After many months of complaining
by Sega RPG fans, the Saturn now
has it's first TRUE RPG,
Shining The Holy Ark (SHA).
While following closely to it's
predecessors in the Shining series
(most notably Shining In The
Darkness (this game is subtly
mentioned in the 1st town!)) SHA
improves in graphical quality and
overall scope of the adventure.
Please note that this review is based
on playing through the first two
mazes.
Graphics:
Overall SHA looks
likea typical 1st person
dungeon-style game. It may remind
many of the old PC game Dungeon
Master. Where the graphics really
step up to 32-bit is during the
frequent battle scenes. The
creatures you fight against
arewell-animated and lunge at you
during battle. The scaling effects are
well-done,although there is some
pixilation, especially in people's
faces. The spell effects are
awesome. The fire spells light up
the screen, and the heal spells cast a
shimmering light on your character.
Also during battle whenanother
member of your party attacks a
beast, you see him/her moving
towards the monster and hitting it.
The towns look OK, nothing
special. You are allowed to roam
freely around the villages, speaking
to people and buying your typical
RPG stuff. There are also real-time
cinema sequences that blend
seamlessly into the story (a very
bizarredream sequence follows the
prologue!). No CGI here..just
rendered characters that animate
brilliantly!
8.0
Sound:
Typical RPG stuff..kinda
gets boring after a while. The
monsters do have differing screams,
growls, etc.
6.0
Control:
SHA has one of the
best control systems of any RPG
that I've played. Most commands
(Inventory, Status, items,etc.) are
accessed through the typical shining
4 square system controlled by
the A (activate) and B(cancel)
buttons.The X and Y buttons help
you look up/down and left/right.
The battles are turn-based to the
typical fight/retreat/defend/magic
system is implemented. All the
menu screens are easy to control
and flow very easily.
9.0
Gameplay:
This is one of the
smoothest RPG's I've ever played!
The best thing about this game is
that there is no loading time before
battles. The enemies pop right up
and you're into battle! The first
person view, while hard to get into
at first, quickly becomes
second-nature. The story so far is
quite intriguing, and the game looks
to have a lot of depth to it from a
story angle. The quest also
appearsto be lengthy. There are a
wide variety of creatures you
encounter, andyou don't always
travel in an underground dungeon.
The second maze finds yourself in a
forest. One feature that SHOULD
be implemented in more RPG'sis
the Automapping feature. Hit the
start button while in a dungeon
andyou see a map of where you've
been and the direction you're
facing! Thishelps a lot in not
back-tracking and fighting worthless
(and sometimes costly) battles.
9.5
Overall, SHA delivers for the RPG
fan. Unlike other 32-bit RPG's so
far, SHA takes the genre up to
another level. With good, colorful
graphics, a seamless interface, and
animated battles, SHA should keep
RPG fans happy for a bit. With a
few other RPG's soon to hit the
Saturn, fans of the genre now have
something to do other than
complain about the lack of Saturn
RPG's
SCORE :9.2
