#you don't know how much it hurts that exa and sfc3 are the only ones to have no website at all

[claire-starsword]

The Shining Series’ lost mobile games

so, apparently japanese company G-MODE has an archive of old mobile games for the Nintendo Switch (and maybe Steam as well? so I’ve heard but i’m having trouble finding it). If you don’t know, Japan had a lot of unique pre-smartphone technologies, and a lot of games produced specifically for these platforms as well. Because these services have finally shutdown in recent years, these games are now inaccessible for the public and in danger of being lost forever, which sucks big time, so it’s nice to know at least one company that cares to keep them around, and their archive apparently even includes some third-party games besides their own.

how did I find this out? They’re celebrating the archive’s third anniversary by asking people of games they’d like to see added. They’ll be taking replies until April 30th. I don’t put much stock in that kinda thing, since i know nothing of business so who knows what kinds of negotiations are required for that kind of thing to begin with, it’s not guaranteed any suggestions will be added. Besides, I’m of the feeling that if certain big companies (like say, Sega, hypothetically) wanted to preserve their stuff they’d already done it on their own.

am I still clowning out there asking for shining force stuff? You silly bean of course I am. And more people are asking for Sega stuff as well. So I’m inviting you to clown with us, or at the very least get to know what stuff was once out there to begin with, because the Shining series has quite a few of these games, including tactical RPG entries that classic fans have always wanted back, and it sucks that they’re simply lost and uncared for now.

(Note: should you really decide to reply the tweet, here’s a template if you don’t know japanese:

タイトル: [game’s name, preferably in japanese of course]

メーカー名: [name of the company that made the game]

#GMODEアーカイブス)

So let’s begin with the games that have already popped up in this blog:

Shining Force Chronicles I/II/III (シャイニング・フォース クロニクル I/II/III)

The Shining Force Chronicles trilogy were ports of the Game Gear’s Shining Force Gaiden games. As you can see above though, they had different graphics. They are also very weird in that they seem to have been vvvvvery briefly available on Play Store as well? And then removed? And then accessible only through a Sega subscription service that has also shutdown??? so yeah it’s weird, but Android versions seem to exist as well, despite being just as lost. I tried very hard to find apk files but got nothing. If you ever do,

please

Ahem. At the very least, sprite dumps of the games (SFCIII here) exist in the Shining Force Central forums, so we can enjoy the updated graphics to some extent. I’ve even posted some comparisons between them and the originals for Gaiden III - Final Conflict before, but while the battle sprites there are only resized versions of the game gear ones, I and II did better and straight up redrew some to make them distinct as opposed to palette swaps.

Here’s some examples, pretty cool right? Sadly the game’s animations were more limited so there aren’t as many frames, but I still appreciate the heck out of these.

Shining Road -to the force- (シャイニング・ロード　～トゥ･ザ･フォース～)

I sadly cannot find footage of this game at all, so all I know comes from the archived website. It seems to be a turn based dungeon crawling RPG where you and your party members move together tile by tile and must figure your way through the dungeon without getting separated. Each of the four playable characters has their own attack range, and depending of your formation around enemies, it is possible to unleash combo attacks.

It’s hard to judge without seeing the game in action, but it feels to me they were trying to mix up the tactical rpg roots of the series with the dungeon crawling and smaller parties of Shining Soul, and in fact, the game does lift assets straight up from the Soul games. The character sprites however have a lot more color and are very pretty in my opinion.

Story wise it takes place in the same world as Shining Tears, following the story of Affen, a treasure hunter who dreams of becoming the first human Beast King General of the kingdom of Bestia. I’m not too familiar with the Tears setting to comment on that, but I’ll note that two out of the other three party members are said to dislike humans. The game got a sequel, Shining Road 2 -Priestess of the Dark Dragon- (シャイニング・ロード２ ～黒き竜の巫女～) which seems to be essentially the same in terms of gameplay.

Shining Force EXA Mobile (シャイニング・フォース イクサモバイル)

Sadly I cannot find footage of this one either, but as you can see in the pictures, this one is a tactical RPG like the classics, but with the world and cast of Shining Force EXA. The archived website is poor in information compared to the other games here, but it mentions the Geo-Fort being playable and capable of upgrades like in the PS2 version, which might be this game’s distinctive feature in terms of gameplay.

Story wise, it seems to take place somewhere during the original game’s plot, with the characters being transported to another world by a mysterious gate, losing their memories in the process. It sounds like a very excuse-y filler plot, but according to the one liveblog i managed to find, it actually delves into Toma’s backstory quite a bit, and also introduces new characters related to Faulklin and Duga.

I didn’t play EXA but did enjoy the story quite a bit, so I’d love to see more of this characters. Out of all games in this list, this is the one I’m most curious about. Sadly I can’t even find pictures of its exclusive characters though... I’d love to see an older dog boy in the series.

Shining Wind X ~Weissritter War Chronicle~ (シャイニング・ウィンド・クロス　~ヴァイスリッター戦記~)

Ah, the classic japanese of putting letters in names and reading them however you want. That is meant to be read as “Shining Wind Cross”, and it’s a tactical RPG like the classics, with the world and characters of Shining Tears/Wind fighting a bunch of dark elves.

What little footage I could find of it sadly does not show battles, but it shows certain assets are lifted directly from Shining Force Chronicles, and the archived website confirms that yup, it plays very much like the Chronicles/Gaiden games, alternating between tactical battles with a party of up to 12 characters, and HQ stops where you manage your party, items and everything else. These HQ stops also allow you to talk with your party members, including choosing dialogue options that might deepen your bond with a character, unlocking extra story events. As a soulblader, the main character Soma also gets to select a partner each battle and do special link skills with them, whose strength also depends on your bond with them.

Thankfully this one also has a character page so we see the whole playable cast, which includes a bunch of centaurs, blind foxling monk, and, crow birdman ninja, which wields a staff?? for some reason??? i’m a bit confused at his class but he does look sick as hell and that’s mostly what i want of a shining game.

__

So yeah, this is mostly all I know about these mobile games, if anyone has more info please let me know, it sucks that they and so many others are stuck in limbo, and finding any information at all is hard, everybody say thank you Wayback Machine for what little i have here. Also, if anyone wants direct translations of certain pages here let me know, I did summaries only because i don’t want this post to get even bigger.