Seriously, what is up with these darned graphics? I'll never get used to them! It's okay, just take a deep breath and relax. Everything will be fine as soon as we get to the first battle. And away the horse-drawn carriage goes! Yah, mule! Yah! Giddy-up! All of a sudden Mawlock shows up! Woah mule!!!! Who the heck is Mawlock!? And what the heck are cards!? What a turn-off! I didn't like this! Didn't like any of it! The graphics look like a faded pastel tablecloth that was thrown into the washer and dryer too many times! And now Mawlock! Nobody cares about you or your blinking cards!Thus commences the first battle. Ah, I remember it well from the old Sega version. Everyone has a tiny amount of HP and could die in two hits. The goblins were no match for my impeccable strategic maneuvering. On to the second battle! ....Mountains! Nothing but mountains as far as the eye can see! It takes for-eaking-ever to move The Force across cascades of rolling brown mountains! What a way to stomp out what little momentum I had! That's it! I'm quitting this GBA emulator and going back to my Sega emulator to play the original Shining Force games! Bah!
....And that was pretty much my initial exaggerated first impression of Resurrection of the Dark Dragon. How wrong I was. Today finds me with a job, a nice bank account, and a careless spender throwing little bits of moneys and gold coins at whatever tickles my fancy. And currently, my fancy is DS and GBA games. I'm a handheld kinda gamer. It just so happens that I've become enamored with Shining Force again. Due to my handheld-oriented ways, I thought for sure I could get into the Shining Force remake if I played it off the actual cartridge and not from an emulator.
I still love the original version infinitely more, but the more I played the remake, the less I was bothered by the graphics update. I even like it now. And by the way, did they bother to update the sound? It sounds nearly identical to the original -- and that's a major plus. The music and the sound gave me that nostalgic feel, and I'm super-glad the remake sounds the way it does. I think it helped me get into the game. Just go into the game settings, darken the background color to a deep blue and we're good to go!
The game was unfortunately easy -- that is unto the iron/steel enemy robots show up. All of a sudden, foes like Metal Claw and Jet show up and the difficulty takes a huge spike upward. Torch Eyes aren't too terrible though. But then I realized that, not only did Domingo have the most HP, but all the robot monsters were dealing out a mere 1 damage to everybody's favorite magic egg. (That's this guy -->
) So much for difficulty... And Dark Dragon was pitifully easy, thanks for the massive Supernova spell Max learns.A walkthrough says that the game's difficulty increases every time you start the game again on the same file. When you beat the game and save, a yellow star appears on your file bubble. The game starts again and all Mawlock's cards that you collected from the previous play-through are retained! So I'm wasting no time and playing again, hell-bent on collecting every card, not forgetting Gong or Hanzou, and maybe perhaps possibly considering stopping by a random cave and nabbing Sugoi Mizugi and Kitui Huku.
(Yeah, I missed foolishly missed out on a lot during the first play-through.)So all in all, great game. Undeniably great. Not even the graphics update can hold this game down. And not playing it on an emulator really helped. Oh, before I forget, could someone please tell me why Zylo is the ultimate power in the universe? But the moment he gets promoted, that ultimate power completely disappears and he becomes absolutely worthless? Why does this happen? Poor Zylo, I have to take him off the team. Maybe I shouldn't promote him at Level 20? Level 30 would be better? Apparently I shouldn't promote him at all!
