How has this fantastic game not had a review done for it? That is a pure travesty!

Being on a retro binge lately, I meandered back towards Genesis games of my youth. I fondly remember Shining in the Darkness as both a brutally difficulty and an unforgiving game.

The early-game difficulty tends to be reminiscent of Dragon Quest 1 for the NES in how you have to struggle just to survive your first few battles without getting killed.

Sell your starter Bronze Knife and grab a Short Sword? Or wait until you painstakingly earn 25 gold pieces to be able to sell that Knife and buy a Bronze Saber upgrade instead?

This game does NOT mess around even in the early game. The very first corridor will have you facing off against multiple tough enemies that will make short work of any unprepared adventurers!

The graphics and aesthetic hold a unique and lovely charm that holds up even today. The Pseudo-3D first-person dungeons are reminiscent of Phantasy Star 1 for the Sega Master System and work in much the same manner (and are just as frustrating).

Sound is a mixed bag. The nature of the game requires that you hear the same short loop of the labyrinth interior and battle music over and over ad nauseum. The Tavern and Shop music selections are well done and match the humor of the game quite well, but the overall soundtrack is dull and forgettable.

One highlight of this game is how well the Enemy AI adapts and reacts to the situation. They react to your spells and actions just as much as you react to them. Conditional battle actions litter the Bosses and newbies will be completely obliterated by early bosses at least once.

Unlike most other RPGs, status effects are not only useful but usually work on most enemies in the game (including many bosses!) so don't skimp out on them.

You should love dungeon crawling and first-person map-making or you will grow bored very quickly. Resist the temptation to check out user-made maps and make your own as you go along.

In the pre-GameFAQs days of my youth, I did just that (and have the spiral notebook of maps and notes to prove it). You can beat the game fairly easily around Level 50 or lower but awesome awards await those who hit Level 60 and beyond!

Give this game a go or watch it on YouTube. It is an interesting historical relic of the first game in the 'Shining' series!

CREDITS

Shining in the Darkness - Thornwood Terrors Hack Collection by obscurumlux01 of RomHacking Dot Net
SitD Editor Alpha v05 in Visual Basic and v09 in C# by DarkKobold of Shining Force Central (SFC) forums & website
Additional SitD Editor documentation/files created by Lord Oddeye Sama of the Shining Force Central (SFC) Forums & Website

INFO

In the spirit of my other released hacks, this collection of patches allows you to pick and choose any ONE aspect that you enjoy the most.
The patches within the collection are not 100% intercompatible with each other due to unforseen technical issues during the editing process.
Either you pick ONE of your favorite patches or you use the 'Thornwood Terrors All in One' patch included in the archive.
One bright side to this is that Gold & XP boosts from monsters work well together.

Too many changes have been done to list everything here, so check the ReadMe for full details!

Genesis/Sega Mega Drive
Shining in the Darkness (U) [!]
U.S.A.
1048576 Bytes (8.0000 Mb)
Flags: Verified good dump
gen-20031115.dat (1.9.8-3-Genesis/Mega Drive, 15/11/2003, Genesis/Mega Drive)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CRC32: 4D2785BC
MD5: 522B689A1B2F0EA8578FA9D888554B82
RIPEMD-160: 79AF69D338DD923B3A5C31941F11284C51832953
SHA-1: 4E10C90199D6EDD2030A4BA1C42C7C166BF309EC
SHA-256: C57E20D253518B5EDBEF5859F74F76D914B9607CAD5A1912BEEA641D1DF3BD44

View in The Vault