Video Games Shining In The Darkness (for real this time)

The second definately captured the spotlight in my younger years. A good friend of mine first introduced me to the Shining series with that game and allowed me to direct his strategic movements during the Kraken battle. Can't remember if my strategy worked or not, though, but it was all good fun.

Later with another friend we went out to rent SF2 for a weekender, but could only get the original, which my friend commented was "good, but not as much as SF2". I thoroughly enjoyed it, and later weaseled a copy from a friend of a friend (in other words, a complete stranger) for $10. It had a dead battery, but another $5 and a bit of soldering patched that up nicely.

I never ended up owning a SF2 cartridge, but my SF1 has seen a lot of play. SF2 was superior in more ways:

• A larger cast, and the better management of the Caravan
• Very creative and memorable battles (Kraken, Taros(sp?))
• Expanded levels and classes (20 versus 10)
• Kiwi! Yeah, he sucks statistically, but he's a cool mascot.

Shining in the Darkness and Shining Holy Ark were so stylistically different that they really seem like a subset of the games. I never have liked long dungeon crawls, so they're considerably lower.

I'm halfway done Shining Force CD, which pulls together the Game Gear releases into one, and while it is fun, I sorely missed the freedom to move around the world map and in towns. It boils down to a series of cutscenes and battles.

I've heard Shining Force 3 is unbelievable, especially the entire scenario that was released in Japan (only scenario 1 was released outside of it). I've only yet played through the first five battles or so, and it hasn't drawn me in too well yet. Maybe I set my expectations too high?