To buy or not to buy?

[Geoffrey Duke]

Just thought I'd chime in on the "sales/boycott" angle of the thread. The sales in the U.S. really won't affect what direction they go in, just whether or not they port the next ones over. It's the sales in Japan that'll influence the series' game mechanic/style trend. The game is made and developed in Japan after all.

Uh-huh.

You do realise that Japan has become one of the smallest markets for games now, right?

Sega of America have already translated SF Exa despite Neo crashing on the launch pad because they aren't currently thinking in terms of brand recognition.

They are thinking in terms of trends, and trends tell us that non-restrictive non-turn-based "RPGs" are all the rage. SoA has/have gone through some sort of an identity crisis whereby their ideal business direction is to follow the leader.

I have to give them some credit though for buying up the rights to the Aliens franchise, and publishing a new Aliens RPG developed by Obsidian, but again, Sega is/are just foreseeing yet another trend (the rising popularity of sci-fi RPGs and action games).

[Eric]

Neo means something to everyone here. Neo essentially means "new". And to me that means new series, new games, new makers and yes, new fans and new consumers. Which means I am not part of that equation. As far as I am concerned Shining Tears was the last game made in the series. I stayed strong with Shining games even through the Soul games and I enjoyed RotDD. I don't care if they remake SF2 or 3 right now, they already sealed the coffin as GD says. I can not take any more game to be a part of the series. Shining Road 1 was in development at that time, and I am somehwat interested in that. But SR2 and SWind. Wrong guy. I don't care if they make Max using guns or some other ballogne in the future. It's over, its shot.

Now with that said I thought the gameplay looked pretty good, but there are plenty of other games I would rather buy. I simply cannot support a series that sold out the people that made it a series, not just the makers, but the consumers.

They can go make a SF football game and some of you will still buy it.

[Geoffrey Duke]

I just read through my older posts in this topic (some which were written over a year ago), and actually regret that everything I predicted came true.

People supported Neo, so naturally, Sega made another game just like it.

Never saw that one coming!

[Tarethen]

So obviously everyone who was a fan of the old Shining games, and continue to buy the new games (very small population, mind you), are essentially part of the problem?

Interesting logic.

Going back and forth about how Sega killed the Shining series isn't going to accomplish anything. It's not the first series Sega screwed up, and it definitely won't be the last.

[Geoffrey Duke]

When you bought Neo, you basically killed Shining Force.

Thanks.

I'm actually starting not to care anymore tbh. I have quite a long list of other games I need to play now without worrying about the bastard children of the Shining brandname.

[Tarethen]

Oh look at me, I hammered a nail in a coffin. Oh look, I'll do it again in March.

Honestly, if you're blaming Shining fans for Sega's current state of mind, then you might as well blame those who purchased all of the new Sonic games and new Phantasy Star games. They all deviated from their roots, and people continued to buy them and play them. It's not just the Shining series. Jesus.

[Inactive account]

I vote buy

[j4rose]

I haven't voted yet because I'm not sure. I've seen several shots and it looks kind of cool, if not as good as a traditional SF game.

I don't like the fact that other characters in the group aren't playable characters in the truest sense. That really puts me off. How much control do you have over them? I also live in the UK. I have a universal PS2, so I can play American games, but I can't seem to find the game anywhere and don't know where to look (or if I should bother).

[Marky]

Well, I have seen a few copies of Shining Force Neo in a few game stores. They go from $29.99~$39.99 nowadays. The price is for a new game too.

Second, I wouldn't recommend the game though. You might want to rent the game. If you like it, buy it. If you don't, then you don't need to purchase it. I made the mistake of "giving" Sega a chance and purchased the game the day it came out. I didn't like it, so I sold it. Fair and simple.

[Slayer07]

i rented it, didnt like it, and im only out 5 bucks

[ShiningLover]

Hi. Im new in these topics of shining force neo. I bought it a last week on ebay and the game should arrive in any minute. So, i thought of taking a look around in shining force neo forums and see what you guys think about the game, and what do i saw? Many people dissapointed with the game. I saw some screenshots of the game and it looked pretty awsome!! I also saw some of the new shining force exa and i got impressed with it too. Why do you dislike the game ? Yes, its not the tactical type like shining force 3 for example(my favorite), but i got my theory about why sega didn't or dosen't want to make a tactical shining game: because its a lot of work to do. I played shining force 3 many times and i think making a good story for a game like this its very hard to do i guess. I played also other RPGs like Dragon force, shining the holy ark, FF7, FF9, FF10, and others, and let me tell you: Shining force 3 story, in my opinion, IS THE BEST.
I also wish that a new shining force (4) could came up some day. THAT WOULD BE GREAT!


WAIT A MINUTE...no more Vandals, no more innovators?!?!! (now it came to my mind) So...who's the enemy now? I really thought i was gonna see Galm and Elise once again. So naive of me. It just came to my knowlodge now that Sonic and Camelot were not part of these new series of shining force. That explains it all.
But just like i said before, keep your minds open to the new shining series.
Im gonna play it and see for my self what the game is like.

I LOVE SHINING FORCE CENTRAL.

[knifelord]

Shining Force Neo is a really cool game but I still haven't gotten really hooked on it yet. My brother is pretty far into the game and he's hooked so I probably will be soon too.

[cheesemaster]

After years of hard-core s*ny (ha, I haven't censored that word in many years) hatred, I eventually caved in and bought one when my roommate moved and took Katamari Damacy. I still only have a few games for the thing, but I decided to pick up this game for various questionable reasons. Apparently my PS2 hates it, because it somehow scratched (burned?) a big swath of destruction into the game disc, and it doesn't work. It's done the same thing with a few DVDs, but not to any of my other games. I guess that's what I get for buying a used PS2. Or for buying one at all. But still, I didn't hate this game when I was able to play it, and I'm just going to assume they forgot to make an ending to it so I don't feel bad about not being able to finish it. True story.

[Crimson_Blade]

This game is an atrocity to the shining force series IMO. They should have never strayed from the original idea of shining games being strategy RPGs.

[Martin III]

This game is an atrocity to the shining force series IMO. They should have never strayed from the original idea of shining games being strategy RPGs.

The original idea was for them to be 1st person dungeon crawlers.

[Crimson_Blade]

If you buy this game, you are showing your support for the direction Sega has taken the series in, and that will only encourage Sega to turn it into a series. That's how the games industry operates. If Shining Force Neo sells well, Sega isn't going to make another "Shining Force" game that doesn't having the same "winning formula". Once SF Neo entrenches itself, Sega will simply expand on that foothold (brand recognition) with more of the same money making gameplay.

For that reason alone I ask fans of the series to boycott Shining Force Neo regardless of however good it might be. Show your support for Strategy/RPGs by buying Fire Emblem for the GameCube instead.

This game suxxorz, buy if you dare, and yeah I agree with most everything you said, sega needs to dish out more strategy/RPG genre Shining games.

Personally, I starting Shining games with Shining Force , then Shining Force 2, which set the expectations of the rest of the shining games to a very high level, and the non-strategy RPG ones I have played just don't even come close to measuring up. I would even settle for a remake of Shining force 3 scenarios, maybe with some enhanced graphics etc, few new characters, no Mawlock and in English. The best Shining games are the strategy RPG ones, I am sure most people here would agree.

[swordandshield]

I really got into Shining Force Neo, I don't understand why you guys can't like it because it's different than the others and nit pick it so much. I admit I like the turn based strategic battles better, loads better in fact. They are more engaging and just overall more fitting for my taste in RPGs but it's no reason to completely dismiss the game and not even give it a chance or say that it's horrible. It's still worth playing a disappointment or not because there's plenty of great features that it has that is exclusive to itself and I happen to like the change in the battle system, it's pretty refreshing and it's always a pleasure to try something new, even if the hack n' slash genre isn't new but it's new to the Shining Force series. It has things it excels at and things it doesn't excel at but it still has the old Shining Force feel to it and it can still be fun if you take the time to enjoy it instead of wishing it was like the older ones.

The characters were pretty likeable and engaging and so was the story, it had some exciting combat full of action, it may not have been as good as strategy but it wasn't boring by any stretch of the imagination and you still needed strategy for some battles like the legion hives. It wasn't no walk in sesame street, it had a great deal of difficulty which I like games with a lot of challenge. The graphics were pretty top notch for PS2 as well, the envioroments were beautiful rendered in 3D and they were very colorful. The sound track was also top notch with each theme fitting correspondingly to the scenes, battles, and areas that you were in. Also the way you customized your characters with the scrolls was a nice addition and customizing Max however you wanted was great. The versatility about it was a nice thing to add because you could change from a mage class to a warrior/melee class at will to better your advantage on certain enemies.

Really, what is there not to like. I wouldn't mind if they came out with another Shining Force just like it. I do hope for another strategy one but I'm not going to throw a fit over it. There's other strategy games out there.

[Martin III]

Really, what is there not to like. I wouldn't mind if they came out with another Shining Force just like it.

They already did: Shining Force Exa.

EDIT: Deleted the rest of my spiel after discovering in the SF Exa forum that you're already familiar with the game.

[swordandshield]

I am familiar with Exa. I was referring to another game that was like it and Neo that Sega could develope but I hope there would be different areas and not always use the same ones. I think that's one of their biggest downfalls.

If they made it like Secret of Mana it would be much better.