Resurrection of the Dark Dragon Review (GBA) By Sleipner

9 / 10
12 May 2006 at 11:50

Review by: Sleipner

Shining Force:resurrection of Dark Dragon - a long title but how good is the game. Maybe there aren't many reviews because everyone is having such a great time playing one of the GBA's sleeper hits.

The idea of the game;
This is a turn based strategy/rpg similar to the likes of Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics. It is a remake of an old megadrive game. It includes a fantasy storyline with you controlling around 30 different characters in battle. These characters range from dwarves and centaurs to mages and beastmen.

Quality of the story progression/plot;
The story is your typical fare with little surprises. It does just enough to keep your interest until the next battle while never getting brought down with too much text. The characters do have a bit of history which they tell you the more battles they survive, a nice little touch but a more indepth plot would have been very welcomed.

Gameplay;
You can search villages and look for items, cards and new characters to join your party. However the main bulk of the game is in the battles. The battles are on a variety of landscapes such as battling through a fortress or crossing a forest. The battlefields are similar to any other tactical game and often the landscapes are much larger then other games of this type.

You and the enemy take turns to move and attack. Each character class has unique abilities which affect how you use them - knights are good at travelling long distances but have weak defence, warriors are very strong but are quite slow while mages have very low hp. Putting this down in words doesn't do the game justice as the variety in the characters is really great - some warriors may have higher attack then defence or vica-versa.

The battles themselves are fast paced and enjoyable. They are not random and so you must retreat and re-enter battle to build up your experience levels if required.
You can only take 12 characters into battle (out of 30) which brings some tactical thought into which units to take. Although there isn't much tactics needed to defeat the enemy a.i in battle - the game does try to get you to think of the characters and also their development.

Once the characters hit level 10 they can be promoted to a new rank (as well as some cool looking character models - for a gba game) you reset to level 1 but the new rank means you will soon become so much stronger.

Difficulty;
The game is only average in difficulty. A few battles you may lose but once you get your party of strong characters it will be easy enough. There are boss battle throughout and these can be tricky if you are not careful.

Replay Value;
Very good! there is plenty to collect - special characters and dozens of cards which a certain character can use in battle. There is also a new game plus mode - this is different to other games, whereby here you restart at lv 1 but the enemy is increased in level. This can be done many times - complete it 8 times and you will end up with the enemy being extremely strong even on the first stage, good if you want a challenge.

Side note;
Being an old megadrive game you could get it on another system. There are a number of additions to the gba version (3 new characters, a few new stages, new game plus mode and the card system)all very good additions to the game.

Overall;
A top quality game that is well made and has very little faults. At times the combat may get too easy or not indepth enough but the battles are really enjoyable to play and you can easily lose track of time playing the game. Certainly one of the best strategy game on the gba!

Better then - Onimusha Tactics
Worse then - Front Mission 3 (ps1)

Review score - 9/10

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