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I just completed Shining in the darkness

Nutmeg

Arcane
Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 12, 2013
Messages
19,801
Location
Mahou Kingdom
I think Shining in the darkness is a charming game.

It *feels* a lot like Dragon quest 1.

However, its interface is not designed very well. For example:
  • Equipping gear cannot be performed simultaneously with purchasing gear.
  • Status effects can only be seen under the status menu (yet player level is always visible during combat).
  • Casting healing spells MP optimally after battle follows a simple method, but must be done manually.
  • Items are described poorly (even though MP is spent to get a description) e.g. it is not mentioned that the flail weapons have multiple attacks.
Nevertheless I like that the menus correspond directly with a conventional game controller's directional pad.

The game world consists of a town, a castle and a dungeon. The goal of the game is to reach the highest level in the dungeon, defeat a boss, and report your success in the castle.

The town and castle harbor NPCs that function as keys to advance the game, and also traders of goods.

The dungeon is entertaining, but the same every playthrough. It follows a faux hub spoke design, with the first level having exits to 4 caves, the outside world, and the level above. However, the 4 caves must first be accessed in order, before the player can proceed to the upper levels, which only have (multiple) exists to the levels above and below.

Combat encounters are random, and offer a little room, but room none the less, for strategic and tactical decisions.

The game starts overly slowly. Until the first boss --- Kaiser crab --- is defeated, the party is limited to one adventurer who is capable of only melee combat, has superior attack and hp growths, and can equip heavier armor and weapons. To defeat the first boss, the player must grind to level 7. Presumably this is to give time to adjust to the interface, the dungeon, and the systems of status effects, angel wings (teleport out of the dungeon), and wisdom seeds (rudimentary map prompts). However, too much time is given.

After Kaiser crab is defeated, the player recruits two other characters into the party. One of these characters learns mostly offensive spells as she levels up, has superior speed, defense, and mp growths, but can only equip the lightest weapons and armor. The second has growths in between the other two characters and learns healing, curing, and defensive buff spells.

Together the three characters are mostly railroaded in what they will be equipping --- optimal choices are obvious. Nevertheless the player must optimize *when* to upgrade which character's equipment in order to best take advantage of the associated power spike. For example, an early hexwhip makes short work of dungeon level 2.

Until level 4, gold is a precious commodity, but afterwards is mostly worthless.

As with most rpgs, grinding is possible, and a cop out for poor strategy. However, screwing up a few times will make sure your party grinds automatically, as death results in revival at the town, half your gold missing, and a long trip back to your previous place in the dungeon. This is, effectively, a dynamic difficulty mechanism.

In the late game, trip time is alleviated by nominating one of many portal points (gold fountains) with an item (gold medallion).

It may be entertaining to replay this game with the aim of completing it at a lower party level, but, again as is the case with many rpgs, the game follows a slot machine design --- assuming the player uses optimal tactics (trivial), each combat encounter is pulling the lever, and player strategy and preparation prior to the encounter is second to the luck of the result. In so many words, a lucky run through the dungeon will always trump a better prepared but unlucky run.

One conceptual problem with the dual time keeping in the game (combat vs exploration) is that buffs can't be cast prior to combat. What's worse, during the final encounter, the game does not explain that buffs cast during the fight with the first form of the boss do not carry over to the second form, even though the game remains in the same mode (combat) during the sequence.

I give the game a 5/10 (open to revision). It is a good babby's first dungeon crawl, and a good set "challenge run" for players of similar games but which have more setup options (player created party, randomized dungeon(s), order of dungeon levels, etc.)
 

Eggs is eggs

Learned
Joined
Mar 12, 2015
Messages
256
I remember playing it a bit when I was a kid. I never drew any maps so after I finally beat the kaiser crab I kept getting lost and eventually got bored with it. It's made by the same people who made the Shining Force and had good graphics, good interface (for the time), good music and seemed like a fun game. But yeah it seems like a pretty simple game so if you're used to the complex combats and gameplay systems of games made in 2017 then it will probably not have much of interest for you.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,337
Location
Crait
I remember Shining in the Darkness as one of the best Wizardry clones and one of the best of the Genesis RPGs (perhaps #5 in a top 5). Highlights are character design especially for the monsters, which keeps combat interesting, and the story- there are actually quite a few plot twists built in. The dungeon design could also be fiendish, with pits that drop you to a lower level and magic rope that lets you climb up holes in the ceiling. Magic sapping floor tiles are a great twist as well.

The best end game gear for Milo and Pyra actually aren't the "obvious" choices. In addition to the Mithril Ore crafted gear, there's alternatively the Dark Block crafted gear. Finally there are quite a few secret "easter egg" gear that can only be acquired by either revisiting earlier dungeons with later equipment (for example, the Forbidden Box) or that can only be stolen from enemies by using Muddle 2 or Demon Rod. The game has plenty of easter eggs.
 

RuySan

Augur
Joined
Jul 11, 2005
Messages
777
Location
Portugal
I really like the aesthetics of the shining games, but unfortunately shining in the darkness is too bare bones as a dungeon crawler to make it worth a while.

Once a friend of mine borrowed his megadrive so I could play shining force 2. Loved that so much I finished it three times.
 

Max Stats

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 26, 2016
Messages
1,091
It *feels* a lot like Dragon quest 1.


You must've played a very different DQ1 than I did. The one I played wasn't a first person dungeon crawler with a single town to go back to that may as well have been a series of menus.
 

Hyperion

Arcane
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,120
Shining in the Darkness was a pretty fun Wizardry clone, but I couldn't for the life of me be bothered to finish it. Especially as a completionist and min/maxing gear whore, farming enemies for Milo's uber Flail that hits 5 times or whatever wasn't worth it. Every single thing being sepia didn't help for ease of exploration much. Luckily there was a cheap spell to show a map of the floor, so drawing was unnecessary. For a more traditional JRPG try Shining the Holy Ark, which is basically Darkness' spiritual successor.

Coincidentally, I just finished another playthrough of Ark, and found a few items not found in the most comprehensive guide for the game and...ended with an item completion of 101%. I was...puzzled, to say the least. If it goes higher than 100%...how much higher? Did I *still* miss stuff?
 

Ebonsword

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2008
Messages
2,326
Coincidentally, I just finished another playthrough of Ark, and found a few items not found in the most comprehensive guide for the game and...ended with an item completion of 101%. I was...puzzled, to say the least. If it goes higher than 100%...how much higher? Did I *still* miss stuff?

I assume you were playing on some kind of emulator instead of on an actual Sega Saturn? If so, that might have something to do with it.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
And when talking about Camelot games there's Golden Sun.

Using spells to solve over world combat is really a great system and works nicely. It also explains why nobody has plundered all these ancient ruins before you: They can't as they lack the abilities needed to enter the place (only the party members and a handful of other people in the game world have magic). Indeed there are some points in the second game where chests early in a few dungeons, which don't require any magic to get to, are empty.

The class system is pretty neat, but doesn't really work in the first game because a few classes are utterly useless till you get enough items (Djinn, which are finite and story progression based) to access the higher level versions of them, which isn't till 80% of the game is finished (for example before this point Pilgrim has one element of blasts and common status healing. After it Pilgrim has two elements, the best healing in the game and some useful utility spells) and some classes being effectively unusable drops you from 24+ class setups (4 sets of Djinn between 4 characters, plus some bonus classes for mixing types) to less than half that. Second and third game avoid them by making Djinn and level ups way more frequent so Pilgrim (ect.) is usable only ~20% into the game.
 

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