Recent reviews by DarkAccelerator

This game rekindle my love of JRPGs again, best game I have played in recent years.

The things I loved about this game:

1. Monsters drop weapons/equipments. You can get rare weapon drops with certain effects, the rarest and best being purple chests. This is the most funnest thing I loved about this game. Games used to have this in the past but now they have you alchemizing certain materials to make them, which takes out the fun for me.
   
2. Open world the map is huge, lots of things to explore and you can try fighting strong mini bosses to get a super strong weapon, which make things helluva fun!
   
3. English dub was awesome, didn't even bother with the japanese dub because the english one felt so much better for this particular game.
   
4. Graphic was so mesmerizingly beautiful. I heard Studio Ghibli wasn't involve in this game but a former animator from there and a few other Ghibli staffs did the game, that's why the animation is so good.
   
5. Soundtrack was so soothing to listen to and rightfully so because it was done by the same composer who did the first game and almost every miyazaki movie.
   
6. Building up your kingdom and watching it grow was so satisfying as was recruiting new citizens.
   
7. Skirmish wasn't my cup of tea at first, but I grew to like it once I figured out you could change citizens who come with certain effects to fight for you.
   
8. Battles were a blast you get to bring some pets in the form of Higgledies which you collect from Higgledy Stones throughout the world or make later in your kingdom, I mostly used them for healing.
   
9. Character interactions were top notch especially the ones with Roland and Evan.
   
10. Other than a few crashes the port was pretty good, just make sure to save periodically.

Some things I disliked:

1. Random few crashes.
   
2. Bracken's AI is really dumb, keeps dying all the time when others don't, hope they fix this in the future.

Here are a few tips if you a new and just starting out:

1. If you happen to get a "Stinky Shoes" or "Smelly Shoes" please keep at least one of them, you will need it for a quest later on. I had 3 of them and sold them off, I had huge regrets doing this tried grinding it again opening chests for 4-5 hours and got nothing so I abandoned since it wasn't needed for a achievement neither was the reward that great.
   
2. If you happen to get equipment/armor that increases treasure chests they have usually a "Bountiful" attach in the starting keep them no matter how weak they are it will help with grinding later on, the more equipped on your party it higher the chance of them dropping treasure chests, of course once you get stronger ones you can discard the weaker ones.
   
3. Don't research Safer Dimensional Delving in your Dimensional Labs. Once delving into dreamer doors, you can farm for some really good weapons, here is how, once you enter the dreamer door wait until the danger meter reaching level 5 they grow stronger but they also drop better loot, the best weapons/equipments in the game can be only gotten in the final dreamer door though. That's why you don't want the meter to be slowed down, this changes later on since the new patch lets you research what danger you want it to be.

I had a blast playing this game, loved every second of it, made me wish the journey would never end, it was funny, emotional and had a somewhat bittersweet ending. The most funniest part of the game was when Evan had to pretend to propose to Tani :D
I am still waiting to see more antics between Evan and Tani hopefully in the 2 new expansions that was promised, they are keeping it from us but I know she becomes his queen, lol can't wait for it more fun times to be had.

I have no way to describe how happy this game has made me it has renewed my love for JRPGs.

The only rating I can give it is a 11 out of 10 it certainly exceeded all my expectations, I'll highly recommend it!

How to create your own harem simulator:

1. Be kinder than anyone.
2. Be the kindest person.
3. Did I forget to mention you have to be kind hearted?

I am on my way to create my own harem now! This has a 110% success rate you wouldn't believe it until you have tried it yourself, start now! In fact it is so effective it would also work on guys...

Jokes aside, I am a big fan of the shining series from the sega genesis days and this is my first shining game since Shining Force II, I went in not expecting this newer one to be anywhere close to the older ones, because chances are it won't and that's probably why I was able to have fun with it.

The battle system feels somewhat like Tales of Berseria yet has it's own twist on things like:

1. B.A.N.D: allows you to increase certain stats, give certain effects or both, there are several songs to choose from each with varying effects/stats boost.
2. Break Attacks: just keep spamming your Y (on your controller) and force abilities and you will see a orange/red circle if you hit it at the right time a Break Attack (Y on your controller) or force abilities the will be down, take increased damage and won't be able to attack for a short while
3. Dragonshifting: a dragon transformation that is exclusive to the Yuma only, it will transform him into a OP dragon, no joke his second form with the right aspects and tuning make him a one man army.
4. Tunings: you don't have weapons or armor in Shining Resonance, if you want to increase the stats for your weapon then you have to change your weapons tune, you can get most of them from an NPC named Fernando, the rest you will get when you max out you first tuning and side quests, they increase your weapon stats, come with some effects and most importantly increase the amount of aspects (max is 5) you can use.
5. Aspects: This are like accessories that can increase your stats, give you certain effects or even recover your HP/MP!

I'll start with listing down a couple of things I liked and disliked about the game.

Things I liked:

1. Tony Taka's gorgeous god tier art.
2. Soundtrack was awesome, well it had to be since the game is centered around music.
3. Had super cute girls.
4. Dating the girls.
5. Excellent PC port, I didn't encounter even one crash during my 150+ hours playing it, zero problems.
6. Had 100 save slots which was handy to have.
7. Game was only 12.4GB which was nice, since lots of newer games can go up to 50-100GB (well it is a PS3 game that's why it's smaller I guess).
8. Good english dub. I kind of like the english dub a little more than the japanese one, I liked the girls voices for both but all the guys were definitely WAY better for me in english.
9. The B.A.N.D costumes for Sonia and Kirika were gorgeous, wished they had included and allowed us to use it whenever we wanted instead of making it B.A.N.D exclusive only.

Things I disliked:

1. No warp points! This is one of the most annoying things about the game there are no warp points other than the one that teleports you back to Marga (the first and ONLY city you get to go), so I found myself running a WHOLE lot everywhere! This is a little better when you are over level since the monsters will avoid you but if you aren't it could get kinda annoying/boring when you are running around getting matériels from certain monsters only to be stopped many that you don't want.
2. Only a single city in the game, which isn't even that big and won't let you go into any of the houses/castle. I would have really loved to explore other cities or have a change of scenery
3. Was never explained how Yuma's mother met his father or even got pregnant with him. He wasn't even mentioned at all!
4. Why would sega even create achievements for the guy endings as well? They effectively forced me to date them or I wouldn't be able to unlock those achievements.
5. Only characters you use in battle get exp, inactive members don't get any unless you equip a certain aspect on each of them which you are only able to get much later.
6. No New Game plus, but to be fair you hardly need it if you start out in Refrain mode.
7. DLC costumes were bland, almost all of them were similar with variation in colors except maybe for the swimsuits. This doesn't include the B.A.N.D costumes for Sonia and Kirika that I mentioned above.

Here are some tips for anyone just starting out, that I wish I knew beforehand (Sorry but I had to include it in pastebin since it will exceed the words count if I include it here): https://pastebin.com/MN7F1sSF

I had a great time playing it and cloaked in 150+ hours trying to get the best setup for my team. Yuma is the most OP character but Agnum is a close second, too bad I only realized this near the end, I was taking 10-17K damage with his fire spells, bosses fell down in less then 2 minutes!

It will be different for everyone but what you should not expect from this game is a great plot driven story with lots of unique twists or astounding character developments, because if you are then I will have to suggest you look elsewhere, this game is filled with the clichés from at least some of the harems you have ever come across and is clearly not the most epic storytelling either. The greatest highlights in the game is the art and soundtrack it should only be those 2 but I'll add my personal one in as well which is dating the girls.

Things I learned about the girls by the end of the game:


1. Sonia has a father complex.
2. Kirika has a brother complex.
3. Excella has a extreme father complex.
4. Marion had a pretty normal sibling relationship with her twin brother.
5. Rinna is the only normal one since her parents/siblings were never mentioned.

lol the 3 main girls: Sonia, Kirika and Excella have huge complexes.

Also have to say this but Sonia is best girl! Followed by Rinna and Excella tied at second, but even though Sonia is my favorite Rinna's dates and interaction with Yuma were the most fun to watch/read.

All in all I'll give it a 7 out of 10, nothing great just something to past the time with gorgeous art and pleasing music. I do hope to see another Shining series soon but this time in a grander scale with improvements and more cities/contents.

Dota 2 is a really fun & addicting game, it is the best free game you can find or will ever need. Only problem is it might be too addicting 10/10..