Format: Cartridge
Genre: Strategy RPG
Developer: Climax
Publisher: Sega

Perspective change aside, fans of "Shining in the Darkness" will certainly recognize Hidehiro Yoshida's influence on the art direction in this release as the color schemes, solid color-focused stages, character designs, and menu system are all extremely similar. The boards are perhaps a little flat-- almost like they're from a PC Engine game-- in the sense that they don't use lots of animation, or any fancy parallax effects. But even with that said, some of the boards-- like the inside of the skull castle-- are pretty sweet looking.

"Shining in the Darkness" has one of the best, most moody and atmospheric soundtracks this reviewer has ever heard-- and Masahiko Yoshimura returns from that title to deliver a brand new set of shiver-inducing songs. They're not quite as ambient as those from the aforementioned dungeon crawling classic, and the town song is even a bit too "howdy-doody" like in many Japanese RPGs-- but the way the tunes make such heavy use of the chipset's PSG creates a nice contrast with the rest of the elements. As for sound effects, they are mostly lifted from "Shining in the Darkness"-- so those iconic spell sounds are all here.

As game genres have aged, they have grown greatly and needlessly in complexity. It's tough to describe how refreshing it is then to go back to these early genre entries, like this title or the 3DO's "Guardian War", where the entire mechanic set involves moving, then taking some action. That's it. True, item management is somewhat of a hassle, and the user interface doesn't have the niceties people know today, like seeing how far an enemy can move at a glance-- but the whole game is balanced around those limitations.

Those hoping for an outright sequel to "Shining in the Darkness" wound up needing to wait many years for the phenomenal "Shining the Holy Ark" on the Saturn to hit the scene-- but it was ok, because this release perfectly filled the strategy RPG hole in the Genesis library to that point. Its light-hearted personality as compared to its predecessor is a change of debatable merit, but the game's superb art direction, excellent soundtrack, and simple gameplay sensibilities make for an extremely memorable experience.