's Sol Sanctum (a temple hidden within mountain near their small village) from one of the village's historians Kraden.

After opening up Sol Sanctum they are approached by two people who were part of the cause that ended up taking the lives of Isaac's dad and Jenna's family, a third masked figure, and their presumed fourth partner who are currently hunting for the Elemental Stars in an effort to light all the Elemental Lighthouses and releasing the power of Alchemy and Psynergy (again, the game's magic system) across the world which could be potentially disastrous.

After most of the Elemental Stars are stolen, Jenna and their teacher Kraden are kidnapped, Garet and Isaac meet "The Wise One" (a giant floating rock with an eyeball) who tasks them to stop the opposing party of four before they can attain their goal and quite possibly doom the world.

Along this journey they are eventually joined by Ivan, a young Wind Adept, and Mia an expert healer and Water Adept. Between these two and Isaac, an Earth Adept, and Garet, a Fire Adept, the party is able to round out with the full elemental psynergy roster.

They end the first game with a cliff hanger that directly and immediately starts back up with Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

The Lost Age features 4 new party members, who you do meet some of in the first game (no spoilers), and eventually the two teams of four merge into a team of 8 (two of each elemental type) - the groups combine their powers and the first arc ends.

Dark Dawn, the DS title, takes place 30 years after the end of The Lost Age and primarily follows around the children of the protagonists from the first two games going on an adventure that started far before their birth with something that happened at the end of The Lost Age.

Each game features both in and out of combat use of Psynergy. For combat it's as simple as attack/defend/buff/heal/etc. Outside of combat certain elements of Psynergy are used to solve puzzles in various ways from growing plants, pushing large stones, reading character's minds, blowing away objects with great winds, freezing water to create new platforms, etc.

The game features lots of fun collectables, side-quests, world building events, optional dungeons, and more.

I could go on and on about this series more, but that would involve a TON of spoilers so like... GO PLAY THE GAMES! THEY ARE VERY FUN!

[posthumanwanderings]

Shining Force III Scenario 1: Pt.4 (Camelot Software Planning - Sega Saturn - 1997)

[annon-guy2]

SEGA Saturn Collection Game Volume Three - Voting Poll

Note 1: Puyo Puyo and Madō Monogatari were owned by Compile until SEGA bought the rights, so it is now a SEGA owned IP.

Note 2: Atlus Games is now a subsidiary of SEGA, so Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers is included here.

Note 3: Even if you hadn't played the game yet, you can still vote for that option if it appeals or interests you.

[claire-starsword]

finally found an upload of the arrangement cd, this song is such a banger

[jayextee]

Virtua Fighter (1994, SEGA Saturn)

So I said I'd be reviewing Saturn stuff I play.

Straight up, I'm a fan of this series. I'll try to be impartial as I can through this review but, heads up, I love it. Spoilers, I guess?

VF1 was not my first VF. Back in the 1990's my Saturn was bundled with Sega Rally, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, and Virtua Fighter 2. What an absolutely legendary trio of introduction games, there's no wonder I fell in love with the console immediately; and indeed, looking back I'd still say they're three of the system's finest. Play them. Now.

So, anyway, spoiled rotten by the amazing Vee Eff Two always made the first game seem quite basic to me. Threadbare, even. Except, those visuals. I couldn't get my head around them; in a good way, I assure you! Contrary to everything I'd heard at the time about VF1's graphics being "bad" and the texture-mapped VF Remix being released as an 'apology' for it, I thought those flat-shaded polygons were stylish as all hell. And I was here for it. And I'm still here for it.

Aside from how stylish the aesthetic is, it's got some problems and they're much-publicised. Polygons in the fighters can flicker between light levels or on/off entirely, and certain camera angles (usually during replays, or the intro) cut off parts of the arena that aren't even too far away, that's a hell of a myopic draw distance. And I'm not sure whether this is a side effect of me playing the game on Saroo or not (because I don't remember it from back in the day) but I've been witnessing certain HUD elements flicker when the action gets hectic. Bit messy.

But the thing is, the game really shines I think. Although the basic punches and kicks of every fighter are identical, they've got real character and strengths/weaknesses and all eight of them are real fun to play (even if I get the most mileage out of my main, Sarah, who I play most in every VF game). It's real fun to just slap these boxy fighter around, y'know?

But also, the game's strong in other areas. Not its meagre content, something also oft-discussed due to being constrained to arcade, versus, and a ranking mode; but the sound. Oh lawdy, that sound. Where do I start?

Music's catchy as all hell, even with the occasionally-grating reliance on that 'get go!' sample (oh, hi there end credits theme), but aside from one or two tunes that do this, there are some BOPS. Jeffry's theme, looking squarely at you. Hell, Sarah and Dural have some bangers too -- probably why both of them made it unchanged into the later Fighters Megamix.

But the sound effects, oh my, the sound effects. I'm more about how well sounds communicate the game's action over how 'nice' they might sound; but VF delivers in both areas to my ears. Firstly, there are different 'hit' sounds for different kinds of impacts (with a very clear 'reverb' to that thumping 'counter hit' sound, something Saturn VF2 didn't do right if I remember correctly) and it's never unclear what the audio is telling me. But also, they sound great. Hitting sounds crunchy and has impact, I dare say this is a really iconic bunch of effects here. If I were to levy a single criticism in this area, it's that vocal sounds are few and far between; but the sequels addressed this. It's good!

And that, to me, is the crux of how I feel with VF in modern times. I don't disagree with my older self that it's somewhat basic compared to later games, but as a streamlined VF experience; or even possibly an introduction to the series' staples and tenets; it's good. Not as great as the series would later go, but still incredibly fun.

I was about to end the review there, but there's one talking point I forgot to mention. Everyone seems to forget to mention it; which is why it's important for me to, even awkwardly-inserted into the tail-end of a ramble such as this. And that is, how well VF moves.

I'm not even kidding, it beat contemporaries like Tekken and ToShinDen to the punch and yet none of its rivals had animation anywhere near as damn good as VF's. Some movements are a joy to watch onscreen (such as that backflip with seemingly no other use than CPU Kage stalling for a time over victory) and absolutely cement that aesthetic in my mind as being "better than people in the '90s knew". Of course, I gather from YouTube comments here and there that I'm not alone in preferring this game's look to the later Remix and that assures me that I'm not quite as weird in that as my schoolfriends of the waybackwhen insisted. It looks good. It sounds good. It moves good. It plays good. It's good. 4/5

[useless-catalanfacts]

A Catalan verb I love: formiguejar.

It means "to teem" or "to swarm". The verb comes from the word formiga ("ant" 🐜), and it evokes the constant busy movement of ants, up and down all day without stop.

The poet Jacint Verdaguer used this verb in this verse from his poem Plus Ultra:

L’univers és infinit, pertot acaba i comença, i ençà, enllà, amunt i avall, la immensitat és oberta, I a on tu veus lo desert eixams de mons formiguegen.

Here I attempt to translate it to English:

The universe is infinite, it ends and starts everywhere, and since, further up there, up and down, the immensity is open, And there where you see the desert, swarms of worlds teem.

Verdaguer was a master in creating this mental images. In this case, I love how these two lines ("and there where you see the desert / swarms of worlds teem") because the verb is very descriptive of this view, that seems still and quiet to us, but if we were to take a close look, we would see thousands in constant movement, at a minuscule scale maybe, but with no stop.

Find the full poem + English translation under the cut.

Plus Ultra by Jacint Verdaguer.

Original poem in Catalan:

    estello, fai-te clara,       car cerque moun camin.

Allà dellà de l’espai he vist somriure una estrella perduda en lo front del cel com espiga en temps de sega, com al pregon de l’afrau una efímera lluerna. -Estrelleta –jo li he dit-, de la mar cerúlia gemma, de les flors de l’alt verger [heaven] series tu la darrera? -No só la darrera, no; no só més que una llanterna de la porta del jardí que creies tu la frontera. És sols lo començament lo que prenies per terme. L’univers és infinit, pertot acaba i comença, i ençà, enllà, amunt i avall, la immensitat és oberta, I a on tu veus lo desert eixams de mons formiguegen. Dels camins de l’infinit són los mons la polsinera que puja i baixa a sos peus quan Jehovà s’hi passeja.

English:

star, shine bright for I am searching for my path.

Up there, on the other side of space I have seen a star smile lost in the sky's front like a wheat spike in reaping time, like the depths of a canyon an ephemeral torch. "Little star" I have told her, "out of the sea's cerulean gems, out of the flowers of the tall lush [=Heaven] would you be the last one?" "I am not the last one, no; I am nothing more than the lantern at the garden's gate that you believed to be the border. What you took for an end, is only the beginning. The universe is infinite, it ends and starts everywhere, and since, further up there, up and down, the immensity is open, And there where you see the desert swarms of worlds teem. The worlds are the dust of the infinity's paths that are moved up and down at his feet when Jehovah [God] takes a walk in them.

Jacint Verdaguer is one of the most beloved Catalan poets of all times. He lived in the 19th century and was very involved in the Catalan revival movement, defending Catalan folk culture and language. He was also deeply religious and became a Catholic priest since an early age.

The poem Plus Ultra was published after Verdaguer's death in 1903.

[doamarierose-honoka]

18-05-2023 Blade Arcus Discord Tournament #4 vs DCHShadow