Sega - It's more than just Sonic Autism

[Vyse Inglebard]

>Tee Lopes
>doing a Skies of Arcadia cover

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

That sounds incredible. Sort of reminds me of Ys.

 

[Sparky Lurker]

Since nobody posted in the thread yet, the Shining Force remake was cancelled:

https://www.siliconera.com/shining-force-heroes-of-light-and-darkness-has-been-canceled/

The upcoming mobile game Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness is canceled. The cancellation was announced at a recent Vespa stockholder’s meeting. Vespa is the Korean parent company of Japanese developer Hive. Hive initially planned to release the game globally within the first half of 2022. [Thanks, Gamecast!]

According to Korean media, the main reason for the cancellation involved issues with its development time and budget. Parent company Vespa has reportedly been in financial trouble for the past two years and is in danger of being delisted from the Korean stock market. Vespa will instead focus on releasing its existing mobile game projects, including the tower defense RPG Time Defenders and King’s Raid 2.

During the stockholder’s meeting, a Vespa representative stated, “The company is in a situation where it’s necessary to cut costs. We are currently working on multiple projects internally, and as Shining Force would require a longer development period and a significant budget, we decided to cancel development.”

The original Shining Force released on the Sega Genesis in 1992. Developer Hive announced that it arranged a deal with Sega to make a game with the series’ IP back in August 2021. At that point, development had already begun. A week later, Hive released a trailer featuring gameplay footage of the game. The trailer revealed that characters from previous installations of the series would appear.

Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness would have appeared on mobile devices worldwide.

It would probally have gacha crap so whatever.

 

[Pissmaster]

Since nobody posted in the thread yet, the Shining Force remake was cancelled:

https://www.siliconera.com/shining-force-heroes-of-light-and-darkness-has-been-canceled/

Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness would have appeared on mobile devices worldwide.

And nothing of value was lost.

Seriously though, a proper Shining Force remake series for consoles would do very well, what with the popularity of Fire Emblem and how infrequently those games are released.

 

[XYZpdq]

I didn't really care about sega much circa Master System and Genesis
I got into SNK fighters around 1997 or so, and a Saturn was the best route because this was before Neo Geo emulation
I dumb lucked into a Saturn cheap at a K Mart around then, got a bunch of games and stuff similarly cheap.
Eventually I tricked my Saturn out enough that I had Bomberman, two multitaps and ten controllers. Even got to use them a couple of times.
Got the DC within the first month it was in the USA after it was clear that was the new hotness for 2d fighters (and had the first USA release of a Gundam game)
I was mostly feeling their stuff until Shen Mue. Shen Mue sorta fucking sucked.

one time I went to one of that video game restaurant chain that Sega had, probably 2001 or 2 or so
out of curiosity I checked out the kids menu and they had literally whos like Alex Kidd and Nights

 

[Pissmaster]

I was mostly feeling their stuff until Shen Mue. Shen Mue sorta fucking sucked.

Shenmue is chill and comfy

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

one time I went to one of that video game restaurant chain that Sega had, probably 2001 or 2 or so
out of curiosity I checked out the kids menu and they had literally whos like Alex Kidd and Nights

GameWorks referenced Alex Kidd?!

 

[XYZpdq]

GameWorks referenced Alex Kidd?!

I am almost 99% certain that yes, the kids menu/placemat/coloring thing featured Alex Kidd among other Sega also-rans

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Seriously though, a proper Shining Force remake series for consoles would do very well, what with the popularity of Fire Emblem and how infrequently those games are released.

As long as their EXP system is good, I'm all for it

Trying to get your team to level up and have GOOD stats in the 1st game was a pain in the fucking ass. "Oh what's that? You want to give defense points to your mage(s) so they don't fucking die so easily? Tough shit, +6 speed stat!! Have fun reloading your save state"

Or my personal favorite: "Oh what's that? You're trying to grind for a higher level to defeat the enemy that keeps walling you? You're killing enemies that are at least 3-4 levels below you? 1 EXP POINT ONLY!!"

 

[Nick Gars]

As long as their EXP system is good, I'm all for it

Trying to get your team to level up and have GOOD stats in the 1st game was a pain in the fucking ass. "Oh what's that? You want to give defense points to your mage(s) so they don't fucking die so easily? Tough shit, +6 speed stat!! Have fun reloading your save state"

Or my personal favorite: "Oh what's that? You're trying to grind for a higher level to defeat the enemy that keeps walling you? You're killing enemies that are at least 3-4 levels below you? 1 EXP POINT ONLY!!"

To be fair, it's only 100 exp for every level. Tedious as fuck, but by RPG standards, that's pretty forgiving. Granted, if there was atleast random encounters the grinding could be a touch less monotonous. I definitely think the random stat upgrades are fucking stupid, I get that they're there for replayability, but more often then not it seems the RNG is specifically tailored to give a character stats that do nothing for them. Its there for replayability, but it's a pretty big catalyst for why I've only played through it once and stop after 4-5 battles any time I pick it up again.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

By the time the Saturn and Dreamcast came along, they were basically trying to bring in an authentic arcade experience to people's homes (The hardware was on par with their arcade boards). However, by that time, SEGA went fucking mental and were making assinine decisions, such as using Hitachi for the Dreamcast's graphics rather than the standard 3DFX that most people were acustomed to (that decision turned off EA completely to where they decided to jump ship to SEGA's competitors). Nevermind the fact that people were sour with SEGA regarding how poorly they handled the international release of the Saturn.

The by far largest group of people familiar with Voodoo was PC developers and they were used to graphics API hell. Off the top of my head they developed for Glide(3dfx), Metal(S3), PowerVR(NEC/Imagination), Verité, OpenGL(no consumer card supported the full OpenGL feature set), Direct3D(absolute shit show at the time) plus others I have forgotten and who the fuck even knows what Number Nine used.
This absolute clusterfuck was the reason for John Carmack making GLQuake and leaving it up to graphics chip manufacturers to support his (slim) OpenGL implementation instead of the other way around where he would be writing bespoke implementations for all the shit that was out there.

I also think that going with PowerVR for graphics was a very, very good idea at the time. It's a relatively small chip that can do a lot with little. Notice how sharp Dreamcast games are? Free anti-aliasing, unheard of at the time. Compared to 3dfx chips it didn't require as much memory to perform the same task and it had no problem with a narrow memory bus thanks to its unique architecture, this reduces board complexity and makes the device cheaper. It had other benefits as well like the TBDR and being almost color depth agnostic from a performance perspective but point is that they would never have been able to hit a $199 price point using anything from 3dfx. Plus the 3dfx Dreamcast would be fuzzy 16bit colors banding all over the place...

Thank you for attending my sped talk, I will unlock the doors now.

 

[Bisdejl]

I also think that going with PowerVR for graphics was a very, very good idea at the time. It's a relatively small chip that can do a lot with little. Notice how sharp Dreamcast games are? Free anti-aliasing, unheard of at the time. Compared to 3dfx chips it didn't require as much memory to perform the same task and it had no problem with a narrow memory bus thanks to its unique architecture, this reduces board complexity and makes the device cheaper. It had other benefits as well like the TBDR and being almost color depth agnostic from a performance perspective but point is that they would never have been able to hit a $199 price point using anything from 3dfx. Plus the 3dfx Dreamcast would be fuzzy 16bit colors banding all over the place...

My recollection from when the DC was still alive is that the PowerVR choice was something that Sega fans would trot out as a potential game-changer due to how well it performed. Having just finished kitting out both a Dreamcast and Saturn with some modern mods, it's honestly kind of amazing how well some of the Dreamcast library has aged...so I think you may be on to something. Even the PS2 has plenty of mediocre looking games comparatively.

At any rate, my completely unfounded take on what happened with Sega is that they were reeling from never having been truly on top for three-ish hardware generations due to variety of bad decisions, and they realized that developing console hardware was going to kill the company if behemoths like Sony and Microsoft were going to be their competitors. In other words, they decided that they wouldn't become like SNK trying to develop hardware when competing against Nintendo and Sega.

RIP Neo Geo and your comically massive cartridges.

 

[Someone in a Tree]

I’m probably just delusional, but I think if Sega really embraced the big hair anime aesthetic, a new Shining Force could really make itself stick out and tide over Fire Emblem fans between installments.

 

[Book Thief]

Shenmue is chill and comfy

The first two games are great, despite showing numerous signs of age. The third game has its moments, but there's so many terrible game mechanics slapped on with little thought, topped with the fact that it's essentially all just filler that I cannot recommend it in the slightest.

Also, Yu Suzuki's Mary Sue that was hyped up since the beginning was such a disappointment. She contributed almost nothing to the plot before getting turned into a generic damsel in distress.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

but more often then not it seems the RNG is specifically tailored to give a character stats that do nothing for them.

This is my biggest gripe, especially after knowing that characters CAN get certain stats you want but just don't because the system decides to cheat you out of them.

Let's say for example that I get bored of playing the game regularly and decide to do a solo run with Tao, the beginning mage you recieve. At first glance, you think there's nothing wrong with that, considering there's plenty of pros that play Final Fantasy using different rules to make the game more challenging.

According to a character guide I found online, these are the maximum stats that she gains when she goes up a level.

Spoiler

Starting Stats:
HP - MP - AT - DE - AG - MV
10 - 07 - 04 - 04 - 06 - 05
Stats Gained:
Lv - HP - MP - AT - DE - AG - TP - Samples
02 - 0.9 - 4.0 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 05 - 10
03 - 0.2 - 3.2 - 0.0 - 1.0 - 1.0 - 07 - 10
04 - 0.0 - 3.0 - 1.0 - 0.0 - 1.0 - 07 - 10
05 - 1.2 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 1.0 - 1.0 - 05 - 10
06 - 0.7 - 0.7 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.1 - 05 - 10
07 - 0.1 - 0.0 - 1.0 - 1.0 - 1.2 - 04 - 10
08 - 0.1 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.8 - 02 - 10
09 - 0.0 - 0.1 - 0.0 - 0.9 - 1.0 - 04 - 10
10 - 0.1 - 1.1 - 0.8 - 0.7 - 0.1 - 06 - 10
11 - 0.5 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.2 - 0.1 - 02 - 10
12 - 0.1 - 0.1 - 0.0 - 0.2 - 0.1 - 03 - 10
13 - 0.2 - 0.7 - 1.3 - 0.0 - 0.8 - 05 - 10
14 - 0.0 - 0.1 - 0.2 - 0.1 - 1.5 - 03 - 10
15 - 0.1 - 0.2 - 0.8 - 1.4 - 0.4 - 06 - 10
16 - 0.3 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.5 - 0.6 - 05 - 10
17 - 0.7 - 1.9 - 0.0 - 0.1 - 0.1 - 06 - 10 #+4,5 MP
18 - 0.0 - 1.6 - 0.2 - 0.1 - 0.3 - 04 - 10
19 - 0.0 - 1.8 - 0.1 - 0.2 - 0.0 - 05 - 10 #+5 MP
20 - 0.4 - 0.8 - 0.9 - 0.0 - 1.2 - 08 - 10
Avg- 0.29- 1.02- 0.33- 0.39- 0.59- 4.58

Avg lvl 20 Stats w/o Wpn : 16 - 26 - 10 - 11 - 17
Level 20 Stats w/o Weapon : 23 - 44 - 12 - 16 - 26

Stats Gained:
Lv - HP - MP - AT - DE - AG - TP - Samples
02 - 0.6 - 2.7 - 0.4 - 1.0 - 6.3 - 17 - 10 TP = 2-4-1-1-9
03 - 0.0 - 1.0 - 0.4 - 0.9 - 6.2 - 14 - 10 TP = 0-3-0-1-10
04 - 0.9 - 1.0 - 0.2 - 2.1 - 3.1 - 14 - 10 TP = 3-1-1-5-4 #+7,7 AG
05 - 0.1 - 1.9 - 0.2 - 0.4 - 3.3 - 10 - 10 TP = 0-3-1-1-5
06 - 0.7 - 2.6 - 1.0 - 0.1 - 5.8 - 13 - 10 TP = 2-2-1-0-8
07 - 0.1 - 1.6 - 0.4 - 0.1 - 0.8 - 06 - 10
08 - 0.4 - 0.3 - 0.2 - 2.3 - 1.5 - 08 - 10
09 - 0.0 - 2.6 - 0.2 - 0.6 - 1.2 - 07 - 10
10 - 0.1 - 0.6 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 3.5 - 08 - 10 #+6,7 AG
11 - 1.1 - 0.6 - 0.3 - 1.0 - 0.3 - 08 - 10
12 - 0.5 - 1.2 - 0.1 - 0.8 - 0.0 - 07 - 10
13 - 0.4 - 2.2 - 0.6 - 0.1 - 0.1 - 08 - 10 #+6 MP
14 - 1.4 - 0.0 - 0.2 - 1.1 - 0.1 - 06 - 10
15 - 3.2 - 2.1 - 0.1 - 0.6 - 0.3 - 10 - 10 TP = 3-3-0-2-2 #+7 HP +6 MP
16 - 2.7 - 0.6 - 0.1 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 06 - 10 #+6 HP
17 - 5.4 - 0.9 - 0.7 - 0.4 - 0.0 - 11 - 10 TP = 7-3-1-0-0
18 - 2.1 - 0.2 - 0.2 - 1.1 - 0.0 - 07 - 10
19 - 1.3 - 2.7 - 1.5 - 0.7 - 0.3 - 11 - 10 TP = 2-5-1-3-0 #+6 MP
20 - 5.0 - 0.5 - 0.9 - 0.3 - 0.4 - 13 - 10 TP = 8-1-4-0-0
Avg- 1.37- 1.33- 0.19- 0.72- 1.75- 9.68

Level 20 Promoted Stats: (With No Weapon)
60 - 82 - 24 - 42 - 67
Level 20 Average Stats : (With No Weapon)
38 - 45 - 15 - 22 - 46

21 - 0.1 - 0.3 - 0.3 - 0.3 - 0.6 - 03 - 10
22 - 0.2 - 0.0 - 0.3 - 0.3 - 0.1 - 03 - 10
23 - 0.2 - 0.3 - 0.2 - 0.2 - 0.3 - 03 - 10

So if you start at level 1 and upgrade to level 2, you may or may not get that 0.9 in HP to increase it, or you may not even get the full 4 points in MP. Likewise upgrading to level 3, you might not get the 1 point in defense. For whatever reason, the system just rolls the dice regarding which stats it wants to give you, like a Dungeon Master that just likes being the biggest dick to you for no reason.

 

[Billy_Sama]

To be fair, it's only 100 exp for every level. Tedious as fuck, but by RPG standards, that's pretty forgiving. Granted, if there was atleast random encounters the grinding could be a touch less monotonous. I definitely think the random stat upgrades are fucking stupid, I get that they're there for replayability, but more often then not it seems the RNG is specifically tailored to give a character stats that do nothing for them. Its there for replayability, but it's a pretty big catalyst for why I've only played through it once and stop after 4-5 battles any time I pick it up again.

Another problem with SF leveling if a character has low attack and inflict 1 or 2 damage, they will get 1 exp making them a chore to level.

Its been awhile but I think SFIII fixed that problem though. If there can be one game or series of games Sega should port or remake are the Saturn Shining series especially the SFIII trilogy but the original studio makes Mario Sports games.

 

[Nick Gars]

Well after posting about it, Im giving Shining Force another go. I'm only up to the first battle of chapter 2, but I definitely know one massive QoL improvement needed if it was remastered....

If the enemy isn't going to take any fucking action, don't waste 30 seconds to a full minute of my time every 20-45 seconds scrolling the selection box back and forth across the god damn map. I know it's probably a limitation thing for the Genesis, but god damn is it insufferable.



Aside:
Why the fuck do zombies, FUCKING ZOMBIES have equal defense to either of my Knights?! I'm not underleveled and haven't got straight shit stat roles, no, rotting, barely functional corpses, are as durable as a centaur in full plate armor apparently. Makes perfect sense.







Edit: I am playing on the PS3 port on Sonic's Classics Genesis Collection. This isn't related to SF, but the collection. I was looking through the unlocks and I know this requirement didn't mean shit to me back when I played this collection as a teen, but now it's just fucking baffling.
To unlock Phantasy Star, you have to beat the first boss in Sonic 2, with 2 players.

Think about that for a second. If you don't own two controllers, you are just flat out locked out of a pretty sizeable game (by 8-16 bit standards), that you paid for in a retro collection. Keep in mind that if I recall correctly, on brand 360/PS3 controllers would run you $40 at the time, which adjusting for inflation, isn't much cheaper than controllers now. Of course, the modern game industry isn't much better, but I thought I'd make a note of it.

 

[Cloaca Rimjob]

Just completed super thunder blade on mame there, was a cool gimmicky title albeit a little short.

Really wish sega would revive some of their old IPs. Even the ones people thought weren't that good like Bug! and Clockwork Knight.

Well after posting about it, Im giving Shining Force another go. I'm only up to the first battle of chapter 2, but I definitely know one massive QoL improvement needed if it was remastered....

The GBA remake is quite decent. There's extra segments at the beginning which give you extra characters. Fast forward the enemy turns if you emulate it.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Why the fuck do zombies, FUCKING ZOMBIES have equal defense to either of my Knights?! I'm not underleveled and haven't got straight shit stat roles, no, rotting, barely functional corpses, are as durable as a centaur in full plate armor apparently. Makes perfect sense.

If I recall, Zombies are just like Skeletons in that you're better off killing them with Magic

The Poison one at the cemetery church is a fucking asshole though. You're forced to take everyone else out first before you get to it so that your entire team can attack it in one shot, otherwise it'll zap your life quickly.

The GBA remake is quite decent. There's extra segments at the beginning which give you extra characters. Fast forward the enemy turns if you emulate it.

My only gripe with the GBA remake is that it changes the dialogue and story somewhat that reads more like a fanfic than something official. The new woman warrior you get comes off like they set her up as a mary-sue but then hangs back once she joins your team so it's like wtf was the point of all that build-up?

 

[Cloaca Rimjob]

My only gripe with the GBA remake is that it changes the dialogue and story somewhat that reads more like a fanfic than something official. The new woman warrior you get comes off like they set her up as a mary-sue but then hangs back once she joins your team so it's like wtf was the point of all that build-up?

Yeah they kinda shoehorned her in. The beetle samurai guy that joins alongside her was cool though.