[Octillus]

I'm still musing over whether or not to get Just Cause 2 nearly a year after the original release. Blasted indecision!

Also Shining Force is most excellent, but have only played 1 and 2 and a little bit of Shining in the Darkness.

CD, The Holy Ark and 3 are all wonderful as well, but after that Camelot stopped working on them and they went to suck.

I'd definately want to play them, if they kept with what made SF1 and SF2 such great games: the classes and upgrading those classes, the bunch of PC's you can have in your army, the strategic battle system.
Also I would require a sega cd and saturn, unless they we're released elsewhere, but I cannot find such info.

[Octillus]

I'd definately want to play them, if they kept with what made SF1 and SF2 such great games: the classes and upgrading those classes, the bunch of PC's you can have in your army, the strategic battle system.
Also I would require a sega cd and saturn, unless they we're released elsewhere, but I cannot find such info.

They have not been released elsewhere. There are just other means that one can acquire these games by. Not to mention Sega CD games had no copy protection, so you could just load them into a CD/DVD drive and open it on an emulator, and since emulators themselves are entirely legal, you can easily play that one. The Saturn one takes some doing, and it's technically only part one of a 3 part game, and those second two chapters never made it out of Japan.

For me, it's all about the art style. I mean I love the tactics, but they're neither challenging nor deep. The character of each individual unit trumps Fire Emblem (and I LOVE Fire Emblem, I worked for Nintendo on the marketing during the localization process on the last one for the DS) or any other strategy games faceless hordes. Some of the creative projects I'm working on now wouldn't exist without Shining Force's art influences on me as a kid. I know that's super dorky, but whatever.

Yea the games are not cheap either, but ebay is never the best place to get deals on older video games like Shining Force.
Would love to see those games ported to the PSN or steam, or even on an handheld console, as it unlikely I'll buy any of them at the price they are going for right now.
I liked the art style of the first 2, but it is not someting I would have listed if you had not mentionned it, maybe I ma lacking perspective, but they didnt seem all that better than any other games from that era.
I did like how they had backgrounds and such with the little battles, and the screen that "swiches" over to your enemy when attacking and such.

[Octillus]

You're right that the art itself isn't exactly great, but the character design is AWESOME. Steam-powered armadillos? Magic Flying Jellyfish that steal souls? Yes, please.

That is true, Domingo, Guntz are indeed quite awesome, but I only ketp Domingo, Guntz usually would stay in the caravan. I like Zylo too, baddass wolf guy.
Shining force 2 had Slade the rat-thief ninja, Peter the akward phoenix, Kiwi the future Godzilla, Gerhalt the wolfman, Zynck weird robot and Claude the Golem, they all stood out to me.
Let's just not mention Jogurt.

[Octillus]

That is true, Domingo, Guntz are indeed quite awesome, but I only ketp Domingo, Guntz usually would stay in the caravan. I like Zylo too, baddass wolf guy.
Shining force 2 had Slade the rat-thief ninja, Peter the akward phoenix, Kiwi the future Godzilla, Gerhalt the wolfman, Zynck weird robot and Claude the Golem, they all stood out to me.
Let's just not mention Jogurt.

You get the Jogurt ring and then you can lead an army of helmet wearing hamsters. Do not deny the glory.

Oh I know about the ring, when I was a kid playing the game I had an obsessive friend, and he played the whole game on toughest difficult, with no deaths, and he leveled all the characters. So he had the Jogurt ring, but we could not figure why it was so tough to get and yet only changed your appearance. Bear in mind also, that this was at a time when me and him bareaky spoke english.
Also Gong is great if you level him up.

P.s: thread derailled!

[Octillus]

Haha seriously.

Revealing my total nerdiness to the point of pain, I've actually created custom games by hacking savestates (I own both of the games on every console that they've appeared on at this point, so it's my right, damnit!) and creating new job classes, changing the nature of said jobclasses (a personal favorite was my run with Bowie as a Mage in shining force 2). I've played solo runs of an individual character all the way through the first game (Zylo was the easiest, Domingo was the hardest that I attempted), and I figured out that the easiest way to power level in Shining Force 1 is taking painters' tape, holding down the C button on the controller and have the game auto attack with ranged characters at Balbazak's shipyard.


I find it amazing to this day that I still had normal friends/a girlfriend and everything during high school.

[swervedriver]

*epic nerdfest*

I find it amazing to this day that I still had normal friends/a girlfriend and everything during high school.

It's all catching up to you now, isn't it?

[Octillus]

Considering I work for 3 computer magazines, and got a degree in basically A/V shit, I would have to say yes.

Wow I love those 2 games, but I'm not sure that is a term strong enough for you!
They are kind of an hidden gem, as they we're on the Genesis, and not many have played them.

[Octillus]

Haha, well a lot of it came from being broke as a kid. I got a game at my birthday, and during the holidays and that was it. You came to appreciate what you had.

Being more general about video games, the Super Nintendo did tend to get the better RPGs, but there were a few real gems on the Genesis, the aforementioned and Phantasy Star 4 were in my mind just as great as Final Fantasy 4, 6 (2 and 3 to us in the US) and Chrono Trigger.

Another really cool JRPG that few people played because it was Japan only was called Live a Live. Basically it was 7 mini RPGs that all tied together that took place in different eras of history, ranging from the prehistoric ages to the far future. My two favorites were the old west shootout, and the one about the psychic boy that was totally based on Akira. Cool battle system, great 16 bit music (composed by the Chrono Trigger gal) and just really unique. You can find it patched in English somewhere in the ether, as long as you've imported a copy and own it yourself, yep. NICE AND LEGAL.

[JuZ]

I've found myself wasting time with the old Command & Conquer series lately (Tiberium Dawn & Covert Ops). I don't think I'm very good at it but I love harassing NOD with Orcas and my precious Ion Cannon.

This week I think I'm ordering Just Cause 2 and Batman Arkham Asylum for my 360. Still haven't caved in and bought Fallout New Vegas, although they'd better hurry with that GOTY edition.

Enjoy Arkham Asylum! Awesome game.

The only hidden game I know like that is Terranigma on the Snes, and it was a pretty decent rpg as well, but it's been so long since I played it. Was only released in Japan and Europe I think. An Enix game before Squaresoft integrated them.