Exploring the labyrinth that is Shining in the Darkness - RPG Fortress
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
- In the days before Shining Force we had Shining in the Darkness. While Shining Force was a Strategy RPG, Shining in the Darkness was a dungeon crawler. These two games have loads of similarities and loads of differences, but it's easy to tell they are both in the same universe. Today we are taking a long hard look at the debut game of the Shining series: Shining in the Darkness.
(While I don't go out of my way to spoil the games I review, here's a little warning that there may be some plot and or gameplay spoilers ahead!)
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#shininginthedarkness #sega #dungeoncrawler
Real Shining fan: but richard anri learns blaze 1 and blaze 2 you fake shining fan
Me a fake shining fan: i've never even seen a sega
The channel is probably better off without the AI stuff
What AI stuff???
Oh you mean the text to speech stuff during the opening skit? That's not AI you big silly, I typed up a script and used a text to speech program because my voice isn't delicate enough to sound like Tao or Anri. 🤣
Great video, one error with composers. One composed shining darkness and S F 1, the next did S F 2, Landstalker, and Shining Wisdom. Both with awesome styles. The second, sorry about not wikepediaing the names right now, was so crazy talented.
When I was a kid in elementary school my Dad used to let me use his Sega he had this game and it was the 1st RPG I ever played. I spent every day playing got up to the final boss and the cartridge started not loading my save file. I would have to turn it on and off multiple times then I tried to use alcohol pads to "clean" the connection and it permanently wiped my save file😔 I was devastated but this game was responsible for my love of RPGs! I still love the music today hearing brought a wonderful wave of nostalgia Thank you!
This is one of those things where I've always thought if you saw the first 30 minutes you've basically seen the entire game. I love the aesthetics, but you really need to be in a certain mood for something like SitD
I completely agree. The mood I was in was something like 'Well I am
The secret sauce of shining for was all the cool 90s style non-human characters. Peak character design we'll never see again.
Right the character designs were not really all that anime at all, looked more like Dragon's Lair
One of the best, if not THE best review of this forgotten gem. You mentioned all the pros and cons that I would have myself. Good job! Looking forward to your next ones.
Also, Shining the holy Ark is a really great game that you won't stop playing once started. It is more of this, just more accessible. :)
Glad you enjoyed the video. :) Gonna do Shining the Holy Ark sometime before year end. I never finished it so this is a good reason to fire it back up. :)
The thing I like best about Shining in the Darkness is that the game gets more fun and interesting the longer you play it- once you have all the exploration tools unlocked, there's some real value in backtracking. High level spells are literally a blast, and high level items can be game changers, like the Storm Sword and the Light Sword giving Hiro the power of Bolt 2. My favorite item is the weird and wacky Forbidden Box, which I was very sad to see break, lol. I did beat the game, but there was still a lot I hadn't found, as the labyrinth is huge!
This was my first genesis RPG and it was confusing at first when I got to the trials I didn’t know I was supposed to walk into the mural to clear it, so for the longest time I was just running the first trail over and over and over and never advancing because I didn’t walk into the mural to actually beat the trail. By the time I beat the 4 trail and the merchant was up, I had so much money I was able to craft all the mightily I had just to gear and slaughtered the first 3 level of the Labyrinth as I was over geared and leveled. This was really a great time when I was a kid and I still enjoy it now. I will hav w to try holy ark as I didn’t know it was also a dungeon crawler!
I remember playing it a few times back in the day through the Sega Channel, but I couldn't get into it. It wasn't until 3 or 4 years ago I gave it a real chance, finished it, and loved it. I wish I had given it a little more time back in the 90s.
Try Shining the Holy Arc, unless you allready did (edit: Ok you allready did partly). It is such a impressive upgrade to this one.
Yes i played it and beat it as a child once, it is a pretty good game but nowhere near some of my favorites... mostly the mentioned Shining the Holy Arc but also Etrian Odysseys.
Awesome review! Thanks for covering a fair bit of Genesis/MegaDrive RPGs. There aren't that many of them, but the ones that are there are mostly phenomenal! ...now where did I put those Arms of Light?
I remember getting this in the 90s when one of my dad's friends was having a clear-out. Took me a while to get used to what I was supposed to be doing beyond grinding for more experience and cash. Got stuck for ages on the cave of truth but finally got back to it and forced my way to the end in the late 90s while trying to get through as many old games I used to get stuck on as possible.
This was my first JRPG spent many hours when I was a wee nipper trying to figure it out and racing my dad to see who could complete it first (he won haha)
I am having a case of the Mondays today and then I see that Richard released a new video and its about a Shining game. Looks like my day is looking up!
Now I've watched the video! I donno if I can add another RPG to the backlog, but I do have the sega collection on steam which I think has Shining in the Darkness! The only annoying part is that the program is fiddly with how it works. Very stylized, but also encumbered xD
Great video as always! Looking forward to your "Tactica" review ;3 Don't get paint everywhere if you decide to cover the DLC.
It's definitely part of that Sega Collection!
4:30 As a life-long Sega fan, this is one of the truest things I've ever heard.
It's one of my all time favourite games and is largely responsible for my love of RPG's. I remember the first time I played it when my brother rented it. It had a save just after Milo and Pyra joined, which we continued to play. So I only learned later how difficult the first stretch with the kaisercrab is. I loved to grind up the gold to get lot of the gear early and show my brother what I got when he came home from school. Good memories. I still replay the game every couple of years to the point where I can navigate most of the floors from memory.
The enemy having an approach animation is actually from Phantasy Star.
There were only like three enemies in the game that did it, but it was the first.
This game is definitely underrated!
When I first played it, I was stunned by how alive the monsters felt; nothing on the NES had so much animation, as simple as it seems now. Also, Pyra is GOATed for me; the scenes where she casts SLOW on the mercenaty Gila, and then you find him in the labyrinth later, is such fantastic characterization for how basic it is.
Also, at very high levels, there are some really fun and interesting item results that you can't see without a massive time-sink. The Ogre Flute may be one of the best items in an RPG ever IMO.
I'm glad you found the fun in it; I feel like your initial experience is fairly typical, as I very rarely hear anyone talk about it aside from mentioning it as a precursor to the Force games.
DUDE - one of the most underrated Sega games. My brother got this for Christmas one year, and it's all we played until we beat it haha
Never knew about this, but Shining Force 1 & 2 are two of my favorite games of all time. Maybe I should check it out!
Was so happy when I found a copy of this second hand after playing Shining Force, still have that to this day, though have never completed it.
You know, I was just looking at Wizardry stuff when this popped into my feed. IIRC, I played the first Shining games in reverse order. The Time Stalkers game I came across when I started getting into Roguelikes. It was pretty good for a rogue-lite and I'm sure I missed quite a bit.
I had the opportunity to do a full playthrough of this game with Nihil last year, and we were constantly floored by how *good* this game is!
Neither of us had played it before, just Shining Force 1 and 2, and we had loooow expectations. But it is shockingly polished and honestly a lot of fun (once you get past the damned crab)
EDIT: 18:00 is that Tyadran’s randomizer that I see??
This was my first serious RPG I got for the Genesis just after I bought Phantasy Star II.
Good thing I also bought a guide book for Genesis games that had helpful hints & maps for Shining In The Darkness.
"Before there was Golden Sun, there was Shining Force, and before there was Shining Force, there was Shining in the Darkness."
And before there was Shining in the Darkness, there was Nothing, and before there was Nothing, there were monsters....
Even a minimap would've been a giant QOL feature in this game but I'm not sure if the Mega Drive/Genesis could do picture in picture or whatever
"Stands alone as a wonderful dungeon crawler, something you can't say very often" clearly bro you not played enough console dungeon crawlers. There are tons of good ones out there you should totally check out the phantasy star 1 come to mind for one (the rest are not dungeon crawlers but the first one totally is) depending on your tolerance for fan service demon gaze 1 and 2 and the mary skelter trilogy are good... so is etrian odyssey series... all those are kind of new compared to the retro games you tend to play (keep in mind im saying this having only seen 2 of your videos lol this one and one about a snes shining force-ish game lol)
I don’t know if Phantasy Star 1 counts as a dungeon crawler. The dungeons are first person, but you as I understand they’re not much more than mazes full of enemies. It seems just like a typical JRPG except you do dungeons in first person.
@Demonskunk really you don't think so? Not saying your wrong I very well could be the wrong one just say to me it very much feel looks and in my opinion has all the things that quality a dungeon crawler as a dungeon crawler. Now the other phantasy stars yeah totally not but 1 is completely different time of game then the other imo.
I try to get through a playthrough of all the Genesis Shining games yearly.
oh... AI voice over. T-T
ok ok, it was just a bit. *whew*
Every few years I do go back and beat shining in the darkness on my original Genesis. Same with SF1 and 2, and Phantasy Star 4
Well I definitely played Shining Force on a SEGA compilation CD. Not sure I've even heard of this game before
Played it on one of those collections. Lost the file I was charting maps on. I had finished charting the first trial too.
Could start over, I guess.
It's not that long of a game. You cna get back to where you are quickly, especially if you use a map as I played through with my smart photo to the page for gamefaqs. (The location for the firesword is wrong on one of them maps. It took me a bit to figure out how actually get it.) I had a glitch screw up my game, and had replay from an earlier point when I was playing thru it. I still overcame and was glad I did.
I have been playing this on the switch It’s so much Better and faster to play I’m actually enjoying it 😮now I have to play Shining Force 1-3!
My main issue with this game is the lack of a dungeon map. It is horrible to memorize all levels of the dungeon. Shinning the holy ark is so much better.
Half the fun is drawing your own maps
There is a spell, and an item type for that.
Just play with a map on your smart phone. The game should have really had a map that updated as you walked through it, but this a easy way make the process smoother.
@@Lastjustice Yeah. I played this back in 2000. So I didnt had a smartphone. But thats a clever idea
@@FernasRPG Understandable, but I played thru a few years ago when I did have one, so that was how I opted to play it.
Beat this game maybe 3 years ago... I dont like tactical turnbases, so SF1 goes hard for me, but first person dungeon crawlers is my beloved genre, so i beat "in the darkness" much early.. good game, realy is. And thank god for succesor - "holy arc", literaly in the darkness, but everything is much better. sega does so much shining games later but no more crawlers, wth...
shining wiki doesn't even mention dark sol in this game, does that wiki not reconize this game as a shining game?
The Saturn "sequel" is ok till you reach the dungeon that has upside down gravity segments. Then it suuuuuuucks.
you should playing digital devil monogatari 2 on the nes, its a really good dungeon crawler on console. same with SMT1 for that matter lol
Hoopsiedoodle xD
Finishing a game? How do you do that?!?!?🤪
I have about 1000 hours invested in Final Fantasy Tactics over multiple playthroughs and have never beaten it. Probably never will.
FFT is one of my all time favourites. Really hope we get that rumoured remaster.
@@RPGFort 🤞🤞🤞
FFT is easy to beat...Deploy TG Cid....destroy all remaining battles. Given you probably grinded to high heaven, the story battles will be well below your party's power lvl.
@@Lastjustice Yeah, but then the game ends, and I don't want that to ever happen!!!😥
@@100Servings You can still keep grinding and fighting other enemies even if you beat the game. Or just start a new save. It's not like spectral beings come and take the game to the afterlife that you will never see it again once you complete the main story. There's nothing stopping you from keep playing game.
No thanks. The Might and Magic port was really good for anyone looking for a real dungeon crawler back then. This game is way too simplistic and slow paced SF fan or not.
Uh absolute pass for me, this is a ploddingly slow and generic first outing. Nice graphics and a great tile set and structure to build force out of, but I literally put this down one day and never went back.
Play it on the Sonic Genesis collection they made it easier you can fast forward and rewind and there’s an auto map😮so you can’t get lost!