Shining Force 3

STORY

Shining Force 3 uses a 3 scenario stories featuring three heroes in the span of 3 CD game. Of course using different scenario stories is becoming a common thing now appearing in today's rpgs. Most recently, Front Mission 3 for the playstation. Of course unlike today's rpgs, Shining Force 3 scenarios takes place on 3 CDs as oppose to just one. How does the three scenarios differ from one another. I don't really know as North America only recieved the first scenario. But I do believe that it's all the same story but from different perspective depending on which heroe's eyes you're seeing the story unfold from.
Shining Force 3 Scenario 1 centers on Synbios and his group of Republic fighters. Going from memory alone as it's been awhile since I played this game. The story starts off in or on a floating city called Saraband. Here a peace conference is about to take place between two countries. The Empire and the Republic. Unfortunately things turn to the bad side as the Empire's Emperor has been abducted and the Republic has been framed for the deed. This is where your journey and story begin. It's fairy simple. You, Synbios, must lead your group of fighters back to your homeland by going through enemy territories. Like with most strategy rpg game, along the way you will pick up many new and different fighters to join your cause. The story itself isn't thought provoking or in-depth as it's geared mostly on the Republic fighters trying to make it back to their homeland. There is a little twist though as during your journey, you meet one of the other three heroes, Julian. You could say he's making a cameo appearance. As it turns out, Julian is the little boy from Shining the Holy Ark but all grown up now. Thus tying in Shining Force 3 with Shining the Holy Ark. It seems that Julian is looking for Galm, the demon from Shining the Holy Ark. He too makes a cameo appearance in this game. This is where the juicy part of the story is but one that us North Americans will never know as those idiots from Sega decided not to release the other 2 scenarios over here.
Overrall the story isn't too bad but most of the good stuff that us Shining Fans, especially those that played Shining the Holy Ark, wanted to see never came to as it's been told in the other scenarios. It's like your getting an incomplele story.

Score: 7/10

CHARACTERS

One thing you can say about the Shining Force series is that they do give us plenty of great characters or fighters to choose from. But unfortunately like with other Shining Force games, there's a real lack of character developement. In fact even the main character Synbios, have a lack of background to him. You really don't know anything much about him at all. The series should try to put a little bit more background to these characters other than to just add them as sprite fighters.

Score: 7/10

GRAPHICS

There hasn't been much improvement from Shining Force 3 graphics when compare to Shining Force 2 graphics. The game still feature sprites but in a 3-D world now. The fighting scene now uses 3-D polygons instead of the animation ones. The colors in this game are great. One of the best coloration I've seen of any games. It's very appealing to the 16 bit fans or to those that prefer the sprites world set up.

Score: 8/10

MUSIC

The game feature many great tunes. Not as memorable as say the Wild Arms ones. But enough to keep rpg fans that love rpg music happy. And let's face it, when it come to rpg music from strategy rpg game, it's one of the best out there.

Score: 8/10

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is much like the other two Shining Force game. In fact not much has been added to the overrall gameplay from that of Shining Force 2. Basically you go from one battle map to the next. Position all your fighters on the battle field and basically achieved the objective that the game set on you to complete a battle map. Just like in the other Shining games, you can promote your fighter to a higher fighting class once they achieve the required level up. When you attack or when a fight scene takes place, it switches to a 3-D polygon environment instead of the Genesis 2-D animation environment. There is however a couple of added new thing. One is the special attack or random special attacks. Each fighter now has the abilities to learn new special attacks. Each special attacks is randomly generated and the special attack a fighter learns depends on the weapon he or she is currently using. The second thing is the friendship bond. You can now form a special friendship bond with your comrades. What does friendship bond do?? Depending on whom the friendship bond is with, it can range from increase attacks stats to increase in defenses stats. Basically it increases your characters stats. The higher the friendship bond, the better the increase in stats.
Overrall the gameplay hasn't changed much. But who cares. If it's not broken, why fix it.

Score: 8/10

EXTRAS/REPLAY

There isn't a whole lot of extras to tell you the truth. You can recruit a couple of extra character plus get a few hidden accessories but that's pretty much about it. The replay lies solely on whether or not a gamer enjoy this game. I would believe at least a gamer would want to play this game a second time.

Score: 5/10

In the end, Shining Force 3 is a very good strategy rpg game but one that feels very incomplete as you dont' really get the full story out of it without trying the other 2 scenarios. I enjoyed it but I wish there was more to it. But that's not the game's fault as it was made and intended to be release as a 3 chapter series and not to be played as an open and shut book.

Final Score: 8/10

~Chi