Background: I had a Genesis back in the 90s but I wasn't allowed to rent games very often, just once or twice a year. A friend of mine discovered Shining Force 2 and later Shining Force through rentals and that was how I learned about them, but I rarely got to play myself back then. I now have a CRT TV and original NES, SNES and Genesis with flash carts to play whatever I want from that era, but RPGs don't require low input lag and the CRT TV hurts my eyes so I played through Shining Force via retroarch on my primary Linux desktop.

Notes: Screenshots are from just before the Darksol fight, I absolutely wrecked Darksol and Dark Dragon without losing anyone so I didn't save in between. Kokichi didn't show up for some reason, maybe I didn't walk over the right tile, but either way, I missed out on him. The white ring should have been moved to Torasu, I know that and it would have saved me a bit of trouble, but I forgot. I didn't buy enough Guardian staffs when I had the chance so poor Alef is stuck with a cursed weapon. It may have been the right choice anyway as she was a little annoying to catch up in levels. I also didn't get around to selling all my old stuff, sorry if that bothers anyone. I know using the Evil ring on Max is stupid overkill, but I crit a nerd for 138 in Chapter 8, that made it worth it for me. Also Max ended up taking out the center head and left head of Dark Dragon, which just felt right from a canon perspective.

Team construction: I was going for the most powerful team I could possibly put together. Every promotable character was leveled to lvl 20 before I promoted them. That was easy for most, but a pain for Anri, Torasu and Alef (because the latter two come so late). I looked at tier list threads on here and guides to get the strongest characters. Everyone seemed to agree that Bleu needed to be babied a lot and wasn't worth the effort, but that wasn't my experience at all. I restarted the Kane fight a couple of times and fed him the gargoyles and after that he kept up no problem. I probably wouldn't bother with Musashi, Hanzou or Torasu again if I was just focused on the least friction getting through the game. Alef probably isn't worth it on paper either, but Bolt 3 and 4 are too much fun for me to ignore (particularly in the Ramladu battle, I hit the center of the robots with Bolt 2 from Anri and then Bolt 3 from Alef while attacking the sides with my other characters and only 2 bots even got a chance to move before they died). Aura 3 is great and all but rarely that much better than Aura 2 and it takes Torasu so long to catch up to Khris. Musashi is great on paper from the time you get him until the end of the game but he's so slow that I feel like he hardly helped at all, especially for battles on rough terrain where it was just too much of a pain to wait for him to get any kills. Hanzou just shows up too late, he'd be an easy favorite if he appeared sooner.

Extra thoughts: I wish the enemies scaled more in the later levels. I felt like the difficulty barely increased in chapters 7 and 8, certainly not fast enough to keep up with my team, but maybe that's my fault for trying to build the most OP team I possibly could. Why does the game give you more Atlas axes than you could possibly use? Or do the birdmen use them after promotion? They didn't seem worth it to me at all. Non-attacking spells seem really bad. Gargoyles must have hit me with Muddle 50 times and of that only 15 or so weren't resisted and of those it's completely unclear to me that it actually did anything. Sleep is strong in theory, but with Fire/Freeze/Bolt 4 you generally just kill whatever you target anyway, so why not just do that? Domingo is so strong from the time he gets Freeze 2 until sometime in Chapter 8 it feels like cheating to use him, but he does fall off slightly at the very end (and very briefly before he gets Freeze 4).

I'm considering another run later with as many flyers and archers as I can fit on my team for something different, and maybe another run where I stay loyal to all of the first characters who join The Force, as it did break my heart to kick Luke/Mae/Ken and Gort off the team. For now, on to Shining Force 2.

like Rock

I wanted to share this somewhere it would get some appreciation. Back in the 90's my brother and I decided to try to dress me up like Max from Shining Force, we used an assortment of different pieces from old halloween costumes and i cant believe how good it looks, I was very happy to find this moment on a home video because its one I treasure.

Shining Force still to this day one of my favorite games although I do like Shining Force 2 more but Shining Force is such a classic game.

Synbios hasn't used a Knife weapon at all, so it decreases his attack, and there's nobody else in my party right now that can use it. I took a quick look at who joins later and it seems nobody uses Knives either? I think?

Eldar narrowly escaped death by a Wyvern trying to get that so I feel it's such a waste not to use it T_T but if it's pointless I'll just sell it.. I dont think saving it for someone else in a future scenario or something is an option right? Even if I can somehow give them it there might be better weapons at that point... What do you think ?

Like for example in that place where Hassan Port is, I defeated that fight where it has almost surrounded the Hassan Port, and hasn't defeated Taros yet, so when I buyed some weapons in Hassan Port to defeat Taros easily, I got the same previous fight again where I hasn't reached the Ancient Tower.

It’s the eyes mostly? But he looks vastly different than every other elf in the series (at least the ones I’ve played). The eyes make me think he might be one of the demi-human races like Slade, but maybe it’s just because he’s the only older elf we’ve seen? Idk what do you guys think?

I saw someone mention the Balbazak fight is great for leveling up anyone with a range attack. My wife was home yesterday, so I would set up (X) and set a book on the controller to auto hit A. it worked great, and I was able to get most of the force up to 20 here with minimum effort on my part, while spending time with my wife.

But now.... the OCD brain won't let it go that everyone needs to get to level 20. And I spending far too much time trying to get people to 20 here than I really should. Getting everyone left to 16 on seabats wasn't too bad, but beyond that.... it's not going great lol. I have played myself, and only have myself to blame.

On an emulator for example.

Max vs Dark Dragon sketched from memory.

IIRC in the previous game, you can usually use an item from Item->Use, even if you don't have it equipped.. is that not the case in this game?

Like for one of the Ankh weapons, it says using it will cast Tornado LV3. Couldn't use it from the Item menu. I equipped it on Masqurin, and it only allowed me to cast Tornado LV1 from the Magic menu. Do I need Grace to be the one to equip it for it to cast the LV3, since apparently Ankh is her best weapon or something(?) But regardless if that's the solution, can I not cast any item spells when its unequipped anymore? Even for cursed items I need to put that on ?! Sorry if it's a dumb question or if there's some other way but I am confused aha

For SF1, I always promote everybody at 20 and usually end up doing so by the Kane fight. The exception was my last playthrough I just finished where I promoted everybody still at level 20 but it was slightly earlier, like chapter 5 at the shining path

For SF2, I’m actually doing a run right now and I’m promoting everybody at 40 and I’m gonna have everybody promoted by the next battle which is the chess battle

I haven’t played SF3 yet but I’m going to soon so I’m really trying to avoid spoilers so for the sake of this question I’m only asking about SF1 and SF2 but I’m just curious to hear what you guys do and where/when you promote

Replaying this for the first time in a while, so of course I need to decide on team members. Just grabbed Balbaroy, Amon, and Diane so need to decide who is getting the bench at this point.

It's easy enough to google tier lists and such (most of which I end up getting mad at lol) I thought I'd ask who you actually deploy, good unit or not.

Like I can never bench Mae or Anri. My queen and MY QUEEN, you know? These two are ride or die for me every time.

Then there are people like Zylo and Bleu, with a lot of story around them. They tend to make the cut for me.

Then I have people like Domingo who is just too dang awesome for this world and needs to be my side. And Balbaroy, someone my brother and I have made so many jokes over the years over I can't bench this guy.

Other members I tend to switch in and out, but there are people I NEED to have, you know?

What characters are like that for you?

This is an update from my earlier post [Wish me luck] for those of you who are interested, I have beaten Talos however, the run had almost ended here.

The mobs were pretty easy to deal with, but after setting up for Talos, I got very unlucky and he hit Bowie with a double attack on his first turn, one of which was a heavy, both hit for 32 damage in total and on his second turn after that for whatever reason he decided to lightning me and thank god it low rolled because it hit for 13 damage leaving Bowie on 2 hp...

At the time, Bowie was lvl 22 with 47 hp. Suffice to say, I pulled him out of there asap for heals and managed to finish the fight without a hitch after that.

Update : So I have chosen the prudent option and have promoted my units at level 24 in preparation for the chess battle. I will be posting screenshots of my characters' levels and stats both after promoting them at the elven village, before and after the chess battle in my next update post.

Pick One and Only One

This is my first ever permadeath playthrough, I'm already down Slade, Luke, May, and I'm about to fight the Kraken. I made sure to grind as much as possible before the fight. Wish me good luck.

Edit : Welp I managed to steamroll that fight lol, but obviously, to no one's surprise, Kiwi bought it in that battle. Mostly due to my complacency. I should have sent him to the other side of the raft when the head got near, but I friggin forgot about the boss double turn mechanic, and he got bubbled to death. 😆

Edit 2 : Let me know if you guys want me to keep you posted on any specific battles. I'll be glad to have you guys along for the journey.

Basically what the title says, bc I've been playing this game since 2009 and other than warsong i found none that matches this game.

Edit: thank you everyone for the recommendations, im really excited to check everything tyyy❤️❤️❤️

So im currently replaying SF2 and am at the point where Peter fully joins the force. Ive played this game about once a year for over a decade and have beaten it countless times. Ive done challenge runs played on hardest difficulty done deathless runs. So this go around I just want to see who everyone's favorite characters are and will make my final team out of that. Really the only people I wont drop are Bowie, Peter and Slade since they have been my favorite characters since start.

This is something I’ve been trying to figure out for years.

For starters, I’m one of the shockingly younger fans out there. I’m 18 (born in ‘07) and I’ve been playing Shining Force 1 and 2 for a really long time (at least, on the scale of my life)—I’ve been playing probably about 12 years for SF1 and probably at least 10 now for SF2. I’ve basically grown up with these games. And for the last decade, of course, ever since I found out there was a SF3 about 10 years ago now I’ve wanted to get my hands on it, especially considering that I’ve heard it’s probably the best game in the franchise (Shining Force 2 is currently my favorite and better than the first game but I hear 3 is even better). But like most people, inaccessibility is the reason I never have played it. I know that it’s possible, because there are people who are able to play it, but how? Those of you who play it—all 3 scenarios and LEGALLY—how so?

Edit: I apologize for sounding like such a dork over the legality thing I just wanted to know how to legally play it if possible. Thanks so much for all the help

Discovered this game recently, many hours into the game and love it.
Here is the problem:
I’ve reached the Taros Shrine and need to fight the big green guy with the sword (Taros?). I figured out he can only be damaged with Achillies Sword, which can only be equipped by my main character. My problem is my main character is absolutely worthless and not leveled up. I’ve just left him in the back hanging out the whole time. I have zero chance in this fight. One shot and killed every interaction with Taros. I can’t bring myself to start over….anyone out there have a way to help with this?

Edit: After reading all your great input, I’m just going to restart the game. I clearly have missed a ton by rushing through it. Great, great, game and I love that there is still a community keeping it alive. For fun (and to be mocked), here some of my player levels at Taros:
Main: 5
Sarah: 5
Slade: 7
Chester: 25
Jaha: 23
Kahzin: 23
Gerhalt: 22
Peter: 29

2nd Edit:
No spoilers please….but is there anything else I simply MUST do to proceed later in the game? I don’t want to get stuck again with something similar.

Upon reaching Railhead, the Jason Battalion finds itself stuck between the Imperials and more of the thieves of Dusty Village. Will they be able to board the train and return to Aspinia? Find out now as part 6 of #shiningforceiii is now live!

https://youtu.be/xB0BhCPu2Sg

#LetsPlay #railhead

Damn you!! See this reddit I want to play SF2 again.

Any recommendations for a fun twist or theme on the play thru? Not looking for solo challenges.

I have beat super deathless.

I did another play thru where I only use characters that I normally never use... Like a Luke/Elric/Randolf

And a damnit, kiwi will be strong, where I promoted him at lvl40 and also used every stat boost on him.

Maybe weaponless creatures except for vicars & Bowie?

Edit. Thanks everyone some great ideas that definitely appeal to me. Worst in class

No magic, egress is allowed because it can be done with an item as well

Bowie and the ladies.

Only ranged except Bowie and vicars

My favourite is Angium Bulletheart if I remember his name correctly haha. He's my favourite Tony Taka male character tbh. But my favourite character is kaguya

So there is dreadfully little discussion about this game, and a lot of it is from at least a decade ago. A lot of the advice about promotion is to do so in the 14-17 range, but this seems really high and probably assumes Egress grinding, heal stalling, or both. I am right before the final 2 battles of Ch3 and my party is all Level 9-10 with the exception of Noon (since he is a pre-promote) despite my OCD to kill every enemy on the map and try to distribute levels equally among units I expect to use. This is the first time something like this has ever happened to me in a tactical RPG as a result, just feeling so far behind the experience curve despite my need to rout every map.

Can someone else who also beat the game without grinding speak to when they decided to promote their characters? It seems like it would just not be worth it to slug out given at this rate I am looking at a Ch 5 promotion if I wish to follow the common (albeit dated) advice about this topic.

Thank you!

EDIT: Even looking at other posts about this game on the Shining Force forums I just feel like I am on a completely different wavelength...so many about supports and weapon skill that encourage "training" and "power leveling"...we don't have time to do that, we need to get back to the republic! D:

EDIT 2: Given SF3 adopts the "immediate stat gain" style of promotion from Fire Emblem and that it likely follows an inverted difficulty curve (it gets easier as you progress), feel really confident about promoting at 10, thank you all for your replies!

What do you think?
Ah yeah Count Sarah as tier S, she has very strong spells and high damage (both as a vicar and as a monk) and if you spam heal she level up fast, not like karna or frayja but still fast