Shining Series Images

Shining (シャイニング Shainingu) is a series of fantasy console games developed by Sega. The series can be thought of as Sega's main venture into the RPG genre, along with the sci-fi RPG series, Phantasy Star. The first game, Shining in the Darkness, was a first-person dungeon crawler with randomly encountered, turn-based battles (comparable to Wizardry and Might and Magic). The next game released in the series was Shining Force, which were turn-based strategy style tactical role-playing games with battle scenes acted out with sprites (comparable to the Kure Software Koubou games and Fire Emblem). Other spin-offs include Shining Soul, a dungeon crawl action role-playing game with roguelike elements.

It can be argued that the Shining series started as an attempt by Sega to cover all of its bases on their consoles as far as the usual gameplay genres, because it emulated styles that Nintendo and other developers pioneered. Over time though, the series has found a following and has carved its own niche, as there are newer releases not found on Sega consoles.

Dungeon crawler titles

In the dungeon crawler titles of the series, the player takes control of an adventuring party. Battles work very similarly to those of Dragon Quest, Mother, and the fellow Sega RPG series Phantasy Star, in that they are first person and the player is placed in a position where the hero and team mates would be. Shining in the Darkness is the first game in the Shining series, and is a very simple labyrinth exploration game, with a simplified non explorable town and world map, where choices are made through a cursor system. Shining the Holy Ark was released immediately prior to Shining Force III, and while it is also a dungeon crawler, it features a far more expanded gameplay world over the first title.

Games

• Shining in the Darkness
• Shining the Holy Ark

Strategy titles

For the strategy games of the series, the player takes charge of a party in large-scale, strategic battles. The games generally limit the number of characters who can enter any one battle at a time to about a dozen. The player is only in control of unique troops; there are no generic footmen, archers, or cavalry.

Games

• Shining Force
• Shining Force Gaiden
• Shining Force Gaiden 2
• Shining Force II
• Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict
• Shining Force CD
• Shining Force III
• Shining Force Feather

Action RPG titles

The third broad category of Shining games is the "action RPG" set of titles. This category is essentially a dumping ground for any Shining game which does not use turn-based combat; the games it incorporates do not necessarily have any noticeable similarity in gameplay.

Games

• Shining Wisdom
• Shining Soul
• Shining Soul II
• Shining Force Neo
• Shining Tears
• Shining Force EXA
• Shining Wind
• Shining Hearts
• Shining Blade
• Shining Ark

Connections

Most installments of the series prior to Shining Soul I are related in some ways. Often they reference each other (frequently during discussion about the Greater Devils), or characters are carried over. Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict and Shining Force II are arguably two of the most related games, having both characters and locations in common. Final Conflict is also strongly related to Shining Force I, both sharing the character Max. There are also notable connections between Shining Wisdom and Shining Force II and between Shining the Holy Ark and Shining Force III respectively.

From Shining Soul I onward, installments of the series tend to have less significant connections. However, Shining Wind and Shining Tears are arguably the most closely connected of any pair of games in the entire Shining series, since the former is a direct sequel to the latter and features return appearances by nearly all of the major characters.

Although the rest of the games among the Action RPG titles are unrelated for the most part, several characters appear in multiple titles for different reasons (travelling between the titles' worlds, the respective world's version/incarnation of a character, guest or DLC appearances etc.)