Shining Force Turns 25 Years Old on Sega Genesis

Sega was working hard during the 16-Bit era. For the first time they were either on top, or near the top, of the video game market. Nintendo was no longer the juggernaut they once were though they still held a lot of power with gamers and retailers. Sega was able to put many chinks in the armor of the gaming giant. One area that Sega took on Nintendo, nearly unhindered with competition, was the turn based strategy world. Shining Force was a fantasy turn based strategy game that had great, unique, graphics and that Sega flair. While Nintendo themselves had nothing released in the United States to compete (no, Fire Emblem debuted MUCH later on newer hardware) there were more than a few turn based strategy games on the Super Nintendo. Nothing like Shining Force though.

Sega took on Fire Emblem nearly a decade before North American gamers knew of it.

I won’t ruin the story for you but suffice it is slightly different than the usual role playing game trope you are used to. Sega may not have put their full faith into Shining Force but that did not stop gamers from clamoring to eat it up. Still, not a commercial success there were enough copies sold to see further releases in the Shining Force series. For the most part, English speaking gamers got all of the games in the Shining Force series across many platforms. This is kind of unique considering the times and how it was not often that publishers would do this.

The Shining Force series carried that classic control scheme that Climax was known for. It is an ingenious control method that makes very effective use of the D-pad controller. With a couple of presses you can attack, run, use items, converse with people in the game and do more depending on the context of the situation.

Grab a copy of Shining Force off of eBay and support me in continuing to write articles like this one that pull on your nostalgic heart strings.