Shining Force

Shining Force is a turn-based tactical role-playing game. Battles take place in square grids, and each unit occupies one square. Each unit can move up to a fixed amount of squares along the battlefield, determined by its Move statistic. Depending on its location relative to enemies and to allies, a unit can also perform one action: attack, cast a spell, use an item, or search the area.

Some commands, such as equipping or dropping items, do not count as actions. The order of turns is determined by the unit's agility score and a random seed.

The game opens in the Kingdom of Guardiana, in the land of Rune. The protagonist, Max, is sent on a mission to prevent the evil Kane, who commands the hordes of Runefaust, from opening the Shining Path and resurrecting Dark Dragon. Along the way, Max recruits a number of allies to join the Shining Force. They eventually find that both Kane and King Ramladu are under the control of the manipulative Darksol. Darksol ultimately succeeds in reviving Dark Dragon, but Max seals the creature away using the power of the Chaos Breaker, a sword created by merging a sword of light with Kane's sword of darkness.

Despite being the sequel to the successful Shining in the Darkness, Sega allotted only a minimal budget to the development of Shining Force. Contrary to popular assumption, Shining Force was not influenced by archetypal tactical RPG Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. In fact, when asked about the game, lead Shining Force developer Hiroyuki Takahashi remarked: "The tempo of that title was so bad that it wasn't something I even wanted to play." Takahashi recalled that Shining Force was chiefly inspired by Dragon Quest. Asking himself how he and the rest of the development team could "take the battles from Dragon Quest and make them more fun", he drew inspiration from an obscure Japanese PC game called Silver Ghost, "a simulation action type of game where you had to direct, oversee and command multiple characters".

The game was remade in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance under the title Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon. The changes included an expanded plot, three new playable characters, three new battles, ramping difficulty system and some tweaks in the gameplay. One of the new characters can use "cards" in battle, and turn order is determined solely by a unit's speed stat and can be checked at any time from a list, allowing the player to plan out battles with greater certainty. The remake features a ramping difficulty system: every time a playthrough is successfully completed, a player earns a star and all enemies get a boost in stats for the next playthrough. The game has also had a rerelease for iOS, which has been removed from the App Store by Sega.

In Japan, it topped the Famitsu sales chart in April 1992. Power Unlimited gave the game a score of 89% "Shining Force is a fantastic RPG in itself, with a great story, good graphics and a sublime battle mode, but the special thing is that the game is much more accessible than most RPGs."

The game was well received. Mega placed the game at #33 in their Top Mega Drive Games of All Time.