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Shining Force series

Shining
Genres Role playing
Developers Camelot Software Planning
Climax Entertainment
Grasshopper Manufacture
Nextech
Amusement Vision
Neverland
Flight-Plan
Studio Saizensen
Media.Vision
Publishers Sega
Atlus
Infogrames Entertainment, SA
THQ
Platforms various
Year of inception 1991
First release Shining in the Darkness
1991 (1991)

Shining (シャイニング?, Shainingu) is a series of fantasy video games developed by Sega. The series is Sega's main venture into the role-playing genre, along with the science fiction role-playing 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.

In the dungeon crawler titles of the series (Shining in the Darkness and Shining the Holy Ark), 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.


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