Shining Force EXA

[Eusis]

Teaser site launched. I guess Shining Force Neo apparantly being pretty unpopular wasn't enough to convince Sega to go back to the traditional strategy RPGs. Think it's safe to call the series dead. :P

[Parn]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL

[Eusis]

On second thought, to be fair, they're 'implanting new systems'. But I'm not exactly expecting much given /most/ of Sega's recent track record.

[Leo]

Why am I reminded of Rockman.EXE looking at that title? And how many action RPG Shining games does it take for Sega to realize they've killed the series? ;p

[Professor Gast]

I was actually wondering about this as well. First the announcement of Shining Wind as the spiritual successor to the generally not so well received Shining Tears and now Shining Force EXA as the spiritual successor to Shining Force NEO, a game which was not exactly mindblowingly popular either. Then again, at least Shining Force NEO might have sold enough copies to turn a profit for Sega, resulting in the decision to bring back the formula from Shining Force NEO and add a few new features to it.

[Parn]

The sold half of what they were aiming for in Japan, and the game sold less copies than Shining Tears did in the US.  On the other hand, Shining Force 3 remains their top selling Shining game of all time.  You'd think they'd consider making another strategy/RPG, but hey... let's keep making more action RPGs that sell like crap!

[Leo]

If anything, at least remake Shining Force 3 or something.

[Eusis]

Plus they have the series (unofficially?) started by Shining Tears, they've already got their action RPG quota filled. Maybe the difference is that they've got a 2D series, and a 3D series. Disregarding the fact the difference doesn't matter if it's purely graphical. But I've never played either (and for all I'd know, I could enjoy them), so maybe they're significantly different.

I'm more annoyed at the principal of the matter and the fact Sega's boneheaded in regards to BOTH doing well and appealing to their core fanbase, than genuine dislike for the games.

[Alisha]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL

my thoughts exactly

[Losfer]

I'm bracing for having my face shat on.

[zain]

I posted this on another MB, and since it's relavent here, I'll copy the post. It was replying to why Sega never made Shining Force 4.

Because desipte Arc the Lad 5 being panned in every part of the world, including being called the worst rpg on ps2 on some japanese site and selling less than 15,000 copies here, Sega liked it and wanted to clone it, so they turned THEIR great srpg series into a mediocre action rpg series, and the result is what you got. Sega likes to learn from other companies mistakes, only what they do is COPY the mistakes, not fix them in their own business practices.

[sandiny0ursh0es]

I personally enjoyed Shining Force NEO, so I'm looking forward to this. The story was pretty crappy, but I like killing endless swarms of things. Mindless fun.

[Eusis]

I think Shining Force is more irritating than AtL because it's a longer lasting, more beloved series, plus that came off strongly as a side game - ya know, like the 5+ Shining side games. Even then, there was a prequel released shortly after that had a similar battle system to BoF:DQ, which seems like a more natural SRPG transformation than what SFN is.

[Leo]

Here are the first screens. I'm in love with the art already. There are luscious environments--water color style. Other than that, it looks to play a lot like Shining Force NEO.

[Eusis]

Well, at least it's looking pretty nice this time. Honestly, if they just made it more along the lines of the early Mana games, Ys, Crystalis, basically the games that are closer to Zelda than Diablo, then I'd probably enjoy it. It's probably following the same model as before though, and while some screens suggest a behind the shoulders/moveable camera, I don't think that's going to apply to most of the game.