Shining Force: Difference between revisions
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''[[Shining Force]]'' is a series of turn-based strategy games, and is part of a [[The Multiverse|larger franchise]] known simply as the ''[[
''[[Shining Force]]'' begins in the kingdom of Guardiana, where the main character, Max, is put in charge of the titular Shining Force and charged with stopping an invasion from the rival Runefaust army. The army is controlled by Darksol, a mysterious cloaked man with aspirations to revive the monstrous Dark Dragon and use it to [[Take Over the World]]. It's a prequel to the first-person Genesis RPG ''[[Shining in
Its sequel, ''[[Shining Force]] II'', shifts the focus to the kingdom of Granseal, where an even ''greater'' demon lord named Zeon ([[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories|No]] [[Mobile Suit Gundam|relation]]) is sealed off by two jewels. A thief named Slade steals one of them, and thus breaks the seal on the monster. Zeon possesses the king of the neighboring Galam nation, causing him to do all sorts of freaky [[Evil Overlord]]-type deeds. This time, schoolkid Bowie and his three friends (Sarah, Chester and Jaha) form the core of the new Shining Force, and are sent to track down the jewels before Zeon can wreak any further havoc on the world. Takes place in the same world as the first game, although at the time there was only a [[Continuity Nod]] to prove it. (This game also suffers from the naming problems of the previous ones, referring to Darksol as Dark Sol, and Lucifer as Dark Dragon, an unrelated enemy from Shining Force I).
The ''Shining Force Gaiden'' games were released on the [[Game Gear]] (the first one never made it out of Japan), but were later [[Compilation Rerelease|repackaged]] and enhanced for the [[Sega CD]]. Of those, the first one stars Prince Nick of Cypress, who has to help Anri (part of the original Guardiana Shining Force who ascended to become Queen) find a cure for her poisoning at the hands of a rogue wizard named Woldol. At first, the people of Guardiana are suspicious of him, but eventually he turns out to be a trustworthy and effective leader, thus gaining their respect.
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Shining Hearts also gets a Anime Adaptation that started airing in as a part of the Spring of the 2012s.
Recently, a letter writing/video-uploading/fan-art showing campaign has been started by the fan community to reunite developer Camelot with Sega in time for the series' 20th anniversary. More information and ways you can contribute can be found here https://web.archive.org/web/20131025001634/http://sos.shiningforcecentral.com/
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* [[Action Girl]]: While the series is in no short supply, Sheela the Master-monk gains recognition even outside of the fan base; Her ditching of the [[White Magician Girl]] persona (with the exception of useful healing spells) to temper her body and eventual opening of her own dojo won her many a fan back in the day.
* [[Aerith and Bob]]: Every now and then a character will have a mundane name (Max, Sarah, Nick).
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** Also, Lyle the Strike Knight in SFI, even though you get him nearly halfway through the game. Centaur movement range on flat ground, 2-3 square archer range, high damage, and decent defense. You have to grind him up some so he has buffed stats before you promote him to Assault Knight, but when you do it is ''glorious.'' He ties with wolf warrior Zylo in terms of damage output with the added bonus of long range sniping ability.
** In II in general, while ''arrows'' and Archers are useless, the Brass Gunner is a [[Mighty Glacier]] with a ranged attack, and artillery shells do fairly good damage.
* [[Anti
** Subverted in ''Shining Force'', so any healing done gets 10 experience points without fail. You have won the moment you can use it 10 times per fight.
** Subverted even harder in Shining Force 2, and the GBA remake: You no longer had to actually heal damage to get the experience. Comes at the same rate. And Aura spells, which heal more than one character at a time, can give a healer ''25'' experience points.
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* [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]]: You can only have 12 characters in each battle. This can sometimes lead to having to make painful decisions over who gets bumped from the team when a strong new character comes along.
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: [[Curse|Cursed weapons]]. Despite sporting a far higher attack than even [[Penultimate Weapon|mithril weapons]], they carry negative drawbacks that make them undesirable. These include ebbing away at the wielder's hit points, [[Nerf|nerfing]] the wielder's strongest stats (Defense for Warriors, Movement for Knights; etc.), and even paralyzing them during an attack. Worse yet, they cannot be removed without the aid of a costly purification from a priest or a high-level detox spell.
* [[Back
* [[Badass]]: ''Plenty'' of examples.
** If you didn't read the above [[Annoying Arrows]] example with Lyle (SFI), then let this statement be an example: Once you put [[Big Badass Wolf|Zylo]] onto your team, chances are you will ''[[Lightning Bruiser|never]]'' remove him.
* [[Bare
* [[Battle Couple]]: The birdman Amon and her husband Balbaroy, from the first game; Janet and Elric, two elven archers, in the second game.
* [[Beef Gate]]: The Kraken of Shining Force II, whom can be challenged once the player receives the raft, but is best fought when the the player is ''required to'' fight it to advance. Also counts as [[That One Boss]] for some players, as it is one of the hardest bosses in the game.
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* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: If your save file is corrupted in Shining Force II, ominous music plays while the witch informs you that it's corrupted. Yes, they designed the game to play appropriate music for ''losing your file''.
* [[Bring My Red Jacket]]: Sir Lemon [AKA the Red Baron before he finally exits the [[Heel Face Revolving Door]]] can revive himself from death after a battle, and wears armor that is ''precisely'' the color of blood -- because it's ''painted with the blood of his dead enemies''.
* [[But Thou Must!]]: Most egregious moment is in ''II'', where Thou Must go kiss the Princess Elis, the [[
** This is also used to force the player to forgive bosses after they're defeated, no matter how much of a [[Dirty Coward]] or [[Complete Monster]] they are.
* [[Can't Drop the Hero]]: It never lets you. And when the hero dies, it's a game over. But because of this, it leads to the hero typically being many times stronger than the other characters. See [[One Man Party]] below.
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* [[Chess Motifs]]: A battle in ''Shining Force II'' takes place on a chess board. The pieces move like regular enemies though.
* [[Cognizant Limbs]]: The Kraken boss in ''Shining Force II'' and ''Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict''.
* [[Combat Medic]]: The [[Bare
* [[Comic Book Adaptation]]: In ''[[Sonic the Comic]]'', see above.
* [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]: Yes, it's a turn-based game, but the turns seem to be given at random, and it's not uncommon for an ememy to get two turns to kill your character in peril before that character gets one turn to move away or heal themselves. And in boss battles, the boss can get as many as three turns before you even get one, just enough to kill a character who before was at full health.
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* [[Clown Car Base]]: The tank that the Shining Force is kept in, in ''Shining Force II''.
* [[Crutch Character]]: Kiwi in ''Shining Force II'', who can also be [[Lost Forever]]. Although his defense is stellar right from the start, making him a useful [[Meat Shield]] if nothing else, defense has no effect on magic, and his [[Hit Point]] gains are always tiny, making him increasingly useless despite the ability (once promoted) to fly and breathe fire.
* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: Usually not the case; "Dark" or "Evil" items are generally [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique|cursed and damage their user]] in exchange for their awesome power, but when part of a [[Yin
* [[Death Seeker]]: Lemon from ''Shining Force II''. However, it later turns out he's [[Our Vampires Are Different|half-vampire]], and can't end his own life by conventional means.
* [[Defrosting Ice Queen]]: The whole story of Blanc Neige in ''Shining Tears''. And, no, [[An Ice Person|Her ice powers didn't defrost]].
* [[Disc One Final Boss]]: {{spoiler|Kane, in the first game.}}
* [[
* [[Doomed Hometown]]: The destruction of the first Granseal palace and town in SFII.
* [[Downer Ending]]: [[Subverted Trope]], the ending of the first Force game, where {{spoiler|Max is sunk under the water with the Chaos Breaker while a majority of the remaining of the force is [[Teleporters and Transporters|Egressed]] out scot-free,}} it is rather convincing until {{spoiler|you watch the cut scene after the credits, showing Max and Adam and alive and well}}.
** Still a bit of a downer though, because {{spoiler|[[What the Hell, Hero?|Max has for some reason chosen to let his friends who care for him dearly and mourned him at the end of the game believe that he is dead when he isn't]].}}
*** However he {{spoiler|is a playable character in Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict}}.
* [[Dronejam]]
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* Expy: Fenrir in Shining Blade is essentially an expy of [[Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger|Doggie Kruiser]].
* [[Face Heel Turn]]: in ''[[Shining Force]] II'', {{spoiler|Oddler, the blind boy who travels with you for about a while, later [[The Reveal|reveals himself]] as Odd-Eye, one of Zeon's top fighters.}}
* [[Fake Difficulty]]: In ''Shining Force II'', there is a boss called Taros that can only be defeated by the main character, who is the only one that can damage it with a [[Forgotten Superweapon|special sword]]. This scenario repeats itself in the second [[Gaiden Game]], "The Sword of Hajya". Prince Nick, whose right arm is turned to stone and rendered unusable for the majority of the game, [[Last
* [[Fake King]]: In ''The Sword of Hayja'', a king gets sacrificed to Iom, and one of Iom's minions take's the king's place.
* [[Fire, Ice, Lightning]]: Or rather, Blaze, Freeze and Bolt/Spark.
* [[Flunky Boss]]: Pretty much every boss in the games is this.
* [[Fragile Speedster]]: Archers and birdmen, the latter of whom [[Captain Obvious|can fly]]. Also Slade in ''SFII''.
* [[Frickin' Laser Beams]]
* [[Furry Confusion]]: Shining Force II has an anthropomorphic rat character named Slade, and later in the game there is a boss that is a real rat.
* [[Game Mod]]: For starters there's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGVf6Hdni7g Shining Force 2 CD-I], a fan-made [[
* [[Geo Effects]]: Terrain plays a role in giving a defense bonus, as well as a movement pentalty.
* [[Glass Cannon]]: Mages/Wizards, archers, and occasionally certain centaurs.
* [[Guide Dang It]]: Recruiting the more obscure characters can get silly sometimes, but the first game takes the crown: the ninja Hanzo is hiding in one of the game's towns disguised as a bush, and will join if you inspect his leafy disguise. In the US version, there's {{spoiler|a piece of paper on the bush to make it stand out}}. In the Japanese edition, he looks like ''every other bush in the game'', none of which have anything to gain by examining them.
* [[Half
* [[Headless Horseman]]: In the first game, Dullahans are headless ''centaur'' knights that you start to encounter from the march to Dragonia onwards.
* [[Heel Face Turn]]: Jaro (if you don't attack him) and Lemon in ''SF II'', and Graham in ''SFG II''. Also {{spoiler|takes on an NPC role through Kane}} in the original ''Shining Force''.
* [[Heroic Mime]]: Max in ''Shining Force I''. In the remake, he's "upgraded" to [[Laser
* [[Hero Must Survive]]: Central to every game. You are given a hero character who acts as the leader of the force. If they die, you lose and are sent back to the last priest.
* [[Hidden Elf Village|Hidden Dwarf Village]]
* [[Hobbits]]: Halflings are a common race, typified by Lowe from the first game.
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja]]: Hanzo in the first game, {{spoiler|Slade}} in the second once promoted.
* [[Interspecies Romance]]: It's implied Mae has a thing for Max in the first game. Mae is a centaur.
* [[
* [[Joke Character]]: Jogurt in the first game, the penguins in the third. Jogurt can only inflict [[Scratch Damage]], and if by some twist of fate he happens to kill someone, he receives an item that can have any other player character turn into him.
* [[Kill Sat]]: In the remake of the first game, this powers a line of spells exclusive to Max.
* [[Kleptomaniac Hero, Found Underwear]] (Appears in II)
* [[
{{quote|
Kisaragi: Yes, T...H...A...T!
Mayfair: That's disgusting! }}
* [[Landmark of Lore]]: ''SF II'' contains a [[Lost Technology|hidden]] [[Cool Ship|airship]] that has the same outline as the Nazca lines.
* [[Let's Split Up, Gang!]]: The Shining Force gets separated for a while in ''The Sword of Haija'' and you must work through a few battles with only six characters.
* [[Light Is Good]]: In ''Shining Force II'' two of the main [[Amplifier Artifact|Amplifier Artifacts]] are the Jewel of Light and the Jewel of Evil, not Darkness.
* [[Lions and Tigers
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: Usually about thirty per game, some of whom are [[Optional Party Member|Optional Party Members]], and can be [[Lost Forever]] if you're not prudent. You're also left with a choice of who to use since you can only have 12 characters at a time attending a battle.
* [[Lost Forever]]: A few characters, and often items you miss. The Game Gear version has an interesting subversion for items, where you can simply buy items you miss from the shop under deals. They cost a lot, which would be annoying, except the game soon ends up as [[Money for Nothing]].
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** The first game for the Sega Genesis has this in spades, due to the game being very linear with little backtracking. If you missed recruiting a character or performing the steps you need to for them to show up later, you've lost them for good. Thirteen out of the thirty characters in the game are optional and while most of them are hard to miss, on a first play-through the player will have no idea that they've screwed up and missed out on some of the more useful and powerful force members until long after the fact.
* [[Lost Technology]]: All over the place.
* [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]: In the first game, {{spoiler|Max is the brother of Kane, one of Runefaust's top generals}}. Similarly in the Game Gear version, {{spoiler|Hiemdiel, [[The Mole]], is your brother.}}
* [[Magikarp Power]]: Bleu, the baby dragon in the first game; Arthur, a Centaur also from the first game; and Slade, the rat thief from the second. Arguably, Domingo in the first game as well - a low level mage that turns into a [[Meat Shield]] at higher levels, despite being otherwise portrayed as the typical [[Squishy Wizard]].
* [[The Man Behind the Man]]: {{spoiler|Almost every boss you will ever fight in the first game is actually innocent and under the control of Darksol. [[But Thou Must!|You aren't allowed to hold grudges against any of them]] no matter how angry you are after they've destroyed most of your force and you've had so much trouble defeating them.}}
* [[Meat Shield]]: Domingo's status as this bears repeating. He eventually gets one of the best HP and defense in the game. ''And'' the best evasion. So ''if'' a character can hit him, they generally only do [[Scratch Damage]], and he has enough HP to weather it all. He's also one of the highest priority targets to the computer, above most healers and other magicians, and below Max, [[The Hero]]. This means that if you put Domingo and almost any other character on either side of an opponent, they'll always go for him, allowing the other to hit them repeatedly from behind.
* [[Megumi Hayashibara]]: Neige, in the game. In ''Tears X Wind'', her lines were recorded by someone else (Ayako Kawasumi, AKA [[Fate/stay
* [[Mirror Match]]: In Book 3 of ''Shining Force CD''.
* [[Mithril]]: In the second game you'll find Mithril in different places, and if you hold onto them for the whole game near the end the Dwarf blacksmith will forge powerful Mithril weapons for your force.
** Amusingly enough, Mithril is the name of the currency in Feather, which you get from every single enemy you kill. However, since it seems to take the form of blue crystals, it's probably not the same thing.
** In ''Shining Force EXA'', Mithril is used to power up your weapons and armor.
* [[My Country, Right or Wrong]]: This is the only reason General Eliot fights you in the first game. In the second, Lemon is this way when he obeys an obviously [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] king who commands him and his army to slaughter the citizens of a city that was their ally.
* [[Name of Cain]]: Kane in the first game.
* [[Non
* [[One
* [[One Man Party]]: The flipside to [[Anti
** Healers are an exception, as they gain a fair chunk of XP when they heal someone. Also, back-row characters can be leveled up by farming injured enemies.
*** Making Sheela and Karna (if you promote her to Master Monk instead of Sarah) absolute wrecking machines. High Attack + Aura + Boost = A character who will level up very, very, VERY fast.
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** In the second game, Gunther the werewolf starts out looking like just a hairy man, but after he gets a promotion he starts looking more like a wolf.
* [[Powered Armor]]: Guntz's suit of steam armor and Kokichi's flying machine, both from ''SFI''.
* [[Rare Candy]]: The food items, like Quick Chicken boosts dexterity, Power Potions or Power Wines boost attacks, Defense Potions or Protect Milk rarises defenses, Bright Honey increases mana (MP), and Life Bread boosts HP.
* [[Random Encounters]]: Shining Force I has [[Averted Trope|no random battles whatsoever.]] Every battle is well distinguished from the others.
* [[Redemption Demotion]]: Lemon in ''SFII'' is significantly stronger when you fight against him (in fact he's almost a [[That One Boss]]) than he is when he joins your team. [[Handwaved]] by the fact that he's no longer being controlled by a demon spirit, but still.
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* [[Samurai]]: Musashi, a secret character from the first game and ''Shining Force CD'', inexplicably renamed Rush in the latter's US version.
* [[Save the Princess]]: In ''Shining Force II''. A rare [[Gender Flip]] occurs in ''The Sword of Hayja'' where you must save the prince.
* [[Schizo
* [[Sealed Evil in
* [[Sealed Room in
* [[She Cleans Up Nicely]]: A lot of the female characters get [[Fan Service Pack|surprisingly hotter]] when they get a promotion. This is most blatantly the case for Master Monks in ''SFII'', who go from priestly garb to [[Stripperiffic]] belly-dancer wear when they promote.
** Also Tao and Anri in the first game who, if you look hard enough for them, can be equipped with bikinis. Narsha also gets a bathing suit in the remake.
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* [[Shoot the Medic First]]: A good policy for both sides, however, this is taken to an extreme by the enemies in the first game. Starting from the beginning, they will aim directly for your magician Tao, and once she dies (which will be often), they will aim for all your other magicians and healers.
** The healers and magicians have lower defense and are often easier to kill, and the AI loves preying on anyone it can kill quickly and in one turn. It goes for the other Shining Force games as well. They usually won't exclusively go after Master Monks in the second game because they can take hits and defend themselves.
* [[Shout
** Also, the rat boss in ''SFII'' is named [[Willard]].
* [[The Something Force]]
* [[Spell My Name
** Also Luke/Lug, Kyantol/Cantaur...
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: [[
* [[Spiteful AI]]: Even when death seems imminent, the enemies seem to at least die happy when they know they used their last move to kill one of your weaker characters rather than focusing on the main character (who might have survived the hit) like they had been.
* [[Squishy Wizard]]: It can depend on the character and how leveled up they are, but it's generally not a good idea to put your wizards or healers on the frontlines. If they run out of MP they might as well be a [[Meat Shield]] since their physical attacks rarely do much (again, depending on the character).
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** The Oddball: Mishaela
** [[The Man Behind the Man]]: Darksol
* [[Standard Hero Reward]]: ''SFII's'' ending shows {{spoiler|Bowie using a [[True
* [[Steampunk]]
* [[The Strategist]]: Nova in ''SFI'', Sir Astral in ''SFII'', Lowe in ''SFG'', and Mayfair in ''SFG II'' (the last two were playable characters before becoming advisors to a different Shining Force team).
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* [[Team Pet]]: Kiwi in the second game. In the first game, there's an extremely large number. Save for one (Bleu, who is plot-mandatory), all of these characters are [[Lost Forever|easy to miss]].
* [[Too Awesome to Use]]: Shower of Cure can become this, as well as level 4 magic attacks (you want to save your MP so you can keep attacking of course).
* [[Took a Level
* [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]]: After ''SFIII'', every last game in the series save for the [[Updated Rerelease]] of the original ''Shining Force'' has been an action-adventure RPG in the vein of the ''[[Seiken Densetsu]]'' games. Mostly critically panned, the games range from playably mediocre (''Neo'' and ''EXA'', the first ''Shining Soul'') to actually ''fun'' (''Shining Soul II'').
** Though technically, ''Shining Force I'' was an [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]], as the first game in the series was a dungeon crawling RPG called ''Shining In The Darkness''. This genre was revisited with ''Shining the Holy Ark''.
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** Desoul is perhaps the most traditional example. Essentially, the equivalent of ''[[Final Fantasy]]'''s Death spell, it almost never works. That is unless [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|an enemy uses it on you]]. Generally speaking, unless you're using Blaze, Freeze, Bolt, Heal, Detox or Boost, most other magic falls into this category.
* [[The Vicar]]: The promoted class of healers in most games.
* [[We Cannot Go
* [[White
* [[White Magician Girl]]: Most of the games have at least one of these, a female healer who usually (unless promoted to master monk) has no real offensive power besides maybe a Blast spell.
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: Elliott from the original, and {{spoiler|1=arguably OddEye}} in SFII.
* [[Yin
** The Jewels of Light and Evil in SFII, though they have no effect on gameplay. The Shining Force swords in ''EXA'' also have a similar effect.
* [[You Dirty Rat]]: Slade the Rat is the cause of everything that goes wrong in SFII. Though it is mentioned that he was more of a Robin Hood-type [[Loveable Rogue]] who [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|simply had no idea what he was unleashing]] when he stole the jewels of Light and Evil. He does later join the Shining Force and redeem himself.
** Redeem himself? He becomes one of the best members of the force, barring [[The Hero|Bowie]] and [[Game Breaker|Peter]]. He's also the only member, when promoted, to be able to [[One Hit KO|slice things in two]] without damage rolls (except a boss) if he lands a critical. {{spoiler|Guess that's what [[Took a Level
* [[Your Mom]]: In ''Shining Wisdom'': "Your mama's so ugly she looks out the window and gets arrested for moonin'!"
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