WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL - Shining Force CD

Developer: Sonic! Software Planning
Publisher: Sega
Released: 1995

I’m a huge fan of Sega’s Shining series of RPGs. At least up until the point they were bastardized into whatever they are today. And while the series included dungeon crawlers and zelda-style action games, the Shining Force games definitely dominate most people’s memories when the series comes up in conversation. It makes sense, since there were nine of them across the Genesis, Sega CD, Game Gear and Saturn.

But English releases of those games were sporadic at best. Shining Force III Scenarios two and three were most famously left in Japan, but it wasn’t the first time Sega of America skipped a game or two in the series. Of the three Game Gear Shining Force releases, only the middle one got localized and released in English.

Sega was in a weird position with these games. The Game Gear was getting pretty long in the tooth by 1994, and had never been remotely as popular as Nintendo’s Game Boy in either Japan or North America. The Sega CD was nearing the end of its life as well, and again, hadn’t set either market on fire. So I’m not sure why Sega decided to bundle up the first two GG Shining Force games onto one disc for the Mega CD in Japan in 1994, but I wasn’t surprised when Sega of America initially stated they had no interest in bringing Shining Force CD to western shores.

Thankfully they reversed course, and a year later, in 1995, North American Sega CD owners were treated to Shining Force CD.

Unlike Shining Force II on the Genesis, the first “book” of Shining Force CD is more of a direct sequel to the original Shining Force, focusing on a generation of heroes directly descended from the warriors in the original game (for the most part). The gameplay is almost exactly what we’d come to expect from the Shining Force games - assemble your force, equip them, upgrade them as necessary, and then take them into the field and use your superior tactical thinking to outwit and outmaneuver the enemy armies you encounter.

The battlefields look the same as previous games, and you still get the fantastic battle screen featuring nice, big sprites of your heroes and their enemies. Rather than the already-incredible chip tunes we were all used to in this series, the music is replaced by gorgeous redbook audio that simultaneously feels new while somehow sounding authentic to all the games that came before this.

There is one major change that I feel belies the portable nature of the source material. All of the overworld navigation - specifically town exploration - is completely gone. So most of the atmosphere NPC conversations would normally add to a game like this just doesn’t exist on Shining Force CD.

Where Book 1 is a remake of the first Shining Force Gaiden game on the Game Gear, Book 2 is a remake of Shining Force Gaiden 2, or as it was known in North America, The Sword of Hajya. The second book features a mostly new cast of characters. You play as a young guard Deanna, who ultimately ends up leading a force of his own to rescue the troops from the previous chapter.

Upon completing Book 2, Book 3 is unlocked. An oddity of Shining Force CD is that your Shining Force in Book 3 is made up of characters from the first two books in the game, and you can carry forward their stats if you like…but only if you have the Sega CD RAM cartridge. This expanded save memory is required because the onboard system RAM isn’t large enough to hold the save file otherwise.

Anyway, the coolest part about Book 3 is that it’s a wholly unique game, again a direct continuation of the previous story, taking place just months after Deanna’s quest. You again play as Nick, the main character from the first book.

Finally, if you manage to find a secret item in Book 2 and finish the rest of the game, Book 4 is unlocked. Again, you can bring forward stats for your characters from previous books if you have the RAM cart. Book 4 is a single battle, and is also unique to the series.

As you can imagine, all this content adds up! At a whopping 53 total battles, Shining Force CD is the biggest game in the series. I love that Sega had a change of heart and decided to bring it out in North America in spite of the general lack of success of the Game Gear and Sega CD. But since it was such a late release here on a generally unpopular system, I’m guessing not many people had the chance to play it. Luckily Sega saw fit to include Shining Force CD on the Genesis Mini 2 in 2022.

Shining Force CD is the first time I remember seeing a game credited to Sonic Software Planning, though the two Game Gear games upon which it is based both contain the word “Sonic” in the title screen. Sonic Software planning wasn’t a new development group at the time, but rather a new name for Sega Consumer Development Studio 4, which had previously worked on Shining in the Darkness and the first two Shining Force games. It would eventually merge with Camelot Software Planning (the two founders - Hiroyuki Takahashi and Shugo Takahashi - were brothers), working with Sony on titles like Beyond the Beyond and Hot Shots Golf while still developing Shining games for Sega. Ultimately it would settle in as a major developer of Mario sports games for Nintendo.

We’re so lucky that Sega saw fit to release Shining Force CD in the west when it really had every reason not to. It’s another Sega CD classic, and shouldn’t be missed.

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