Gameplay like no other!
GAMEPLAY ~
+Positives+
Nothing has changed much from the time it was conceived till now the Shining Force series will stand as a landmark of how a tactical RPG should be! The storyline is great, the characters have feeling, and you can even talk to them in headquarters! And this time around, they have something to say! The battle system is basic map land you move over different terrains and it effect how certain characters perform. The magic system runs well, with healers and mages, as well as the physical stand-point of frontal and the all too important rear attack! The controls this time around are like silk! A far better result than the choppy buttons of the GENESIS version. And this time around new characters were added to give the story a more newer edge so old-school players didn't like they are playing a clone of the original! And the victory condition upgrade to the battle system is genius!
-Negatives-
The battle system is complex and takes awhile to learn, most of the time your centaurs will die in the early goings of the game. The A.I is stoopid, they only attack the Hero, this is good cause in a sense cause he has great Def. but after awhile there ends up being no challenge. Some battles will take you FOREVER! And you will end up using a band of the same characters throughout the game, cause most of the centaurs are just clones of each other, no diff. So stick with specialty classes (Musashi, Hanzo, Domingo, ect.) The character Mawlock is a cheat of a character and should never be used for he makes the game too easy and ruins it entirely!
GRAPHICS ~
+Positives+
The graphics stayed true, except for some picture tweaking (which p.o.ed me for awhile, cause Kris usta have a long horse face, now she don't, disturbing how long ago plastic surgery was invented!) The battle graphics improved alot (more movement) and the overall sprite hood was given an upgrade!
-Negatives-
Again, the character photos and the battle graphics of the characters are changed which could make alot of nostalgic players squirm in their seats (Lowe was called Eraserhead when I played with friends, now he is hatless... boo...)
SOUND ~
Nothing was changed, and the music wasn't all that impressive to start off with. The battle attack noises are cool, but after hearing them and the "whoosh!" noises the spells made I gave up on the sounds and played with the music off.
REPLAYABILITY ~
if you wanan go "card" hunting than go right ahead and play the game over again, I choose not to as of yet. You don't get anything impressive (the bikini wear for Tao or Narsh and the Hero "card") or if you want to collect all the characters if you missed one the first time around, now is your chance, but play something else in between, or the game will get boring REAL fast.
OVERALL ~
Good rework of a classic title, go play it if you got some time on your hands... Cause it might take you longer than expected!