Shining Power III State of affairs 3 (シャイニング・フォースIII シナリオ3 氷壁の邪神宮), 9/23/1998, developed and revealed by Sega
We’ve come to the ultimate Saturn recreation I will probably be taking part in (there are two extra Saturn SRPGs however I’ll be taking part in the PS1 variations of them). It’s additionally the final of the “conventional” SRPG-style Shining video games, aside from the remake of 1. I consider that there are another Shining video games which might be SRPG-ish however I don’t know if any of them totally qualify below my guidelines.
I used to be not ready to determine methods to get the carryover stuff to work in Mednafen so I didn’t get any of the “sychrony” stuff from the primary two video games.
On the entire, I really feel like I’m not as huge a fan of the SF video games as quite a lot of SRPG gamers. I don’t know if it’s because I by no means had Sega programs as a child so I’ve no nostalgic reference to them. III appears to be particularly beloved amongst followers, and whereas I believe it’s a great recreation, it’s not considered one of my favorites.
The primary character this time is Julian, who appeared in situation 1. The primary few chapters take Julian’s story as much as the purpose the place State of affairs 1 ended. I discovered SF3’s storyline very troublesome to comply with — I couldn’t hold monitor of the varied factions and alliances, and the way in which you principally play the identical time interval thrice main as much as the State of affairs 1 ending didn’t work for me. I do know the story is effectively favored and I believe different folks appreciated it greater than I did, however I simply discovered it clumsy. It additionally appeared to me like there was all this buildup of pressure and suspense over the scenario on the finish of situation 1, however in situation 3 when all three teams attain that time the cliffhanger is solved immediately and you progress on to the ultimate “defeat the evil demon” a part of the story.
The gameplay is similar as the opposite two eventualities so nothing new there. It’s the basic SF gameplay for probably the most half, so it’s satisfying. I do really feel that it’s beginning to present its age, although, and I want that they’d performed a little bit of refinement reasonably than basically reusing the SF1 system. Particularly, they need to have added the flexibility to see who’s performing subsequent (perhaps for a minimum of the subsequent 3-5 actions), and I’d have most popular that the particular skills be MP-cost strikes reasonably than simply issues that randomly activate on assaults. There are quite a lot of little points (for example, that bow folks can shoot by partitions) that make it clear that is principally a system that was developed within the early days of SRPGs and hasn’t actually superior a lot since then.
This will likely appear unduly harsh however my criticisms are primarily based on the truth that the sport does all the essential stuff proper and is mostly a enjoyable recreation, however might have been so much higher if they’d been extra prepared to replace the previous model gameplay.
Some notes on among the battles:
Battle 3 – you must face the Valkyrie capturing at you — you possibly can have some NPCs to climate among the hits however you’ll must take a few of them. This battle additionally has a kind of ruins submaps. I discovered the ruins submaps much more annoying on this recreation in comparison with the primary two eventualities so I ended up ignoring quite a lot of them.Y
Battle 4 – One other Valkyrie map. This time you possibly can conceal behind partitions to keep away from the hits, however you gained’t be capable to keep away from every little thing. Grashia can use his spell to disable the Valkyrie once you get shut (Grashia is a bizarre character, his solely two spells for fairly some time are Aura and a harm spell that’s principally unusable as a result of it takes all of his MP).
You can begin utilizing the mithril forging store principally proper from the start.
Battle 6 – You may defeat dragons with a brand new man to get them in your group however they’ll’t degree up and in the event that they die they’re gone for good. However the white dragon boss will be satisfied by the character and he’s a everlasting character who shouldn’t be unhealthy in any respect.
Battle 8 – Right here you might have a part of your power on the wall utilizing the cannons. They will defeat the characters capturing their very own cannons however ultimately they must destroy the door in order that the boss will come out. At first I believed I might go away the cannons alone as a result of they didn’t appear to do a lot harm, however it’s an excessive amount of once they each assault the identical individual after which that individual can also be being attacked by the bottom troops.
Melinda seems as an NPC however she is pointless, she simply strikes round however by no means assaults.
Battle 9 – The golems are annoying and it may be onerous to keep away from their assaults; ultimately I needed to rush just a few characters as much as the boss earlier than everybody obtained taken out.
Battle 10 – You may keep away from reinforcements by staying within the darkness away from the sunshine however I didn’t trouble, I simply killed the reinforcements as they got here.
Battle 12 – This has a bizarre destroy the place the thief doesn’t open the chests until you block him right into a motion the place he has to cease subsequent to a chest. Slightly than restarting the map to get this proper I simply moved on.
Battle 13 – It’s a must to struggle two bosses right here, and you must watch out shifting to the place Yasha is as a result of it’s going to set off falling flooring that may reduce off the remainder of your characters from shifting. I used to be capable of take out Yasha with bow folks and flying items.
So now now we have lastly reached the top of State of affairs 1 by way of the story. Hopefully I’ll have the sport completed by subsequent week.
