Shining Force Edition
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| July 8th, 2011 |
07/8- 12:00PM EST
With Dungeon Siege III
finished and reviewed, I'm finally getting back to some JRPGs!
Thankfully, this also coincides with me going on vacation, so it's a
good thing all of the RPGs I'm looking to play are portable. Worry not
though, Q&A will be handled by Fanboymaster while I'm away.
With more than half this year already past, what's everyone's top three
games so far? Mine would have to be Radiant
Historia, Dungeon Siege III,
and of course Trails in the Sky.
Hoping to see
some letters on this subject upon my return.
Enough about that, on to your letters!
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Mr. Wheeler & Dealer, I understand you're cuckoo for content, so
let me give some!
Any Depeche Mode on that 80's playlist? Actually, the Cars just
put out a new album for the first time since 1985, so the band lives on.
Wheels
There is some Depeche Mode in there. I listen to the 80s and 90s
stations on satellite radio all the time, so they pop up pretty often
as you'd imagine. I had no idea the Cars put out a new album, I need to
check that out.
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If you looked at my recent
review, you might've noticed that it features a hexagonal grid. Albert Odyssey 2 also has this,
though it gets so many other things wrong that I refuse to acknowledge
its presence. Sadly, the early Albert
Odyssey games just aren't worth investigating. I know this
won't be contradicted because no translations exist for them, and the
denizens of the internet have thus not latched onto these games as
"Greatest - Games - EVER." It happens with just about everything
made available for the undiscriminating internet hordes.
Wheels
This is very true. I've played a few games that have received fan
translations, such as the non-Saturn Magic
Knight
Rayearth games, that have been quite terrible. I don't
get why people even bothered translating some of them. Maybe just to
see if they could? Anyway, glad that the one translated Albert Odyssey game appears to be
the only good one of the three. I always thought we may have missed out
on more classic SNES games!
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Other worthwhile games on the Sega CD... well, there's Snatcher, which commands very high
prices on eBay due to Hideo Kojima's involvement and the Sega CD being
the only legitimate English release of the game. There's Shining Force CD, which you can't
play except on this system. There's the only English version of Popful Mail, which may have been
made pretty tough by Working Designs but is nevertheless a Falcom title
which hasn't seen much interest since the mid-90s. Neist would be
overjoyed if I found the Sega CD version of Dungeon Explorer. I say Vay is lousy, but not all agree
with that statement. There are some others too, like Heimdall and Revengers of Vengeance, but I
can't remember any more top-of-the-line items.
Wheels
It's funny you mention Snatcher,
as
Kojima just announced some kind of radio drama project related to
that. Shining Force CD of
course was the big game I was always interested in playing on the Sega
CD. When I actually did get a chance to play it, I was somewhat
disappointed to find out it was just a port of two Game Gear games.
Seems like a missed opportunity on Camelot's part that I find a bit
surprising. Was it an early release or something, perhaps that Sega
wanted out quickly? Popful Mail I'm
sure
is brilliant, given the developer, and another Sega CD game I'd
really like to play. Dungeon Explorer
showed up on Sega CD? That's not much more than a gauntlet type game
right? We've got another version of that on virtual console for those
interested in it at least. As for Vay,
did
you know its available for the iPhone? I've picked it up but haven't
really played it yet. I've never heard of the other two games, but all
in all, why the heck hasn't Sega done many re-releases of Sega CD
games? Its not like emulation is any harder than the Genesis.
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Connection game time! Link The
Day of the Beast (El Dia de la Bestia) (1995) to Magical Vacation!
Wheels
The Day of
the Beast was distributed in the US on DVD by 20th Century Fox
(2006) -> 20th Century Fox collaborated with Walden Media on several
movies -> Walden Media's Prince
Caspian was distributed by Disney -> Disney home video
released the Mario Bros. film
on
DVD -> Nintendo owns the Super Mario Bros. franchise
obviously -> Nintendo published Magical
Vacation.
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Another cold-hearted reminiscence of the fifth Fire Emblem title. The
dismounting aspect of the third game was lousy, but now it's
back! How does dismounting work, you ask? Well, any
character on a mount (cavalry, troubadour, pegasus knight, dragon
knight) cannot ride it indoors, forcing you to dismount the character
in order to go inside. This drops movement and forces the
characters to use swords, when most of them are using lances while on
their mounts, thus negating all the weapon experience they've
accumulated for their usual armament. Better yet, for the fifth
game in particular, anybody who is mounted can attempt to capture
unmounted enemies - but when dismounted, it's back to relying on their
normal constitution, which often isn't adequate for the job!
Isn't that great? This is still an improvement over the third Fire Emblem game, which originated
the dismounting system, and which has yet to be seen again outside of
these two installments. In the third game, characters actually
lost statistics upon dismounting, because the stats were apparently
part of the steed and not the character.
Wheels
Considering how much I respect the developers of Fire Emblem, it surprises me to
hear how many things they screwed up on in some of the games. I can
understand forcing the characters to dismount, but pretty much making
those characters useless when they do dismount? I kind of get what they
were going for, but it sounds like the result is pretty horrible.
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Still speculating about Saturn games seeing ports, eh? Well,
here's an easy link between Radiant
Silvergun and Guardian Heroes:
both
were
made
by
Treasure. Treasure was a big Sega supporter,
but what other Saturn games did the company make? Silhouette Mirage saw a PlayStation
port (although reputedly the Saturn original was superior in some ways,
such as not being made artificially harder by Working
Designs). I can't think of any other Treasure titles on the
system, and until something not made by Treasure sees a port elsewhere,
I'm considering it a localized phenomenon.
Wheels
I'd have to agree. Treasure has the kind of following that will
likely get people to buy these ports regardless of their system of
origin, whereas many other Saturn games are quite unknown to the
general gaming populace. The best hope would be for emulated releases
akin to that of PS1 games. I'd imagine the difficulties of Saturn
emulation have so far prevented this from happening.
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There are a lot of series I'd like to see again (as anybody who can
remember all the way back to last fall will recall), but I'll just say Grandia for now. Combat
matters to me the most, and those games consistently delivered.
Wheels
I've only played Grandia II, but given how fantastic
combat is in that I'd love to see more from the series. More
specifically I'd just like to see new things from Game Arts, with their
two big recent releases being a port of Lunar and a licensed TMNT game. Are they in poor shape
financially or something?
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More Shining Force III
stories. Well, how about the boat battle with Medion? After
getting Gracia from the holy temple of Elbesem, he's attacked by
General Crewart's ship. Aside from Zero (who can fly), most of
the characters can't do anything except try to fight his own birdmen as
they fly over to attack. Instead, two characters get to man the
cannons and trade fire with Crewart's cannons. There's a certain
pattern at play, since the enemy cannons will fire at a certain point
every time you play, but finding that pattern is something I'll let you
determine. After this battle ends, Crewart tries to board your
ship, so it's time to fight it out with his troops and throw them back,
then take down their boss.
Wheels
I always had fun with the many battles on ships in the Shining Force series, so fights
that sound like actual ship to ship combat could be amazing!
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Actually, the battle immediately preceding this is quite memorable
too. Upon entering the Elbesem temple, Medion and his team find
Basanda and Dessheren waiting for them. Those two are promptly
assaulted by the six Rainblood, though. The Rainblood rip the two
strongest Bulzome priests apart, and if you haven't taken advantage of
the ability to freeze a pond on the battlefield in order to enter a
doorway, they'll go after you next - and they cannot be beaten
here. Inside that doorway is the rest of the enemy force,
protecting Fiale as he tries to make Gracia remove the only known
weapon that can hurt Bulzome.
Wheels
Yikes, so is that an auto loss if you haven't done that? Very
interesting battle. Urge to play through Shining Force III completely
rising...
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Speaking of Dessheren, you remember her from the introduction to the
four High Priests of Bulzome that Synbios received, right? Well,
there's a reason Synbios never sees her again, and it's because she's
making Medion's life miserable. She's the strongest of the High
Priests (though Basanda is a close second) and a worthy foe with her
Hell Dragon summon.
Medion's is also the only Scenario in which you'll meet Garvin, the
governor of Saraband. He looks quite Dickensian, and fighting him
is rather tense, since it requires your smaller team to enter his giant
tank that is enroute to smash down the wall protecting the Aspinian
capital, right after Synbios killed Prince Arrawnt and reoccupied the
place (you remember that, right?)
Wheels
I vaguely remember it yes. It's been a long time, and given the length
of the game it's hard to remember everything. So this battle involves
not only fighting enemies but actually having to attack and get into a
tank as well? Sounds quite interesting.
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As for the conclusion of both Scenario
1 and 2, it arises
from Domaric's ambition. Medion's final fight is against
Synbios's backup team, the people who went to the dam. After
beating them, general Tybalt and Yasha must be put down. Then
Domaric reveals that he will force Medion to fight Synbios by putting
his mother's life on the line - he sent a note to the Empire that will
keep Medion's mother Melinda under guard, answerable should his wishes
not be met. Well, Medion is very close to his mother, and all the
members of his Shining Force will follow his lead in this matter.
Before he and Synbios can throw down, though, word arrives from Yasha
that Julian is on the way....
Wheels
Well that is certainly an exciting way to the end game. I have feeling
I know why you keep throwing these stories my way, you want me to
finally play through parts two and three! Well good sir, it's working!
I need to get on this...
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More connection game time! Link The
Godless
Girl to Rondo of
Swords!
Wheels
The Godless
Girl was distributed by Pathé Exchange -> Pathé
Exchange was
originally owned by Pathé -> Some of Pathe's current films
are
distributed by 20th Century Fox -> Fox distributed Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
in Japan -> The Final Fantasy franchise
is
owned by Square-Enix -> Square-Enix currently owns the Ogre Battle franchise -> The
PS1
version of Ogre Battle was
localized in the US by Atlus -> Atlus published Rondo of Swords
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You've never seen a full Godzilla movie, huh? Well, your
assignment is to go watch the 1954 original. RIGHT NOW.
Preferably avoid the 1956 American reedit Godzilla: King of the Monsters,
since it cuts a ton of the content away. The original movie isn't
representative of the many many sequels since it actually takes thing
seriously and is an obvious allegory for the nuclear experience Japan
had recently suffered, but you can acquaint yourself with something
like Godzilla vs. Gigan
whenever you're ready to watch goofy aliens sending their pet monsters
to try conquering Earth. In other words, they're not quite as
serious.
JuMeSyn
Wheels
I shall have to track down the original! I'll be signing up for netflix
soon, any idea if they have a lot of older movies in their streaming
service? If not, I'm sure it is readily available in some form or
another. I will let you know what I think!
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So Very Many Hex Based Games
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Wheels,
Enjoying Q&A as always. For some reason, the people with whom I
work don't want to sit around discussing RPGs all day, so it's nice to
read your thoughts and those of the readers.
Wheels
That's disappointing! I could
certainly sit around talking about RPGs all day, and really that's how
I ended up writing this column! Anyway, let's see what's on your mind!
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I am beginning to suspect you were holding back when you said you "can
think of only one tactical rpg...that uses a hex grid" in the June 10 Ask
Wheels. As someone who connects way random movies from 70 years ago
to video games created in the last 20 years, I can't imagine you truly
haven't played some of the games readers have already written to tell
you about the past two weeks. I'm going to assume that your comment was
an intentional plant to fire us up to write in and not true ignorance.
Don't correct me if I assume wrong. Keep that image!
Wheels
Well the thing is that I...err yes you
are correct! This was a diabolic plot to get you readers to write in
and talk about the many hex based games I "forgot" about. For staying
quiet about my laziness in researching...err I mean for figuring out my
genius plot, you've won yourself a copy of Cthulhu Save the World once it's
released on Steam!
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Anyway, I am writing to submit two more hex-based tactical RPGs for
discussion. The first is Brigandine,
one
of my all-time favorite PSX
games. See the hexes in this pic.
Brigandine
placed
players
in the typical war-torn land that we often
see in SRPGs, but the stories behind the characters were compelling,
and the ability to choose a starting country was nice for replay value.
I loved replaying the game and trying to level up different creatures
to see all of the upgrades. The second PSX game I wanted to mention
that featured tactical movement on hex grids was The Unholy War. See
its jaggy hexes here.
It
was
some
kind
of
weird fighter/tactical hybrid where you moved
around on the hexes and tried to match up your tactical advantage of
your creature vs. the opponent (some kind of rock/paper/scissors thing)
before entering combat. I don't remember it being awesome, but I recall
having a few fun nights with it in the college dorms.
Wheels
Brigandine
certainly fits the bill of tactical RPGs
using hexes. It sounds like an excellent game. I always enjoy strategy
games that let you play on different sides like that, this almost
sounds similar to Dragon Force,
only
with turn based combat. Sadly, being an Atlus release it's
expensive and I've never been able to give it a try. I'll keep an eye
out for an inexpensive copy based on your recommendation though!
As for Unholy War, it sounds
like a pretty odd fighting game. It's always nice to have a bit of
depth like that though, as fighting games can often be pretty shallow
as far as single player goes. Fun fact: the original developer of Unholy War is now an Activision
owned developer that appears to be stuck doing licensed games, and also
the new Spyro. They're also
the developers of the classic game Pandemonium!
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So there you go--two more hex-based tactical games at your disposal. It
still doesn't answer the original question FowlSorcerous asked: "Why do
so few tactical RPGs use hex grids?" I have enjoyed the ones I have
played and could use some more myself.
Until next time, take care.
--
Danny Gourley
Wheels
Other than the bad Albert Odyssey games, that seems to
be the theme with these hex-based tactical games. They're all quite
good! I have no idea why there aren't more of them, but hopefully we'll
see more in the near future.
Look forward to hearing from you again sir!
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1. What game do you have a burning desire to see a sequel of? Shining
Force...the spin offs don't count in my book
Wheels
I couldn't agree more, Shining Force
needs a true sequel, and not the many games with the "Shining" name that have little to
nothing to do with the original series. I know the original developers
will never work on the series again, but I'm sure they could find a way
to do a proper sequel in the original game world. Would probably have
to be a portable game though, I doubt Sega will do another Tactical
game for a console after Valkyria
Chronicles failed to light up the sales charts.
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2. Which system will replace the PSP as the go-to JRPG platform?
Meh...not much of a on the go gamer
Wheels
This is something that you need to fix! If you're a fan of Tactical
games in the vein of Shining Force
then you'll find plenty to enjoy on portable systems. You can get a
Nintendo DS for cheap right now, so it could be the perfect time to
jump in.
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3. What long dormant RPG series do you want to see make a return? Shining Force!!!!!!
Wheels
I'm there with you, though I'd also settle for a similar game from the
folks at Camelot, perhaps as an off-shoot of the Golden Sun series.
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4. Guardian Heroes is finally
seeing a re-release, will more Saturn games follow? Hopefully. And
hopefully localization of Shining
Force III - Chapters 2 & 3
Wheels
Hope is about all we've got right now, as it's already been pointed out
that so far we've only seen games from Treasure. Perhaps at some point
we'll see games released via emulation like we often do for their
Genesis games, on some future "virtual console". As for Chapters two
and three of Shining Force III,
a kind and awesome group of people has translations of those covered
over at Shining
Force
Central.
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5. What makes Falcom's games so different than other Japanese games,
and why have they been able to have success on odd platforms for so
long? They just have that certain charm
Wheels
They do have that certain charm, but having fantastic music certainly
helps! I've played a lot of Falcom games now, and I don't think I've
played a single one that had bad music. There were a few were it wasn't
amazing, but certainly never bad. They are quite a unique developer and
I hope we see their games make it over here on a regular basis from now
on.
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PS
I'm not a Shining Force fan
boy or anything :)
Chris
Wheels
Well sir, you certainly have come to the right place to discuss things
with other Shining Force fans!
Keep
hoping for a new game in the series, there is nothing wronging
with keeping a positive outlook!
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And with that, I'm off! Keep those contest entries coming!
See you all in two weeks!
-Wheels
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Hot Topics:
1. What game do you have a burning desire to see a
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games follow?
5. What makes Falcom's games so different than other Japanese games,
and why have they been able to have success on odd platforms for so
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