User Reviews (1 - 11 of 18)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Dreadful game from SEGA

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 15
Date: October 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Lets list what's wrong with this game, as there are so many things.

1)Awful voice acting that ruins any sense of atmosphere.

2)Very cheap production with events happening in a 2d storyboard.

3)Very Childish with horrible dialogue such as "Sheeesh" "Now hush up young man" and the main character being patronised constantly. Dreadful

4)Awful setting up with the female lead as the girlfriend from the very start. Even though there are much cooler and better women in the game. The hero always gets the "Pluckey tomboy" Cheesy.

5)Dull combat with a single attack button as bad as shining tears. Did SEGA not play Star Ocean 3, when they decided on real time combat.

6)Not great graphics. No widescreen, no prog scan, it looks like a game not a living real world.

7)Bad status screen that has the main character blinking constantly as if he were having a fit.

Forget this game, and don't give SEGA your money and encourage them to produce more generic nonsense.

Rent this one...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 14
Date: November 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I didn't realize that a new "Shining" game was coming out untill a week beforehand. As a big fan of the Shining Force series, I was excited to hear this. I did a little research and found that it wasn't like the Shining Force games (ie, tactics RPG). No big deal, I thought I would enjoy it nonetheless. Wrong! There are so many things wrong with this game, where do I begin?

1. The enemies would resort to cheap tricks to try to defeat you, such as trapping you into a corner and hitting you so often that you can't even get a hit in yourself.

2. Voices during battle. I hate all the stupid sayings characters have during battle in RPG's. This game is especially bad because the characters do it continuously and repeat the same 3 lines over and over again. Plus, they're very lame (the magic user cast a wind spell and says "Hold on to your hats!"). There's no way to turn them off other than turing off all sound effect from the game.

3. The character's were lame as well. I think there was one charcter that I somewhat liked; all the other ones were just a collection of catch phrases with no personality to them.

4. The plot was very predicable. Enough said.

There are more, but that's all I care to list. This game was so bad that I couldn't even finish it. I played for 27 hours, so I think I gave plenty of opprotunity for it to redeem itself.

On the plus side, the game has fairly good graphics (not great by any means). Also it has an intresting battle system where different weapons can cast different spells when equipped. On top of that you can do different configurations for your main character such as shield and one handed sword, two handed sword or wand. Each has it's pros and cons.

Overall, it's really sad to see Sega make games like this. I remember when Sega made great games; 10 years ago I never would have believed that Sega could make garbage like this. It is all to real now.

Below Average

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 12
Date: March 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Having played all of the previous Shining Forces, and reading the reviews of the game on various sites, I figured I'd give it a try. After all, sometimes a change is good, such as the newer Metroid games compared to the metroids from the Nintendo... Game wise, Shining Force Neo had potential. The new game mechanics with the typical shining force storylines should have been enough to make any oldschool gamer tuned in and wanting more. Instead, we're faced with a very predictable storyline with weak character developement and some of the worst voice acting I have ever heard. The enemies in the game make for some very cheap encounters as well, as there are times you will run through them with no problems. Other times you will be surrounded or cornered only to die with a couple hits. With so many great RPG's out there, this one works to insult ones intelligence and waste ones time. I would recommend sticking with Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy, or find a copy of the original Shining Force games out there as they are all worth your money. But should you insist on playing this one or love button masher games, waste your $5 on renting it.

Bad game.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 18
Date: October 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The ONLY good thing about this game is the anime sequences, but THAT'S IT!

You control the characters from top far (helicopter view) witch is VERY difficult to see them doing cool action (you can hardly see the characters), the graphics are very cheap, the characters look lame, the fighting COMBOS are very boring and repetitive (is the same attack every time), stupid magic tricks, poor voices actings and HORRIBLE production!

This game is like Gauntel Legends because you fight with many enemies at the same time with different characters, different attacks and you hardly see them fighting.

Anyway, don't buy this garbage unless you only like to see Animes in videogames.

P.S: I prefer to play Secret of Mana than this piece of junk!

Shining Force Neo

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: October 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game based on the review from the 1up website witch gave it 9/10. (Sega also mentioned the review of this game on their website) The game has a Diablo style slash'm theme going for it where you fight hordes of monsters. However, the game goes backwards not forwards from Diablo. For instance, if you fight as a Warrior/Fighter (basically you equip a sword not a wand) you generally do not cast spells. Therefore, you just slash your way though monsters. Forget about blocking, that's automatic. Therefore, the game play can get rather boring of just slash and go back to town. So far I have completed about 15 hours, but there is only one city which you can buy keys. Weapons also? Not so, you find all the weapons on the ground, which makes you spend large amounts of time going through and pawning items.

Finally, with all these fighting you think you would get some good cutscences. Not so. Most of the game story is told by two characters faces and words being shown on the screen. Voice acting is present although the actor's voices don't seem to match the characters personality. Don't worry sound effects occasionally occur, attempting you to get into a scene that is displayed with words. For a game, which makes a significant deal about the Japanese animation, the lack of animated cutscenes is pathetic. Shining Force Neo not a terrible game but I really can't think of any reason to buy this game and not another. In the end, this game offers nothing new and seems like something that was just run through. I really don't know what 1up was thinking with this review but they must have at least made a few bucks out of it.

Another die hard Shining Force Fan

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: April 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I would have to agree with the cheap tactics and annoying voice overs in the game. The whole idea of strategy is gone, you can close your eyes and hit a turbo button and most likely win. This is very similar to Shining Tears, which if people liked this game they should look into that one. Atleast they changed part of the name in shining tears so i didnt get my hope up very far.

They should have named this game something else...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 13
Date: April 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game does not feels or plays like a shinning force game. Yes the original ones might been tactics based but it was the animated attack screens, the battle music, the side quest that made the series so popular. I don't like neo or new it is boring you have to read a lot and listen to the voice overs at the same time, too bad. This should have been called side quest or virtua quest (another big flop). I would not even rent it.

action that stinks

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: November 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is supposed to be a good action RPG game. Unfortunately, the game is dominated with too many problems to really be any good. For one thing, the cheapness that occurs when an enemy is attacking you. You can die very easily in this game, which makes for an unentertaining experience.

The storyline is fair and the graphics are decent. But the fact that the action is so incredibly hard really hurts the game. Don't bother.

Reluctant Rental

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It should be noted that Shining Force Neo is not an RPG, but a real time action adventure game. There is a lot of timing and button mashing to defeat hordes of monsters over and over again. There are countless long, boring cutscene style dialogs between the characters, and a less than interesting storyline. On the plus side, the music is not bad and the graphics are acceptable. There are also special abilities thrown into the combat which make it a little more fun than if it were a pure beat 'em up such as Dynasty Warriors. However, the item system is very convoluted and frustrating to understand; it is not intuitive. If you prefer real time action adventure type games to RPG and turn based strategy games, you might want to give this game a go, otherwise I would have to recommend avoiding this one unless someone is letting you borrow it for free.

An average game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: November 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Of course you all know that this Shining Force is not like any of the other Shining Force games. I think Sega did a good job though.
The positives are the storyline, cut scenes, action, and development. The storyline is interesting and detailed. I do not want to ruin anything but it kept my interest. There are several types of cutscenes during the game. One is just a basic conversation with two windows, then there is more like an ingame cutscene where they simply show something happening without changing the environment and finally for the very important parts of the story there are beautiful anime style cutscenes.
As far as the action and character development goes I was very impressed. If you have ever played Record of Lodoss War for the Dreamcast then you will recognize the enhancement system. The fighting follows somewhat of a Gauntlet style system where the monsters emerge from a gate and you keep killing them until you can kill the gate. However, there is a predetermined number of monsters you have to kill before the gate loses its shield and you can defeat the gate. Enemies may still come out but at a much slower rate. Finally I was impressed by the weapons system. As the main character, you can choose which weapon you want to fight with and you can change anytime without penalties. So if you are using a sword and want to try magic, simply switch to a wand and fire away. The only downside to this is deciding which abilities to enhance (i.e. more attack damage or more fire/ice etc. damage).
As far as negatives go I was only really disappointed by the voice acting. The actors seem like they try but they had a bad director. For example, there are a few parts where you think a character is going to have a big, hearty laugh but you get this little chuckle.
So anyways, if you are a fan of hack 'n' slash and you enjoyed Gauntlet, Record of Lodoss War, and the like then this is a decent game to kill some time. I would suggest you rent or borrow it though because after you beat it there is not much incentive to go back and play it again.

Review Page: 1 2 Next 

Actions