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Single-Player RPGs / Re: Shining Resonance Refrain Announced For PlayStation 4
« Last post by Grainofariver on Yesterday at 02:00:49 AM »Well, now that I finished right at 24 hours, I want to give two final thoughts.
Firstly, I want to share my experiences in a late-game encounter. During this encounter you play as two characters fending off multiple waves of enemies. Since back-up party members don't receive exp, they were levels 35 and 40, up against enemies leveled 55-62. Not only is this an awful practice in ANY game, it was almost enough to make me quit. I decided to give it one more go after turning the difficulty down to easy, and after burning through every single healing item in my inventory, found myself facing against the level 61 armour that served as the final battle.
This is where things got interesting, because it actually wasn't a bad fight. All of his moves were telegraphed, giving enough time for my slow character to get out of the way (I had the other party member set to hold back and heal). I discovered that blocking just before a hit nullifies damage, so when I didn't have enough time to dodge around his shield side, I could still survive. The fight gradually developed a rhythm, and while simplistic, it was the most engaging battle in the entire game. The only thing ruining it was its insane amount of health, my abysmal damage output, and the frustration surrounding the entire situation.
This is Shining Resonance in a nut-shell: there is something here, but it's so buried beneath mediocrity that even 24 hours felt over-long.
Which brings me to my second thought: I have a hard time imagining a sequel. I don't mean the realistic viability one: rather, I just enjoy thinking about sequels as a thought exercise on finishing games. It makes me think about what aspects I felt were important/not-important, done well/needs improvement/removed entirely, and so on. For instance, Catherine felt like a good game that fell just shy of a must-play, and I'd love to see just one sequel to really flesh out those ideas. Radiant Historia, by contrast, felt like it executed its ideas perfectly the first time around, and I don't think it needs a sequel.
Shining Resonance though? I'm not saying that nothing good could come of it -- I'm not that pessimistic -- but it feels like the game doesn't have enough of a core identity to build off of. Even with more fights like the aforementioned armour, combat still needs a lot of work if it's going to rival Tales (even if it's doing its own thing). Characters and plot feel about on-par with the likes of Atelier, but unlike Atelier it doesn't have the unique alchemy system. It does have AN alchemy system which, along with tunnings and aspects, make-up the most unique traits... but even expanded I can't see them carrying an entire game.
Ultimately those two thoughts say more about my overall feelings than the myriad plus' and minus' I could bring up. I want to defend Shining Resonance because I don't get the cynical vibes that I feel from a lot of modern anime games, but at the end of the day it's mediocrity in a market where there's just too many quality alternatives. I'm glad that SEGA listened to the fans who have wanted a return of the Shining series in the west, but I can't help but feel it would have been better received in 2015, when Zestiria shoved Tales to the edge of the cliff Xillia and Xillia 2 were heading towards.
Firstly, I want to share my experiences in a late-game encounter. During this encounter you play as two characters fending off multiple waves of enemies. Since back-up party members don't receive exp, they were levels 35 and 40, up against enemies leveled 55-62. Not only is this an awful practice in ANY game, it was almost enough to make me quit. I decided to give it one more go after turning the difficulty down to easy, and after burning through every single healing item in my inventory, found myself facing against the level 61 armour that served as the final battle.
This is where things got interesting, because it actually wasn't a bad fight. All of his moves were telegraphed, giving enough time for my slow character to get out of the way (I had the other party member set to hold back and heal). I discovered that blocking just before a hit nullifies damage, so when I didn't have enough time to dodge around his shield side, I could still survive. The fight gradually developed a rhythm, and while simplistic, it was the most engaging battle in the entire game. The only thing ruining it was its insane amount of health, my abysmal damage output, and the frustration surrounding the entire situation.
This is Shining Resonance in a nut-shell: there is something here, but it's so buried beneath mediocrity that even 24 hours felt over-long.
Which brings me to my second thought: I have a hard time imagining a sequel. I don't mean the realistic viability one: rather, I just enjoy thinking about sequels as a thought exercise on finishing games. It makes me think about what aspects I felt were important/not-important, done well/needs improvement/removed entirely, and so on. For instance, Catherine felt like a good game that fell just shy of a must-play, and I'd love to see just one sequel to really flesh out those ideas. Radiant Historia, by contrast, felt like it executed its ideas perfectly the first time around, and I don't think it needs a sequel.
Shining Resonance though? I'm not saying that nothing good could come of it -- I'm not that pessimistic -- but it feels like the game doesn't have enough of a core identity to build off of. Even with more fights like the aforementioned armour, combat still needs a lot of work if it's going to rival Tales (even if it's doing its own thing). Characters and plot feel about on-par with the likes of Atelier, but unlike Atelier it doesn't have the unique alchemy system. It does have AN alchemy system which, along with tunnings and aspects, make-up the most unique traits... but even expanded I can't see them carrying an entire game.
Ultimately those two thoughts say more about my overall feelings than the myriad plus' and minus' I could bring up. I want to defend Shining Resonance because I don't get the cynical vibes that I feel from a lot of modern anime games, but at the end of the day it's mediocrity in a market where there's just too many quality alternatives. I'm glad that SEGA listened to the fans who have wanted a return of the Shining series in the west, but I can't help but feel it would have been better received in 2015, when Zestiria shoved Tales to the edge of the cliff Xillia and Xillia 2 were heading towards.