Shining Force III stands the test of time and stays true to the franchise,a pleasant and addicting game, a true classic.
Starting of you can choose the name of 3 characters (which are the 3 heroes of the 3 scenarios but in NA only the first was released, thus it's considered to be just 1 game outside Japan ) although their default names are Synbios, Medion and Julian respectively.
Synbios is the Hero of the game, son of Lord Conrad, a great republican soldier. The game's plot revolves around political conflicts between the Destonian Empire and the Republic of Aspinia, a peace conference is held on the floating city of Saraband so both sides can reach a cease-fire agreement, but before the conference starts King Benetram of the Republic is framed for having abducted the Destonian Emperor Domaric, from then on Synbios and his allies journey on to find whether or not that was the real Benetram or just an impostor trying to pass as him to disrupt the conference, maybe there's someone else pulling the strings behind it all, nevertheless the damage was already done and the empire declares war against the republic.
The story is nothing spectacular as you can see but it's good enough that it motivates you to keep going but let's go to where the game truly shines now, the battles.
If you played any of the previous 2 Shining Force games you know how the battle works already but even f you just played games like say FF Tactics you will feel right at home, you control your characters in a party up to 12 on a grid-based battlefield and the objectives are generally straight forward, eliminate all enemies or their leaders, although in special occasions you might have to escort characters to X position on the battlefield or save certain characters before the enemies beat the hell out of them.
What makes the battles so compelling and addicting is the fact that they are fast-paced and simple to grasp yet doesn't lack any depth, you can choose to move/attack/use magic spells/use Items and hold position, a character can generally equip from 3 kinds of weapons, for example Synbios can equip long Blades, Rapiers and 2-handed Blades, each time you use a certain type of weapon your proficiency with that kind go up and you learn different special attacks that dishes out some major damage and are triggered randomly, plus they're a marvel to behold.
Characters all have their own classes and when you reach a certain level you can promote then for a higher class to gain improved status growth, some learns even new abilities and all of them have a shiny new battle model, Synbios from Soldier goes to Swordsman, Dantares the Centaur goes from Knight to Cavalier and so on.
Part of the battles are the optional ruins hidden across the battlefields until you find or buy in a shop the specific ''Ruin Map'' for the area you're on, once you find the specific one you have to keep an eye open for a ruin that might appear on the battlefield, then you can dispatch members of your group to enter the ruin and get the treasures but it's not easy, you have to watch for the ruin thieves as they steal the treasures inside the chests and if you're not fast enough to kill them they leave the ruin and you lose the treasures they stole.
Also it won't be the same thing without the magic spells of course, there's all kinds and they're really what you would expect from an RPG, Heal restores character HP, Antidote cures poison/paralysis and when it goes up in level it will cure more bad status, Blaze, Spark, Freeze and others are the offensive ones and as the mages that use then will keep going up in level they predictably will become bigger and badder spells.
Outside the battles you will come across towns, small settlements and such which serves as places to save your game, buy new weapons, restock your healing items, chat with the locals and so on. Typical for RPGs but that never fail to amuse. There are no armors to speak of, but you can buy accessories that boost your defense, speed, attack and so on. You might as well want to search those places very well before rushing on to the next battle because you often find chests with the aforementioned Ruin maps, unique items and more.
And there are some 5 hidden characters throughout the game, some of them requires you to speak to them while in a town and others you might have to meet in a place but they will join you only much ahead in another chapter.
Speaking of chapters, Shining Force III is consisted of 6 chapters, the game itself is long enough that it can stand it's own on that regard, you might take anything from 40 to 50 hours to finish if you take your time to explore the nooks and crannies and grind for levels a bit, although you cannot repeat completed battles, if you kill the enemies but spare the leader or do not kill them all you can return to town retaining any level and experience from the defeated enemies and begin the battle again, also near the end-game there's a bonus dungeon where you can grind to your hearts content.
Now on to it's weakest points, the voice-acting is just....poor, very poor really, but fortunately it can be turned off in the menu, characters only spoken lines are when they're going to execute a special attack or a magic spell, not all of the voice work recorded are bad but most are and specially Synbios's which without any doubt is one of the worst acting I ever saw in a videogame, if you don't believe me just look for it on youtube or something similar.
Again this is just a minor detail that can be easily overlooked.
It's also too bad you can't go back to previously visited locations like in the more open-ended Shining Force II, instead they opted for a more linear progression similar to the first game, once you pass a certain location or chapter you can just go back to the last town you were.
The soundtrack is very good with catchy tunes that get stuck in you head for days, fans of the genre may know the master Motoi Sakuraba, his recent contributions includes soundtrack for games such as Star Ocean: The Last Hope and Dark Souls.
The graphics are also as good as it gets for the Saturn, polygonal models are well animated although it does suffer a bit from the quadrilateral polygon structure that was preferred for the 32 bit console, yet you get used to it in no time and it will start looking just natural.
All in all, Shining Force 3 is a terrific game that has the magical touch that keeps you playing for just one more battle, even with it's flaws it's hard to resist such a game, it pleases longtime fans as well as newcomers.
It's sad that in the Saturn's final days Sega only released the first Scenario in English but make no mistake, every part of SF III comes together to form a pleasant and addicting journey worth taking, it stands the test of time and grabs the place as a true classic that should not be ignored, it's one of those games you can play and replay many times regardless of the year it was released.
Strong Points:
- Stays interesting all the way trough
- Addicting battle system
- Varied and well designed towns to visit
- Diverse and likable cast of characters
- Lengthy main game
- Solid soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba
Weak points:
- Poor voice acting
- Too linear