Games

You control a ninja, Shinobi, who must battle his way through each level in search of hostages which must be rescued. You have shurikens, kicks and punches to defend yourself with. As well as the powerful ninja magic which can clear the screen of enemies in one go. Each level is broken down into smaller scenes and hostages are guarded by big blokes who throw swords. Watch out for gun-toting enemy henchmen and ninjas. Reaching the end of each level will find you battling it out with a boss. These range from 8ft giants to helicopter gunships.

In the land of Odegan, orphaned squire Mars is employed at Odegan Castle on the strength of his father's great reputation. A series of lies and deceptions on his part unexpectedly places him as the foremost obstacle to the schemes of the dark elf wizard, Pazort. Pazort and his followers intend to destroy the world by summoning the Giant, Seeega (referred to as "the Dark Titan" in Working Designs' translation), and to do so they first must use Princess Satera to get at an orb held by King Odegan. It is up to Mars to redeem his lies and failures by thwarting the mighty wizard's plans.

As the capable mercenary Arthur, you must summon every ounce of your role-playing prowess and lead your comrades on a do-or-die hunt for the kingdom's sacred artifacts. It's the RPG you've been waiting for, loaded with enough Medieval monsters and challenging "four character" control to stretch your role playing skills far beyond your wildest imagination.

Shining Tears is an old-school Action RPG set in the Shining universe (previous games include Shining in the Darkness and the Shining Force Trilogy). You play Xion, a hero who is drawn into saving the City of Shilidia from a formerly peaceful neighbor due to his possession of the powerful Twin Dragon Rings. This sets the stage for an epic RPG storyline with fun characters and big surprises. Presented in beautiful hand-drawn 2D graphics and backgrounds, players may choose to go into battles from among 8 unlockable companions, each with their own unique powers, strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, the co-op system lets two players cooperate in battles, pulling off special combo moves and leveling up their characters together. Interestingly, the companion you pick changes Xion to the opposite 'soul' dark or light due to the nature of the Twin Dragon Rings, with correspondingly different powers. Single players have their companion AI to help them out of tight spots, too.

As monsters begin to appear in the kingdom Klantol, King Marcel announces a grand tournament at the coliseum to find a hero that can protect the country. Now, as a mighty Brawler, Priestess, Dark Wizard, or Ninja, you must accept the king's challenge. Each character has certain strengths and weaknesses that can mean the difference between victory and defeat in single-player, multiplayer, or cooperative multiplayer modes. In addition to valuable weapons and armor, you can equip your party with Force Links, which, when combined, create a Shining Force--a powerful weapon capable of decimating the enemy forces.

Enter a world of magic and mystery, where your closest allies may sometimes turn out to be your worst enemies. Shining Soul puts you in the middle of a desperate struggle between the Dark Dragon and a group of warriors known as the Shining Fleet. In the final stage of the war, you can play one of four character classes: fighter, wizard, archer, or dragonute. Customize your character's color schemes, weapons, and armor, and then explore the world of Shining Soul either alone or with three of your friends.

Shining in the Darkness is a "dungeon-crawler" RPG. The game puts the player in control of the main character as he and two friends (Pyra and Milo) explore 3-dimensionally rendered dungeon mazes. The game consists of story line interaction, dungeon exploration, random monster fights, and predetermined 'boss' fights. The combat in this game operates similarly to certain RPG games of the same era (e.g. Dragon Quest). Monster encounters happen randomly during dungeon exploration at which point turn-based combat proceeds. Additionally, the dungeon contains three characters in need of rescue. Rescuing any or all of the three is optional, and the story changes depending on whether or not the player locates and returns each of these characters to safety.

Shining Force is a turn-based tactical RPG. Battles take place in square grids, and each unit occupies one square. Each unit can move up to a fixed amount of squares along the battlefield, determined by its Move statistic. Depending on its location relative to enemies and to allies, a unit can also perform one action: attack, cast a spell, use an item, or search the area. Some commands, such as equipping or dropping items, don't count as actions. The order of turns is determined by the unit's agility score and a random seed. As is most common for the RPG genre, units become stronger by fighting enemies or by performing other actions in battle, such as healing allies. These actions give the units experience points (EXP.), which allow them to gain levels. In Shining Force, each allied unit is represented by a character with his or her own background and personality, much like in the Fire Emblem series. Although there are no "generic" units, except on the enemy side, most characters contribute little or nothing to the plot upon joining the player army. Each allied unit also has a class, which defines a set of abilities for that unit and determines the spells and equipment they have access to. A unit can be promoted to another class at any level between 10 or 20. Upon promotion the character's level resets to 1 and statistics are reduced by a fixed amount, although they begin higher if the character had been promoted at a higher level. Battle goals for the player are fairly simple: kill all enemies, kill the enemies' leader, or advance to a town or landmark. The enemy side wins if they kill the player's leader, Max, or if the player chooses to escape the battle by casting Egress. Even if the player army is defeated, the player can recover allies and retry the battle. The Force keeps any experience that is obtained, regardless of the battle's outcome. Thus, there is no Game Over, and the player's army gets stronger even upon its defeat, although Max's death results in the player losing half of their money. Most games in the Shining Force series (with the exceptions of Shining Force CD, all three Game Gear games, all five cell phone games, the Shining Force III premium disc, the Shining Force for Palm Pilot game, and Shining Force Feather) also possess an exploration mode that occurs outside of battle. This gameplay mode is essentially a Japanese-style traditional RPG game, along the lines of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, although there are no labyrinths and few puzzles to solve. In this mode, the player's army is represented by Max, who is able to walk around, interact with people, find treasure, buy equipment and items, outfit the army, and choose which of the army's members will be used in battle.