The Shining series

My love for this series stretches back to when I was a solid 3 years old. Still sucking my thumb and carrying my “blankee” around, I was not an obvious choice for becoming a gamer. I would watch my dad play all these bad ass games on Sega Genesis: Chakan, Phantasy Star, Miracle Warriors, Might and Magic, Rastan, etc. I was so fascinated by the concept of a different world at such a young age. My dad would let me play these games but I did not have good enough hand-eye coordination and the thought processes to do well enough at these games.

By about 5 years old, I started getting good enough to play these games I witnessed my dad playing through my young years. Among all the games, one series outshone them all for me: the Shining series. Some people know what this is from personal experience, some know from the high praises that I always seem to mention during every podcast for these games, and some have absolutely zero idea what I am talking about.

What initially struck me as amazing? Why was I so drawn by these video games? Why am I asking myself questions that you fuckers should be asking me? From what I can remember from recollection, what struck me by these games is the vast selection of unique characters. You have the main character, a hero. You have centaurs, mages, healers, a robot, a dragon, a monk, archers, a wolf man, and so many others. It was so exhilarating picking your own “all-star” team and kicking some enemy ass. There were only about 4 or 5 music tracks for the game, but they were all so epic. I loved every single one of the tracks and to this day, I can still hum them. I am actually humming them now, in case you were wondering which I know you were. Another reason was it was something to do with my dad. I loved spending time with my dad and being a bad ass with him, and one way for me to do that was play and watch Genesis with him. So there is huge nostalgia for me there.

There may be other games that have done strategy-based games better. There may have been games that have done this style way before Shining Force. But I quite frankly don’t give a shit. I fell in love with this series, so you are going to sit tight and hopefully enjoy me selling this vast series of over 25 games (28 to be exact) to you, the SPT listener, sympathizer, wondrous citizen of our community. I am not going to divulge into every single Shining game, but rather the ones I played a lot and had much experience with. I eventually want to get my hands on every game in this series, but that will take much money, much time, and much ambition. I shall preview a game each day, that way you guys don’t get too burnt out on my nerdy love. It gives you guys a little time to do some research and ponder it a small amount. Here we go:

Shining in the Darkness: The game that started it all. It was released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis and re-released August 13, 2007 for the Wii in North America. Playing this game, you would not expect such a vast and historical series to take off. It was not bad by any stretch, but to me, it did not really stick out as an amazing top notch game.

Shining in the Darkness is a dungeon crawling RPG. Nothing too fancy about it, it was quite reminiscent of Dragon Quest and other similar games released around that time. As you explored the enormous dungeon, fights would be at random and turn-based. As the main character, you could also acquire 2 other companions to help you of your task of defeating the evil and treacherous Dark Sol and to rescue the princess and her father who have been abducted. Shining in the Darkness is considered by gaming historians to be a pioneer in Japanese console RPG since a Final Fantasy game was not released until 6 years after Shining in the Darkness.