Shining in the Darkness

released on Mar 29, 1991

Dark Sol has vowed to reign over the enchanted Kingdom of Thornwood, and only you can stop him. Find the powerful Arms of Light and battle the deadly beasts that keep your people desperate and starving in this epic journey for peace. Roaming the dark Labyrinth, you'll seek out enemies and collect weapons, all of which will help you pass the test of the Ancients and become a shining knight. Get into the adventure with a stunning 3-D perspective, amazing cinematic views and fast-paced scrolling. You'll move from battle to battle, solving puzzles and discovering secret items in this engrossing struggle between good and evil.


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Un juego que empieza bien pero se vuelve un poco tedioso al poco tiempo con una exploración de mazmorras demasiado casi sin variación ni profundidad. El diseño de personajes y menús sí me parecen destacables, hay algo en este juego que me recuerda a Golden Sun en este apartado en concreto.

Not nearly on the level of its successors, Shining in the Darkness is an incredibly repetitive dungeon crawler made more palatable by being able to grind certain guaranteed encounters to allow for easier clearing of the map. There isn't a lot to get out of this experience and it was so unremarkable when I finished it that I forgot to log it.

Shining in the Darkness is one of the games that most influenced my interest in games. It's essentially a pure first person dungeon crawl: An RPG consisting of a giant multi-part dungeon, a small town with shops and an inn, and a castle where NPCs dispatch us to the next part of the dungeon. That's it - pure undistilled dungeon crawling.

The dungeons are sprawling and increasingly complex, and the game maintains a steep difficulty curve throughout. Failed runs mix with those where to crawl out by the skin of your teeth, victorious and terrified. Every new section - first the Trials and then the levels of the labyrinth proper - have new challenges to overcome, secrets to find and story beats to advance.

Visually, the developers were clearly constrained with a small cart size (4 megs), and it shows in the lack of enemy animation and environmental variety. Along with the sometimes too-frequent encounter rate, those are really the only flaws I'd note.

This is also the start of the incredible genre-hopping Shining series, and is fascinating to see how the story in the other games wraps around this one. I love this game and still revisit it every few years.

Camelot's first game serves as a fairly decent introduction to the dungeon crawler RPG subgenre as its streamlined, straightforward nature eliminates a lot of the complexities of a Wizardry or Etrian Odyssey, though experienced genre fans will find it far too simplistic.

Played a... 70% of it? I like how it starts, being you alone and aquiring armor parts one by one, struggling, escaping when is wise to do it, and buying what you need. And it develops quite nicely, with short combats and a wide variety of enemies. And even if it transitions from "press attack to win" to "select a magic to win", at least there was some margin to have some uncomfortable time here and there, due to the combat system's main strength:
enemy formations.
Your party just feels as simple as the foes. But because you're just three and they're more, they believe that their formations are making a difference, but it's just so easy to beat them, even if they're a lot, that a careful attack plan doesn't feel like the aim. The aim is just to finish the fight as quickly as possible, so your attack options then become some sort of elements of a puzzle game (why would you even bother to attack just 1, 2 or just 3 enemies when running away is just as valid? Under the terms I described, that'd be the "puzzle solution").
So, there's not any great strategy, not for them and not for you, but it feels like that's the point. Fights are made to be short, so the execution is simple by both sides. But it's compelling enough to make you use your full arsenal of spells (by Milo and Pyra; the MC is Mr. Attack).

The combat rythm helps the pace, and this helps both the showcase of your attack arsenal, but also the novelty rythm of the game: Not just for the plot, but specially for the bestiary. There are some rewashed foes, but the majority are new faces and designs. Like a Pokemon-like experience of discovery.

All I said are the highlights. The addition of possible uses of cursed weapons and cursed armor pieces are an interesting handicap in the final phases of the adventure, but reaching that moment gave me the feeling that I wasn't going to see anything remotely new for the rest of the game. And something that worsened this was the addition of fast travel. The exploration of the Labrynth had an incursion-intended approach, but then the developers, mid-game, change the core and give you a sudden easy way to operate. Doesn't this feel strange when making yourself stronger, which makes it easier to avoid enemies, is a strong part of the core? It turns me off, but I'd understand anyone who likes this decision.

To put an end, I think of Mechstermination Force if I think of bad hub worlds, but that's not the case here. There's just a good feeling outside the Labryinth. The conversations and the trading intricacies in the shops are interesting and all the characters are very kind.

I don't know how I enjoyed playing this. I think I'm just a masochist of sorts. Honestly.

There was a moment, the most painful moment I have ever lived through, that... I didn't take that specific item and I had to go back to my save from 493438 hours ago.
Thank you for this experience.