Sega opens Shining World portal

TOKYO--Sega has officially propped open the doors to its Shining World Web site, a portal for three upcoming Shining Force titles. Two of the three titles will be PS2 games--Shining Tears and the tentatively titled Shining Force. The third title revealed today is Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon for the GBA. Until today, that title had not been officially confirmed. Resurrection of the Dark Dragon is due to retailers in Japan on August 5, two months after the game's North American launch.

Shining Tears is scheduled for release in late 2004. Screenshots and illustrations were recently posted on the game's site. While the Shining Force series has been known for its illustrations by Yoshitaka Tamaki, Shining Tears will be illustrated by Tony Taka, an artist known for his work in more-mature-themed games. (Gamers familiar with Korean publisher Softmax's simulation RPG Tempes may be familiar with the new artist as he created the character designs for that game.)

The other title, Shining Force, is slated for release in 2005 and is currently in development at Sega's own Amusement Vision studio, which provided comments in a press release that read: "A (re)born Shining Force appears on the PlayStation 2! We have assembled staff from a variety of locations to create a game with impressive characters, music to pump up the adventure, and high-quality animations equivalent to those seen in movies."