Video Game Review - Shining in the Darkness (1991 - Sega Genesis)

Role-playing games weren't big in my neighborhood or in my school growing up. If they were, no one was about to tell another dude that they played a game and leveled up their main guy to level XX and got all the items and keys to... by now, the person listening would've stopped listening and you'd be labeled a geek/herb/nerd/oreo/sellout/inarticulate insult here. Times have changed and the average person will only be mildly interested in the tales of your fighting dragons and the usual love story built-in to an RPG. Some things have not changed in the march of time and remain in place to this day, namely the dungeon crawl.

The game Shining in the Darkness was not the first to do the dungeon crawl; It's only one of many. It does bear the distinction of being the first RPG in Sega's "Shining" Series, created by the SONIC team. The game was set up in a first-person format and sets the history for the meat of the "Shining" Series, Shining Force and its sequels. The stories of the "Shining" Series are always told in hindsight by a visible narrator, who manages your save file by REMEMBERING where they left off in telling the tale. For Shining in the Darkness, an old man tells us tales of long ago. In memoriam, we live the life of our main character and his course to defeat the evil eminating from a nearby tower. We are also introduced to other characters: your partners Pyra (a whip-wielding wizardess) and Milo (a cudgeling clergyman), and the requisite royals with the notable but goofy court wizard Melvin, who ends up possessed by the evil in the tower to become the arch-nemesis of the light, Dark Sol.

The game is alright, but the lack of free (read: diagonal) movement hinders it a lot. The weapons you can make are built of standard stuff, such as Mithril, and cursed ore known as Dark Matter. The Dark Matter
weapons are strong but have their consequences to using them. Which is why I try NOT to use them; make do with what you got. The magic is sub-par for the abilities of the Sega Genesis in those years, but they
can be forgiven. With only 3 characters(counting yourself) to fight with on a regular basis and the occasional helper, this game only serves as a history lesson as to who Dark Sol is and the history of the world of the
"Shining" Series.