When you look at the Shining Force series these days, it's always with the thought of how great the series used to be as oppose to how great the series is today. The Shining Force series has really shifted from being an excellent strategy rpg series to a hack and slash rpg series that today's gamers now come to know. The word respectable would be the best polite word to use in describing previous Shining games such as Shining Tears and Shining Force Neo. The release of Shining Force EXA comes on the hills of its predecessor, Shining Force Neo, giving hope to long time Shining Force fans that EXA might be the Shining Force game that will return the series to its grassroots back in the days of the Sega consoles. Is Shining Force EXA finally the Shining Force game that will once again restore the Shining Force series as one of the great rpg series around? Unfortunately to all disappointing Shining Force fans out there, the answer to that is a clear cut, "NO". Here in this review, we are going to take a look at just what's wrong with this game and what's right about it.
STORY
"To Draw The Shining Force Sword"
There can only be one hero.
The world of Shining Force EXA is inhabited by humans, beasts, and Magnus on a continent that is divided by two regions called the Noswald Empire of the humans and Fyrlandt, home of the Magnus. For centuries these two regions have been at odds with one another but only now have the conflict between these two regions have become so close to all out war that strife and carnage have spread throughout the regions that the people in these regions are suffering due to this war. Trying to resolve and end this war conflict between these two regions, a small handful of rebels have decided to gather in a forgotten place called II'Gonia Valley. The four rebels are Toma, Cyrille, Maebelle, and Gadfort. Each of these individuals has come together in search of the holy sword called Shining Force. It is said that whoever is the bearer of the Shining Force will be granted great powers that all will bow before them. When the four individuals managed to find the Shining Force sword, only Toma however was able to draw the Shining Force out of its placeholder. Toma soon learned that the place that Shining Force was kept in is actually a powerful fortress called Geo-Fortress. The Geo-Fortress keeper, Zenus, explained to Toma that who ever is the bearer of the Shining Force Sword is the one that has the power to control this powerful fortress to do its bidding. Tomas would like to use the power of the Shining Force Sword and the Geo-Fortress so he can become king of the continent so that both the Noswald Empire and Fyrlandt will stop raging war against one another. However the rulers of both Fyrlandt and Noswald will not sit back so kindly as to allow Tomas to rule over them without a fight. Soon Tomas and his friends find themselves as targets for both rulers as the power struggle for the Shining Force sword begins. And during all this war and chaos for the power of the Shiniing Force, a great evil is about to awaken. Only by entering the story of Shining Force EXA will you learn the secret of the holy sword and the dark evil that threatens the world.
There are a few problems with the story. The background development in terms of events leading up to current events in the world that this game takes place in is badly developed for gamers to understand or even appreciate the story plotlines. We are told through a small summary of how the two regions, the Noswald Empire and Fyrlandt, have been having conflict with each other due to hatred and prejudice for one another but the story itself doesn't really show us the reason behind this hatred or the people in these regions that are suffering due to the war conflict between the two regions. Add into the fact that the story rarely goes into these regions for us to take a look at the regions up close to form an opinion of the regions and the people that inhabited the regions that you really can't seem to get emotionally involve in the war storyline between these two regions. You just end up not caring about this so called war at all. You become detached to the whole basic plotline of conflict between the different species from the get go. Another factor is that while the game is base around the war conflict between the Noswald Empire and Fyrlandt, its main focus is centered on the holy sword called Shining Force which is describe in the story as the sword that will help end the war and grant its user great power. But in reality the Shining Force sword really had no impact on the actual storyline at all. You don't even get to use this so called Shining Force sword as a weapon in the game. You only see the Shining Force Sword being drawn out for battle a few times in the story cut scenes but that's about it. The entire game is base around this Shining Force sword that basically did nothing in the whole story. You don't even use the sword to fight against the main evil boss at the end of the story. Kind of makes you want to scratch your head as to why even include this Shining Force sword in the storyline when you don't even use the Shining Force sword at all during the entire game. Another problem that can be added to the emptiness of the whole plotline involving the Shining Force sword is that the characters introduce in this entire storyline are all dull with little purpose to the entire story other than the main two heroes. In order to make a story into a good story, you need to have the following ingredients: a meaningful good plotline, a good detail historical background of the story that the plot evolves around, and a cast of characters that readers can care about. Well the problem here is that the story in Shining Force EXA has none of those ingredients than the end result is a very stale storyline that you really don't care about by the time you finish the game.
Score 5/10
CHARACTERS
Ok, group meeting guys.
Much like with the overall story of Shining Force EXA, the cast of characters in this game is nothing more than an average at best. The game feature two main heroes name Toma and Cyrille with 8 supporting heroes name Maebelle, Gadfort, Amitaliri, Faulkin, Duga, Adam, Garyu, and Avalan. You think with up to ten unique characters that this game would have some great character developments and plotlines to go with them but that's not the case here. First off all the supporting heroes or supporting characters have no effect on the story at all nor does the story spend any time developing who these supporting characters are. The supporting characters randomly talk here and there in some story scenes but for the most part they are nothing more than nameless characters to be used as party members. You can easily erase all the names of the characters in this game and it would have little to no impact on the actual story of this game. That's just how little involve these supporting characters are in this game storyline. And without a strong support cast of characters the game would need to focus heavily on the main characters to carry the story for the entire game. Unfortunately on the main character front, this too is where the game fails to produce good results. Both Toma and Cyrille have little background developments to them at all. The story spend all of a couple of minutes on letting us know where they came from and what motive them to be heroes but in the end that's about all there is to them. You don't really develop any sort of emotional connection to the main characters at all to care about them and at times the main characters even come off annoying than anything else due to their personalities being portray in the story. Even when the story tries very hard to pair them up as a couple near the end, you just don't care which way or the other if they are a couple or not because the story didn't even do a good job in making them believable characters that are in love with one another. In the end of it all, everything comes off as a big whoopy do feeling that you get about these characters on whether or not they live or die in this game. The cast of characters is always the driving force in determining if the story will be good or bad in the end because if you don't care about the cast of characters, than you probably won't care too much about the end result of the storyline on what happens to these characters whether they live or die. Shining Force EXA produces one of the most forgettable, average casts of characters around.
Score: 5/10
GRAPHICS
Looking at the Geo-Fortress
Visually speaking this game is quite appealing in that department. The overall theme is that of a cel-shading look which is most noticeable in the anime cut scenes as oppose to the actual gameplay graphics. The cel-shading anime scenes are drawn and colored very beautifully with a smooth look to them. The only drawback is that there aren't enough anime scenes in the game overall. But what scenes that are presented in the game are ones that are very eye catching for gamers. In terms of the gamplay look, the characters 3-D models and all the different monsters in the game are design nicely with a different and unique look to them. The models are actually done in cel-shading but you can't tell its cel-shading much unless you take a very close up look. Even the background environments have a rich color in them that make it very appealing to look at. While the environments and the models of both the characters and monsters all have nice details on them, it's not as fully detailed as you would like it to be or can be but it's detailed enough that the game is still visually appealing overall with it's anime style look. It a strange way you can describe the graphics as a simple appealing anime look as oppose to the more realistic 3-D look of some other rpg games. The game isn't totally eye popping but its good enough that you can't complain about the graphics. There just aren't enough scenes in the game overall to showcase how good the graphics can be.
Score: 7/10
MUSIC
Nice night. Could use some music.
The music and sound effects in this game is decent but not over powering that it really have an effect on the enjoyment of the game itself. Most of the musical scores are base on battles and areas such as dungeons and fields. The music lacks those emotional key storyline musical scores because the story itself lacks those story scenes. So what you are left with is your basic hack and slash background tempo music to keep the gameplay interesting but no musical scores that can help keep the story interesting. There's a lot of voice acting in this game but unfortunately the voice acting seem a bit stale and lack any emotion. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first reason is that the script of the actual story itself isn't very well written and some of the dialogue use in the script just comes off dumb when performed out loud. The second reason is that the voice actors themselves don't actually seem like they are acting but more like they are just reading their lines and not actually getting into the role of the characters they are playing. To sum it up, the music is okay while the voice acting could have been done much better.
Score: 6/10
GAMEPLAY
Equipment and Power Arts
The madness of Ancient Arenas
Game Information
Genre: Action RPG
Publisher: SEGA
Disc: 1 DVD Disc
Memory: 130 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Analog Control: Yes
Vibration Function: Yes
Rating: Everyone 10+
Release: March 2007
The gameplay is kind of similar to what was feature in Shining Force Neo but with things a bit more different this time around. This is an action rpg game but the gameplay is actually broken up into two heroes and two different type of gameplay elements. For the entire game you will be switching back and forth between Toma and Cyrille. Toma offers more of a brute force hack and slash approach while Cyrille offers more in the magic approach and distance attacks. Each character has their own separate healing items and equipment but they share money and party members together. Toma can use one handed weapons with a shield or two handed weapons while Cyrille can use crossbows or magic books. With this in mind, it's best to use the correct hero for certain situations which is why keeping each hero level even is a good idea. Each hero can have up to two party members in their party to help them on their journey. You can pretty much switch party members in and out at anytime if you decide to warp back to the Geo-Fortress. Each party member themselves have their own unique equipment that you can find during your journey in the game. Party members equipment don't really boost the stats of the party members themselves but what these equipment do offer is a different tactical approach that the party member may use during fights with monsters. There are 8 different party members to choose from and each party member have something different to offer in terms of strength and weaknesses so keeping all the party members level evenly is a good idea as well. The great thing about the gameplay is that the game does allow under level or under used party members to catch up in level pretty quickly if you decide to bring in a party member that happens to fall behind the other party members. Now as for how the actual gameplay is broken up into two different parts, you have the regular action rpg story element where you go exploring dungeons and fields to reach your destination to progress the storyline and you have the Geo-Fortress gameplay where one of your two hero will stay behind to defend the Geo-Fortress from invading attacks. The regular action rpg story gameplay is pretty linear where the Geo-Fortress Keeper, Zenus, will give you direction on where you need to head off to and how to complete your mission objective before you can return to the Geo-Fortress to end the chapter of the story. From here you decide on which hero you want to take on your journey and the party members that will accompany him or her. As you make your way toward your destination, you'll encounter monsters resistant along the way to swarm of monsters resistant. Just defeat them all to make your way to your destination. When facing a swarm of monsters that can consists of up to 30 or more monsters all at once, the game sometimes slows down due to timeframe lag with so many monster models all over the screen. This is a small hindrance to what is really a cool feature seeing so many monsters charging at you all at once and you cutting them down with your sword or magic spells. The game does provide a mini map that slowly gets uncovered as you explore every inch of the field map or dungeon map so you really can't get lost. You might have to pull some switches here and there in order to unlock obstacles that may block your path as you make your way to your mission destination. This part of the gameplay is very straight forward and easy to get into. Now for the Geo-Fortress part of the gameplay, from time to time while one of your heroes is trekking through the region to complete the story mission, the Geo-Fortress will come under attack from either the Noswald forces or from the Magnus forces. If the Geo-Fortress is under attack then the game will instantly stop in the regular story mode and switches immediately back to the Geo-Fortress where the other hero has remained behind to defend the fortress. At this point the hero that stays behind to defend the Geo-Fortress can select his or her party members and than head out to the exit that Zenus informed them of where the attack on the Fortress is coming from. Upon arriving at the point of attack where the invading forces are coming from, your objective in defending the Geo-Fortress is by protecting the Photon Converter from enemy attacks. You do this by simply killing as many of the swarming monsters as possible before the Photon Converter loses its entire HP. After a short while of killing as many monsters as possible, a mini boss will appear. At this point your objective goes from defending the Photon Converter to killing off the mini boss to end the Geo-Fortress invading gameplay segment. Once the mini boss is dead, the game then switches back to the regular segment of the story quest mission where you last left off with the other hero. In a sense you can say that the story action rpg gameplay is the regular gameplay of the game while the Geo-Fortress segment is an added distraction that pops up from time to time to take you away from the regular storyline gameplay to keep things from getting boring during the regular storyline gameplay. But even the Geo-Fortress can become quite repetitive and annoying too since it does randomly pull you away from the regular story gameplay at any moment when you really don't want to be pulled away from the regular story gameplay. Still if you into action rpg gameplay than this game should have those elements for you to be satisfy with. Now let's go over some of the unique features that this game provided us with.
Power Arts: Probably one of the best feature in this game is the introduction of Power Arts for your heroes. Power Arts are actually stats boosting skills for each character. The game provides an abundance of these Power Arts for you to learn and master. You normally learn Power Arts by finding and examining a Power Stone. Once you learn a Power Art, you'll need to use Mythrils on it to activate the Power Art or increase the level of the Power Arts. Each Power Art has a different set maximum number of levels that you can increase the Power Art to. Secret Arts: Secrets Arts are actually special skills that can be equipped onto a weapon or gear. You can find these Secret Art scrolls from treasure chest or by defeating mini bosses in the game. These skills will actually help you offensively or defensively depending on the skills and the situation that you are equipping them. Understanding and learning which skills you should equip on your gear is the key to making this game much easier for you. Mythril: In order to master the level of any power arts or even raise the effectiveness of any power arts, you'll need Mythrils and lots of them. Mythrils can sometimes be dropped from monsters or found in treasure chests but the most common way of finding Mythrils is by bashing away at a Mythril stone. Charge Attacks: A charge attack is a powerful single blow that does massive damage to an enemy as well as knocking them backwards. You only need to hold down the attack button for a few seconds to power up a charge attack. Once you release the attack button, the charge attack is delivered. Special Attacks: A special attack is an upgraded version of a charge attack but the special attack also consume MP during its usage. A special attack can only be delivery immediately after a charge attack has been delivered. Once a charge attack has been delivered, immediately hold down the attack button like you would do for a charge attack. If done right, the charge attack would turn into a special attack instead. Ancient Arenas: You'll be able to find lots of Ancient Arenas during your
travel in this game. Ancient Arenas are purely optional stuff but completing them
will net you hidden Power Arts and Secret Arts. See the Extra/Replay section for
more details. Geo-Fortress: Beside providing another different type of gameplay from the regular action story gameplay, the Geo-Fortress also serve as your base of operations. Here at the Geo-Fortress you can store your equipments, buy items and gears, activate and increase your Power Arts and Secret Arts, as well as switch your two heroes in and out with different party members. Geo-Fortress itself can be upgraded and change to different modes to help you on your quest. You can upgrade the Geo-Fortress in level which in term will allow you to upgrade other parts of the Geo-Fortress to better your game. The Geo-Fortress Cannon, Energy Generator, Barrier, and Radar can all be upgrade to higher level to provide a better defensive and offensive fortress in the end. The Geo-Fortress also provides a Robot Factory for you to create and activate robots that will help you defend the Geo-Fortress in the Geo-Fortress part of the gameplay. There are three types of modes the Geo-Fortress can be switch to and they are Cannon Mode, Recovery Mode, and Search Mode. Cannon Mode allows you to fire your cannon at a greater distance. Recovery Mode allows your Geo-Fortress to recover its HP faster, and Search Mode allow you to search the surrounding areas for enemies and chests better. Canon Attacks: During your travel, you'll encounter obstacles that block your way that can't be destroy by normal means. The only way to remove these obstacles is by using the power of the canon from your Geo-Fortress. You can also use Canon Attacks on monsters as well but since canon attacks are so powerful, it does take awhile for the Geo-Fortress to power up and fire off a canon attack. Magic Attack: Using magic attack isn't the main focus in this game and only one of your hero, Cyrille, is sufficient with magic attack at best. Magic comes in different elements and in different type of magic attack. You can use Power Arts to boost the effectiveness and power of your magic attacks.
The gameplay for a hack and slash rpg game is consider guilty fun at best. While the hacking and slashing of monsters might get repetitive after awhile, it's still pretty fun to be surrounded by over 30 monsters at once while you bash them all away like Conan the Barbarian. There's also a bit of an unbalance to the gameplay too as sometimes you are too powerful due to leveling up and customizing your Power Arts and Secret Arts that you are over powering all the monsters in the game to the point where you can one hit kill dozens of monsters at once while at other times even when you are at an extremely high level with all your Power Arts and Secret Arts max out that you can still be killed easily in one hit by the monsters themselves that it frustrate you to no end. The game is sort of like a seesaw where sometimes it's too easy while other times it's too hard. Despite some of the new features introduce in the game, the game really doesn't offer anything else much other than the bashing of monsters. Whether or not this alone will keep you going for the rest for the entire game depends on you the gamer since the story and characters themselves is average at best in this game. The good news is that the game is pretty straight forward that doesn't require much problem solving that you can easy speed through the entire game quickly that you can finish it before the fun gets too repetitive and the story start to bore you out. Of course if you looking to try and get a 100% completion by doing all the extras in the game than you looking at nearly 60 hours of gameplay. That might be a bit too long for some of you gamers out there to put their time and effort into for such an average rpg game.
Score: 7/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
Woohoo! The title of EXA!
The Extras are probably the best feature in this game. The game doesn't really provide any real lengthy side quests for you to do but it does provide quite a few extra dungeons or areas that you can level up in and gain some extra Power Arts and Secret Arts. The three areas that are provided as extra areas to level and gain items in are Ancient Arenas, Geo-Fortress Training Facility, and Xeyon, the Castle of Mysteries. First there are a total of 20 Ancient Arenas that you can do. You only need to complete 1 Ancient Arena as part of the storyline while the rest of the Ancient Arenas are all optional areas to complete. Each Ancient Arenas consist of two floors and they all range in different difficulty levels. Completing and clearing out all the monsters in an Ancient Arena will usual net you a Power Art, Secret Art, Mythril, and Money for your characters. Next to the Ancient Arena, you have your Geo-Fortress Training Facility that can consist of up to 50 floors to complete. This is a great way to gain some extra levels as well as money, mythril, power arts, and secret arts. The Training Facility itself will be very difficulty to complete even if your characters were above the level of 100. Now in regards to the Xeyon Castle, this can only be access by using a New Game+ file once you finish the game your first time. This isn't actually a New Game+ file but more of a save file that loads up the game at the beginning of Chapter 14 again from your first game. This time around however all the items and money that you have earned from the first game gets carried over to this second game in Chapter 14. The purpose of this is that this time around, Xeyon Castle is unlocked for you to explore in Chapter 14. This is a pretty massive Castle where you can unlock and find the final weapons for all your characters as well as the usual Power Arts, Mythril, Money, and Secret Arts. I would say you would get a total of 20 extra hours from doing all the Ancient Arenas, Training Facility, and Xeyon. As for replay as in actually replaying the game again from Chapter 1, well….. I leave that up to you if you really enjoy playing this game.
Score: 8/10
Needless to say, Shining Force EXA pretty much ends up in the same category as Shining Force Neo, an average to barely above average action rpg with a lackluster storyline and characters. This is a game that's best left to be played if you really don't have any other rpg games that needs to be finished first. You won't be missing out on anything much if you decide to pass on purchasing this game. So once again, all Shining Force fans will have to wait for the next Shining Force game to get their hopes up again in hope that that game will be the one that goes back to its grassroots of being an excellent strategy rpg game. But for now, Shining Force EXA is just another disappointing Shining game amongst all the other previous disappointing Shining games.
