May 232012
Remember the Shining RPG series? We do, and share misty eyed recollections as we discuss Shining in the Darkness, Force and Landstalker.
SHOW NOTES
00:00 – The Ancient Temple (Shining in the Darkness)
09:09 – Tavern (Shining in the Darkness)
10:50 – Battle Theme (Shining in the Darkness)
17:29 – City Theme (Shining Force)
18:45 – World Map (Shining Force)
20:08 – Mid Boss Battle (Shining Force)
30:08 – Labyrinth (Landstalker)
32:50 – Seeking Treasure (Landstalker)
35:22 – Treasure Hunter Nigel (Landstalker)
44:51 – Lively Town (Shining Force II)
46:37 – Wandering Warriors (Shining Force II)
49:24 – Battle Theme 3 (Shining Force II)
55:50 – Battle on Ship Remix (Shining Force via Joshua Morse)
TITS
TITS indeed
Love Shining Force, thanks for a whole episode of it. I linked this to a friend who is a bigger fan of the game and he loved it.
Awesome. A podcast approaches!
Landstalker is great.The controls are kinda wonky at first but you get used to them. The whole treasure hunter slant to the game was very appealing at the time.
I have not played any of the Shining games yet. Which is odd cause I have had the first two for the Genesis for some time. Maybe one day I will get around to them.
Oh my god, I grew up with the Genesis but I only recently played Shining Force 1 and 2 with the Genesis collection on the 360 and I was so impressed with the quality and strategy involved in those games.
I’ve heard great things about Shining Force, and I have the first two and ‘Darkness on my Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, but I just don’t know when I’ll get around to it. I know that I’d really like to. I remember a friend from my childhood hyping me up on these games, even though I didn’t have a Genesis as a kid. In turn, I’d hype him up on Breath of Fire.
Good episode, it’s always a great idea to bring in special guests who know a lot more about the games & music 😛
I think my favorite tracks from this episode include Mid Boss Battle from Shining Force and Battle 3 from Shining Force II. I love when the Genesis sound chip is used in ways that actually sound awesome.
Also, I noticed a lack of Shining Force III – was there any good music from that? All I know about it is that it was on Saturn, is super rare, and has one of the worst lines of dialogue in videogame history: “Now bear my arctic blassst!”
If you guys are into tactical turn-based RPGs and their music, then I highly recommend Konami’s Vandal Hearts II for Playstation. It’s a medieval-fantasy style game mixed with an incredibly dark and depressing story, and has some of the most under-appreciated PSX music of all time (I sent VGMpire an email about this particular soundtrack). Here’s my favorite track from it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AF8XlfUiYQ
Shining Force III had amazing music, but it was in a completely different style. The game series from Shining Force II and on was taken over by Camelot Software Planning (originally Sonic! Software Planning), which went on to make the Golden Sun series. In fact, Golden Sun, while not a tactical RPG, was actually extremely similar to Shining Force in every way except for the lack of a 3D world and that it had a traditional turn-based RPG system instead of a tactical system. The music was composed by Motoi Sakuraba (just like Golden sun), the sprite work had the same style down to the talking animations (where the characters sort of wiggled), the text boxes and font used for character dialog were even practically the same (and thinking back, the maturity of the dialog was about equivalent to Golden Sun games).
I’ve only played the first scenario of Shining Force III, but it is a pretty fun game and was a bit darker than previous Shining Force games.
One thing I’ve always really, really liked about Shining Force games was the attack themes. I loved hearing the hero attack music, and especially the promoted hero music for each game, and when you’d level up it would continue on to amazingly epic anthems.
[…] Remember the Shining RPG series? We do, and share misty eyed recollections as we discuss Shining in the Darkness, Force and Landstalker. SHINE ON WITH JUST ONE CLICK! […]
Oh man, I have been waiting for this one you sly devil!
Love it dude, keep the podcasts coming. So much good stuff! Do I detect a Final Fantasy one coming? The title screen of FF2 on the SNES blew me away as a kid.
And oh crap! I forgot how much Ultima : Exodus on NES was dear to my heart.
You mean FF4 on the SNES, right? 😛
Never heard of this game but the sound track is pretty solid, might go and check the series out. Excellent episode brett.
I played through Shining in the Darkness when out came out, having to map out the dungeons on paper, which wasn’t that much fun. The first time I played most of the way through Shining Force I think I eventually got to a point where I had to use my main character for something, but since the game ends when he dies I’d spent the early part of the game not getting him in danger, so by the time I had to use him I was underleveled, and couldn’t progress. The same thing happened in Vandal Hearts, but I never went back and finished that, like I did Shining Force, several years later. I never played the second one, for some reason. I remember Shining the Holy Ark best, the pixie system was cool, and the world was a nicely fleshed-out version of Shining in the Darkness.
I loved Landstalker, and played the hell out of that and Dark Savior, but Time Stalkers for some reason didn’t catch me, and it seems like it was one of the last Dreamcast games I got, and probably the last Climax game I played.
It’s amazing how familiar most of the songs were, it’s been two or so decades since I played these games, but video game music from the 8- and 16-bit eras really seem to stick in my brain, probably until the end of time.
And VGMpire has once again introduced me to a series I have never heard of.
I am intrigued.
Fucking awesome.
I never played Shining Force, but I spent HOURS playing Shining in the Darkness when I was younger.
It’s still one of my favorite Genesis games.
I think I should maybe get around to playing Shining Force, this episode certainty put me in the mood to play it.
I loved it, and hope Fire Emblem will come up soon.
Yayyyy this was fun to co-host! Sorry about my knowledge gap in the series, but hey, that’s a great excuse to do another Shining episode someday right? 😉
Related: please do check out my own podcast: Lostcast.fm!
Great show, guys. I love how you focus on lesser known series, rather than the standards (Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy). Those series all have great music, but we can hear those anywhere.
Couple of suggestions for future eps:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES, GameBoy, SNES and arcade games had great stuff)
Soul series (Soul Edge in partiular, but some of the Calibur games aren’t bad)
Gradius
Metal Gear Solid (much of it is ambient but they had some standouts)
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (The Game)
Star Fox
This makes me want to check out the Shining Force games. I have the GBA remake but barely touched it.
Also, everyone should check out the SEGA Mega Drive Medley remixes: http://youtu.be/adXWLYaQjf4
I’d always passed on them for some reason, but this episode got me to give them a serious try, and they’re pretty great! (via Sonic UGC)
[…] 1:03:43 – Battle 3 (Shining Force II, Takenouchi) […]