Genre: Action RPG
Developer: Media.Vision
Publisher: Sega

Walled-off, loading screen-adjoined corridors make up Resonance's world. Some of them are forest-themed, others mimic desert or beach-line territory, while the game's hub, castle town area is an eye-pleasing mix of white-washed bricks, red-walled houses, and verdure grassy fields. Unfortunately, it's all a bit flat, even by PlayStation 3 standards-- from which this game is a port of course. The character art was done by an apparently famous artist named "Tony Taka", but the absurdly over-sexualized, doe-eyed sensibilities strike this reviewer as a bit generic, or perhaps even mobile game territory in the worst cases.

Resonance's soundtrack is nothing which the world hasn't already heard many times over, with the completely typical forest, town, and inn songs, although at least the compositions are sound, and well instrumented. The game's voice actors employ over-the-top methods, and they actually work since they match the equally gaudy character designs.

"Shining in the Darkness", "Shining the Holy Ark", and the "Shining Force" games were some of this reviewer's favorite games from the 90s-- but this latest series entry shares absolutely nothing in common with any of those releases either aesthetically, or gameplay-wise. Instead, this release plays more like a "Tales" or modern "Ys" title, with basic action RPG mechanics, some simple spell-casting, and a primitive fetch-quest system. It also has some music-related related "meanwhile in Japan" moments, reminiscent of the 2000s RPG "Eternal Sonata". Everything in Resonance plays fine-- it's merely unremarkable.

The game world within this latest "Shining" title isn't particularly large, but rather than making the experience short and sweet, the designers opted to over-level the bosses, forcing the player to repeatedly grind the same areas. This wouldn't be a terrible thing in and of itself, if the combat were a little more sophisticated-- but it's awfully repetitive. The game's story is tropey, but at least the character interactions are delightful and often humorous. In all, Resonance reminds this reviewer of the Dreamcast's many C-tier RPGs, like "Evolution" or "Timestalkers".